Surrealist Game Critique: Question and Answer

"A question? An answer. A simple process of give and take which implies all the optimism of conversation. The two interlocutors pursue their separate thoughts. The occasional affinity, even if contradictory, is imposed by coincidence. A comforting procedure, in short, since there is nothing better than to ask questions, and to reply to them."

Preface to The Dialogue
(the first version of Question and Answer)

in La Revolution Surrealiste, no. 11, 1928

In Question and Answer, one player writes a question on a piece of paper and folds the paper to conceal the question before giving it to another player. The second player writes an answer, and then unfolds the paper to read the question and answer together. According to the game’s instructions, “Remarkable facts emerge.”

I played the game on a recent evening with my friends Bob, Roberta and Gabe. Yes, remarkable facts did emerge. We produced more than 20 sets of questions and answers. Here’s a sampling:

What is the true nature of consciousness?
A small pain in my lower back.

Why is the second toe often larger than the big one?
Social revolutions are never truly complete.

Where did John Smith find the Book of Mormon?
Eating breakfast.

Which road will lead to nirvana?
Britney Spears’ breast implants, of course.

Why are people sometimes stuck in the past?
The sciatic nerve.

How do you reach the peak of your mental abilities?
Dairy products.

Why are we on the planet?
A monkey with a silver key in its purse.

I also conducted an e-mail version of the game with my friends Yuki, Gabe and Sarah. Here are some of the results:

Why is the slowest line always the one you're standing in?
The fuzz that collects in your navel.

How do dogs know when their owners are coming home, even when they don't always come home at the same time, or in the same way?
My eye doctor once told me that it's a miracle I can read anything at all.

How does one live an honorable and honest life?
At the deepest point in the ocean.

What is the current population of the state of Montana?
Sometimes, when I'm feeling blue, I walk through the streets until my feet ache.

Comments

Question and Answer is the forerunner of Mad Libs, the fill-in-the-blanks party activity for kids. However, the point of Question and Answer is not simply to be amusing. The Surrealists used their games to break creative habits, or more specifically “to free words and images from the constraints of rational and discursive order, substituting change and indeterminacy for premeditation and deliberation.” (1) Question and Answer certainly meets these goals. The relationship between the questions and answers are paired randomly, which is unarguably an irrational approach to gaining and sharing information.

While the game may proceed in a manner that “frees” words, Question and Answer is most interesting when one’s mind attempts to reapply “rational and discursive order” to the results, i.e. in the interpretation of the random pairings. For example, with minimal effort, the question “How does one live an honorable and honest life?” and its answer “At the deepest point of the ocean” makes perfect sense: Only in complete isolation from all human beings can one live an honest and honorable life. Or, if the answer is read metaphorically, there do not exist circumstances under which a human being can live a completely honest and honorable life.

It may seem remarkable that such a silly game could produce such a wise observation. In actuality, it’s remarkable that the human mind can pull beautiful and profound thoughts out of randomness.

Is it a game?

There’s no question in my mind that the Surrealists’ games are valuable tools for exploring the unconscious and undoing habitual uses of language and visuals, but are their games really games?

To use E.M. Avedon’s structural elements of games: Question and Answer does have a purpose; there are procedures for action; there are rules governing action; there is a required number of players (at least two); participants have roles (question writer or answer writer); there are participant interaction patterns; there is a pay-off (reading the results); participants must have certain abilities (to write and formulate entertaining questions and answers); its has a physical setting (any); and equipment is required (paper and a pencil). By Avedon’s reckoning, Question and Answer is most certainly a game.

Greg Costikyan’s list, on the other hand, casts doubt on this conclusion. There is decision-making, a goal and plenty of socializing. One might even stretch “manageable resources” to include a player’s imagination or vocabulary. But there is no opposition, no game tokens, no information to assist decision-making, no diplomacy, no color or theme, no simulation, no variety in encounter, no position identification (well, no meaningful identification), no role-playing, and not a drop of narrative tension. By Costikyan’s standards, Question and Answer is not a game. It is a group activity.

Many games are played not because the players care so much about winning, but because the activity is entertaining, amusing or enlightening. Party games such as Charades or Pictionary are obvious examples, but most avid gamers would place all games in this category. I enjoy German games, for example, because the activity is fascinating and enjoyable. Winning does not reveal much of anything (except perhaps, who is the better strategist or card counter), but the playing of a game can become an unfolding philosophical and aesthetic exploration. When I play a game, I think of how humans use symbols and mathematical models to make sense of the world, how we delimit experience in order to create goals, and how we distinguish between frivolous and meaningful activity. Players must try to win the game in order to make the it function properly, but the real pay-off comes long before the game’s end.

The Surrealists’ games may not be true games in the Costikyanian sense, but they share the raison d’etre of all games: to create an alternate safe space for new modes of creative thinking. Question and Answer does a wonderful job of promoting creative thinking in both the writing and the interpretative phases. For this, I deem it an honorary game.

(1) Brotchie, Alastair and Mel Gooding, eds., A Book of Surrealist Games (Boston: Shambhala Redstone Editions, 1995), 10.