Nudd comes and goes, giving us a puzzle roughly every couple of years.
Preamble: All clue answers in six (non-contiguous) rows and one column must be jumbled before entry. In the remaining across clues, the wordplay generates an extra letter which is not entered in the grid. These letters in order give a writer, one of whose works suggests what might be found in the grid. Solvers must enter the name of that work in the space below the grid. Shading within the grid is optional.
I started on the down clues as their answers were entered untreated. Having solved about half of those coming down from the top row I diverted to the across clues. Skipped past row 1 as answers weren’t coming and I suspected they had to be jumbled. Row 2 was fine but 15a in the next row was WITTERS which didn’t fit – with a little guesswork row 3 now read …V|ERTWIST. A quick glance back to 14a revealed VIOL and allowed that row to be completed as OLIV|ERTWIST. Aha!
No funny stuff in row 4 but row 5 emerged as HENRY|ESMOND, the title character in a novel by Thackeray. A pattern is developing? Yes: I went back and took another look at the top row which resolved as SILASM|ARNER, who/which I had come across when studying George Eliot at school (though I no longer recall the plot). Row 6 was indeed plain, but row 7 came out as DORASPENL|OW from David Copperfield.
And so it continued: plain, jumbled, plain, jumbled, plain. (I hadn’t been sure whether “non-contiguous” in the preamble meant pairwise or just that the whole collection of treated rows wasn’t in a single lump.) We have SANCHO|P|ANZA (Don Quixote, row 9) and HETT|Y|SORRE|L (Adam Bede, also by Eliot, row 11), with all the jumbled rows being linked by the jumbled central column: MARCEL|PROUST, the French author of À la recherche du temps perdu.
I’d got myself in a bit of a pickle earlier, parsing 22a REBEL as REEL around BO (the O being extra) instead of ERR< BEL (with an R being extra), but once that was corrected the extra letters spelt L PIRANDELLO (Luigi to his friends). If people know one thing about the playwright it’s that he wrote Six Characters in Search of an Author, and that’s what we find in the grid and what we write below it.
Nudd: a very neat grid indeed, but despite it being my turn to blog, I’d have preferred a stiffer puzzle. Thanks – marvellous but rather easy. Enjoyable, nevertheless.
{I now see I made a very similar comment on Nudd’s previous puzzle, #1840 from Jan-24.}
| No. | Clue | Answer | X | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| 1 | Fail to discover aluminium – you’ll find masses in here (6) | MISSAL | MISS (fail to discover) AL(uminium) | |
| 7 | Repeated time in service (5) | RERAN | ERA (time) in RN (Royal Navy, service) | |
| 11 | Knife damaged date label (5) | BLADE | L | [D(ate) LABE[L]]* |
| 12 | Comparison of land used for growing crops (6) | ARABLE | P | [P]ARABLE (comparison) |
| 14 | Instrument that’s used to stuff ravioli (4) | VIOL | (ra)VIOL(i) | |
| 15 | Mutters to little effect – sweatshirt has sadly gone astray (7) | WITTERS | [SWEATSHIRT]* ¬ [HAS]* | |
| 16 | Lack of knowledge upset niece in grasping CSE revision (9) | NESCIENCE | I | [NIECE [I]N]* around [CSE]* |
| 18 | When in Somerset, ditch Ed’s cereal heading north-east (5) | RHYNE | RHY (rye, cereal, Spenser) NE (north-east) | |
| 20 | Unsigned band’s recording new style tracks – these are wicked (6) | DEMONS | DEMO (unsigned band’s recording) NS (new style) | |
| 22 | Revolutionary’s to slip around Indian tree (5) | REBEL | R | ER[R]< (slip) BEL (Indian tree) |
| 23 | In Braemar, expression of impatience with one throwing line (4) | OCHE | A | OCH (expression of impatience, Scot) [A]E (one, Scot) |
| 24 | Oysters from Scottish firth, also found in very narrow passages (8) | PANDORES | AND (also) in PORES (very narrow passages) | |
| 26 | Wise guy closes on BoJo show trial (3) | OWL | (BoJ)O (sho)W (tria)L | |
| 28 | Leaves out inmost struggles (5) | OMITS | N | [I[N]MOST]* |
| 30 | Shoot every other day in cattle round-up (5) | RODEO | D | ROD (shoot) EO[D] (every other day) |
| 32 | Dancing performance over top of spilled tortilla chips (6) | NACHOS | NACH (dancing performance) O(ver) S(pilled) | |
| 34 | Summons to pray before touring South Africa (4) | AZAN | AN (ante, before, L) around ZA (South Africa) | |
| 36 | Jock’s hungry, indeed more than that, when getting out of bed (4) | YAUP | E | Y[E]A (indeed more than that) UP (out of bed) |
| 37 | Back European dodging forgotten French tax (4) | TAIL | L | TAIL[L]E (tax, hist) ¬ E(uropean) |
| 38 | Letter from hospital written after New Year festival (4) | TETH | H(ospital) after TET (New Year festival) | |
| 39 | Flower garden grew up alongside railway (6) | ROSERY | ROSE (grew up) RY (railway) | |
| 40 | Southern women working late toil for a pittance (5) | SWEAT | L | S(outhern) W(omen) [[L]ATE]* |
| 41 | American rail carries stripped back bones (5) | SACRA | O | S[O]RA (American rail) around (b)AC(k) |
| Down | ||||
| 2 | Not often sick, foolish Aussie takes day off (4) | ILLY | DILLY (foolish, Aust) ¬ D(ay) | |
| 3 | Put down Roman Catholic wasting time (4) | LAIN | LATIN (Roman Catholic) ¬ T(ime) | |
| 4 | Braved changing a qualifying part of speech (6) | ADVERB | [BRAVED]* | |
| 5 | Oddly skewed antique throne (3) | SEE | S(k)E(w)E(d) | |
| 6 | Flatter dancing girl in Costa Rica (6) | CALMER | ALME (dancing girl) in CR (Costa Rica) | |
| 7 | Public performer’s tastier when rocking (7) | ARTISTE | [TASTIER]* | |
| 8 | Having removed coat, drawn naked (3) | RAW | (d)RAW(n) | |
| 9 | Golfer illegally claims four (3) | ELS | (i)LL(ega)LL(y) has 4 els | |
| 10 | Part of secret espionage network (4) | RETE | (sec)RET E(spionage) | |
| 11 | Maggot evacuated horribly basic cottage (5) | BOTHY | BOT (maggot) H(orribl)Y | |
| 13 | After response from China clone plastic telescope (7) | BINOCLE | BI (response in traditional Chinese medicine) [CLONE]* | |
| 17 | Local strains start to serenade one voting in agreement (4) | SYES | S(erenade) YES (one voting in agreement) | |
| 19 | Goose eats heart of grim South African plant (6) | NERINE | NENE (goose) around (g)RI(m) | |
| 21 | What was once earned to terminate deposition of moisture (7) | DEWFALL | DEW (due, earned, obs) FALL (terminate) | |
| 22 | Tale of chivalry starts to employ secret Indic language (7) | ROMANES | ROMAN (tale of chivalry) E(mploy) S(ecret) | |
| 23 | Take in facts chasing towards muskrat (7) | ONDATRA | R (take) in DATA (facts) after ON (towards) | |
| 24 | Religious ceremonies administer medicine to high school (6) | DOSEHS | DOSE (administer medicine) HS (high school) | |
| 25 | Spring up in drunken stupor (6) | SPROUT | [STUPOR]* | |
| 27 | Even more slimy rowdy group returning to base in Ireland (6) | OOZIER | ZOO< (rowdy group) then E (base) in IR(eland) | |
| 29 | Square dance associated with acting madder (5) | SHAYA | S(quare) HAY (dance) A(cting) | |
| 31 | Counterparts work alongside chambers (5) | OPPOS | OP (work) POS (chambers) | |
| 33 | View reportedly rarely seen cell (4) | CYTE | homophone SIGHT (view) | |
| 35 | Something very fishy turned up for US agent (4) | NARC | CRAN< (37½ gallons of herring) | |
I’m happy with a gentler challenge once in a while! Enjoyed with no complaints here. Saw the top three characters more or less simultaneously and had no trouble with the Don’s sidekick, but had to think a bit about the other two.
Many thanks to Nudd and HG.