MARGARET DRABBLE'S PUZZLING BOOK

The Pattern in the Carpet Pleasurable, guiltless distractions are hard to come by. Alcohol, cigarettes and ice-cream sandwiches come with guilt; pull-ups, flossing and bathtub-scrubbing promise little pleasure. One must feel productive, or at least cognitively engaged in a mild, mild way. The activity should be solitary and somewhat portable. Above all, it must be absorbing. In the Venn diagram sliver where fun meets guiltless are things like crossword puzzles (hard ones), knitting, walking, cooking and, as Margaret Drabble shares in her new book, jigsaw puzzles.

In "The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws", Drabble finds herself returning to the comfort of puzzles (a hobby from her youth) as she cares for her husband during his painful struggle with cancer. "The jigsaw project came to my rescue," she writes. "I bought myself a black lacquer table for my study, where I could pass a painless hour or two, assembling little pieces of cardboard into a preordained pattern, and thus regain an illusion of control."

For anyone who has relied on such diversions to keep dark moods at bay, or simply to kill the hours, Drabble's work will present many moments of identification. "This book," she writes in the introduction, "became my occupational therapy, and helped to pass the anxious months. I enjoy reading about card games, board games and children's books, and all the ways in which human beings have staved off boredom and death, and despised one another for doing so."

The book is a mixture of jigsaw lore (puzzles were originally geography teaching tools for children) and memoir (as a child Drabble solved puzzles with her Auntie Phyl to fill dull hours). And it functions much as a puzzle might: as an engaging activity with clearly acknowledged limits, to be picked up and put down at will. This may sound like faint praise, but as Drabble amiably demonstrates, these are the very things that everyone, at some point, must rely on.

"The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws" (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt), by Margaret Drabble, out now

~ MOLLY YOUNG