Combinatory Life

I heard from a new “friend” on Goodreads - a site I don’t visit or add posts to half enough as I probably should. But this new friend, ShapeOfAFlyingDeer (maybe she’s a super friends fan!), brought up a review I did of the Eighth Commandment (see HERE). I love that book. I just re-read it this past summer. In that review that I posted on Goodreads, I have a long passage from the end of the book that I remember reading this summer and thinking it was gold. Glad to see I was consistent. 

Regardless, ShapeOfAFlyingDeer actually commented about Lawrence Sanders. She said, “he’s a master of combinatory life.” Those of you who follow this blog religiously will know I’ve been journaling to help with self-authorship (see HERE). More understanding of the “combinatory life” is probably needed as a part of that journal effort. So thanks for the assistance ShapeOfAFlyingDeer!

What is a combinatory life? Why would it fall into this framework of self-authorship? 

Let’s start with a definition. The first definition for this, which I found by looking up “combinatory play” is: 

Combinatory play is the act of opening up one mental channel by dabbling in another. Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of the Twentieth Century. He developed the theory of relativity and was also a noted humanitarian. He considered it “the essential feature in productive thought”.

Another I found is:

Combinatory play is the process of considering two or more unrelated ideas, topics, images, disciplines, etc. and putting them together in a way that is new.

And finally, I found this one which includes examples:

Another example is how Archimedes figured out buoyancy while taking a bath. That is combinatory play: the ability to allow your inner genius to step in and fill in the blanks. This is inherent in all of us. As creative thinkers, we often practice combinatory play to generate original ideas.

So, what’s that mean? What’s that have to do with Sanders? There’s a lot to work with here, but if we focus just on Sanders I see that most of Sanders’ main characters, the detectives, are generally not typical police detectives. Sure, sure, Edward X Delaney is (Gosh, I love the Edward X Delaney series, that will be the next one I read during a break from school). But McNally? Todd? These are representative of his characters and generally, they are not true to form Mickey Spillane/ Mike Hammer type, detectives. 

It’s the same thing I try to do, and the same characteristics of the hero I model from Dick Francis novels. The detective hero isn’t a detective generally, they are regular people pressed into this job from the circumstances. Usually, it’s the other characteristics of their lives that help them figure out the mystery and come through in the end. 

In Dick Francis’ novels, usually, it’s their toughness from their time as jockeys. For Sanders’ novels, it’s their lifestyle and joie de vivre. In my case, it’s the character’s background in the military or their capabilities in fitness and health or workouts (I know, I know, I’m working on expanding that and making it stronger as themes go). 

Regardless, the combinatory life and combinatory play are intriguing and truthfully I’d never heard of it before. I’m thankful that ShapeOfAFlyingDeer brought it up to me. I look forward to it being a bigger part of my pursuits in my self-auth