Back to plain vanilla here after Verlaine's lavishly illustrated tales from Shakespeare last week. It was a relief to learn from the Club Forum that others found this tough. It was a whiplash-inducing mix of write-ins and ones that had to be hacked from the coal-face. After 45 minutes I had all but 12a when I had to down tools and leave for the weekend. And I wasn't the only one who had a wrestle with it. After all that I had a moment's distraction which produced an invisible typo when keying in 7d.
This year's puzzles have all been of very high quality and this is no exception. Some first-rate neatly constructed clues. In mythology, Broteas is the son of Tantalus (whose most recent puzzle was 1112 on February 12th) - who is rumoured to be the long-time "onlie begetter of these insuing".
Definitions (where appropriate) in italics underlined. Answers in bold caps.
Across
1. Moriarty's trail leads us to this sweetheart (4)
BABY. With Sherlock unlikely and B*B* yielding a limited but not obvious choice, in the absence of knowing I looked it up. The Baby Trail by Sinead Moriarty.
3. Russian stories of one unknown, one in match (8)
IZVESTIA. This made me laugh when I saw it. I=one. Z=unknown. And I=one in VESTA=match. Russian stories indeed.
10. Poet's rewrite of carol (5)
LORCA. Anagram (rewrite) of CAROL. Federico Garcia Lorca, influential early 20thC Spanish poet who died young. Thank you, Broteas, this gave me the first toehold. I first knew of him (and the Roy Campbell translation) from a pre-teen attendance at the Flanders and Swann revue, At The Drop of Another Hat. Flanders gives a splendidly pseud Hemingwayesque (Death in the Afternoon) account of olive-stuffing in the corrida d'olivas, featuring a mention of Lorca and Campbell. http://www.nyanko.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fas/anotherhat_oliv.html
11. 4 in 1 - outsize Pulitzer winner spanning two continents (3,2,4)
ONE OF OURS. By Willa Cather, 1923 prize-winner. Numbers make my eyes glaze over so I didn't unpack this until writing the blog. FOUR=4 contained in ONE=1 and OS=outsize. The story goes from Nebraska to the WWI front in Fance, thus the two continents.
12. In perverted lust, I grope Kate Nickelby's young lover? (10)
PELTIROGUS. Horatio, in Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby.Anagram (perverted) of LUST I GROPE. I've read it more than once and seen the RSC adaptation but this rang no bell at all. It clearly wasn't Frank Cheeryble, Sir Mulberry Hawke, Lord Frederick Verisopht or poor Smike, so who on earth could it be? The Google algorithms seemed to be as addled as me - and others. When I finally laid hands on my treeware I found he turned up in the last 100 pages, courtesy of the gaga and tedious Mrs. Nickleby (no wonder I didn't remember). He was a four-year-old who had been a supposed suitor of Kate, dreamed up by Mrs. N. in response to Frank Cheeryble's courtship. I'd call this obscure but no complaints.
14, The drink of bacchants? (3)
CHA. Unlikely drink contained in [bac]CHA[nts]. A welcome gimme from the setter.
16. Either Edward Capern or Mario Ruoppolo, when not writing poetry (7)
POSTMAN. Capern was the 19thC poet known as the rural postman of Bideford. Ruoppolo was the postman in the 90s movie Il Postino. He was befriended by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and "borrows" some of Neruda's verse in order to woo his desired Beatrice.
17. Girl robbed by baron with scissors - shock horror! (7)
BELINDA. From The Rape of the Lock, satiric narrative poem by Alexander Pope. The baron cuts off and steals a lock of her hair (shock).
18. This writer's mature lines showing literary technique (7)
IMAGERY. IM=this writer's. AGE=mature. RY=lines. Thank you setter.
19. Serious Jane, mostly studying scripture (7)
AUSTERE. Jane, as in AUSTE[n] (mostly). RE=studying scripture (religious education). And thank you again.
20. Name in a quotation (3)
TAG. Double definition. And again.
21. Excursion with military officers for Dickens's legal worker (5,5)
SALLY BRASS. SALLY=excursion. BRASS=military officers. Unpleasant character from The Old Curiosity Shop.
24. Any critic's affected sophistication (9)
INTRICACY. Anagram (affected) of ANY CRITIC. This wouldn't be my first idea of a definition but it works all right.
22. What Gutenberg's created many times? (1-4)
E-BOOK. Project Gutenberg is a free digital library of literature in the public domain. Presumably named for the 15thC printer Johannes. Most TLS solvers have probably used it now and then.
27. Great place to have a jolly, in Conrad's narrative. (8)
YARMOUTH. It couldn't be anything else but I haven't quite nailed this. Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim) was a merchant mariner, not a Royal Marine (a "jolly"). He uses "jolly" as a sarcastic epithet in some of his writing and I believe this may be from "Youth, A Narrative" but I haven't placed it. Any ideas? See Dereklam infra.
28. Current secret agent series enjoyed by children (1-3)
I-SPY. I=current. SPY=secret agent. Childrens' game. I'm not quite sure about "series" and I briefly wondered if it was a reference to the endlessly re-run late 60s tv show of that name starring Bill Cosby (oh dear) but concluded it wasn't. See Z and Jerry infra.
Down
1. A thrilling racer and racing thriller (4)
BOLT. Double definition. The aptly named Jamaican Olympic sprinter and a tale of the turf by Dick Francis.
2. Nadine's Rosa or Patty's relative (7,8)
BURGER'S DAUGHTER. Title character in the novel by Nadine Gordimer. A beef patty being the raw material for a hamburger.
4. Angst came from ... zone 1, in the German way (5)
ZWEIG. "Angst" is the title of a short novel by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Z=zone. WEG=way in German, containing I-1. I didn't know this and have next to no German, and I had still not completed 12a. So I kept pulling the lever with Z*E** and the remaining letters in 12a until the correct 3 fruits in a row popped up. Not a pretty way to solve.
5. A shoemaker's "while you sleep" assistant (3)
ELF. In the Grimm Brothers' collection of folk tales the elves come in the night to help the poor generous cobbler.
6. Factual revelations about corruption in Amsterdam and Los Angeles (4,11)
TRUE CONFESSIONS. If I hadn't been blogging I probably wouldn't have paused to look this up. It's the title of a crime movie set in LA in the early 80s. Jack Amsterdam is the corrupt property developer.
7. Joyce's first novel excellent, second Shaw oddly salvaged (5,5)
AISSA SAVED. No, not James Joyce, Joyce Cary. AI=excellent. S=second. S[h]A[w] oddly. SAVED=salvaged. I must have been thinking of she-who-must-be-obeyed because I let in an H instead of the second S.
8. I bet a rum's a blended spirit of only moderate strength (10)
BARTIMAEUS. Anagram (blended) of I BET A RUMS A. According to St. Mark in the NT he's a blind man healed by Jesus. Here he's a 5000 year-old djinni of mid-level power in a trilogy of childrens' fantasy novels by Jonathan Stroud. They've never come my way.
9. Woo, with rising desire, the author of Jane Eyre (8)
COURTNEY. COURT=woo. NEY (YEN backwards/rising) =desire. Not another alias for Charlotte Bronte but John, who wrote a stage adaptation in the 19thC also called The Secrets of Thornfield Manor.
13. Lawyer's defence for a printer's process (10)
SILKSCREEN. SILK=LAWYER (QC). SCREEN=defence. Think Andy Warhol and T shirts, and thanks from me to Broteas.
15. Manning once created over-privileged bankers and brokers (6,4)
SPOILT CITY. SPOILT=over-privileged. CITY=bankers and brokers. Another trilogy. This is part of Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy. She also wrote the sequel Levant Trilogy. Together they are known as Fortunes of War. In the 80s there was an excellent TV adaptation with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson and a stellar cast.
17. I watch one in bed with you, twice over (5,3)
BEADY EYE. A=one in BED. YE=you, twice.
22. "in this universe, / Where the -- things control the greatest" (Wordsworth) (5)
LEAST. From the verse play The Borderers.
23. Uncap the wine of kings? Fine with me (4)
OKAY. [T]OKAY - removing the first letter. Famous Hungarian wine I've never tasted and am never sure how to pronounce.
25. Language marrying agreeable words? (3)
IDO. Double definition. The marriage vow and the artificial language derived from Esperanto.
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TLS Crossword 1123 by Broteas - April 29, 2016
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