Listener No 4367: Identity Crisis By Sabre

[tilbee]

An excellent challenge from Sabre, and certainly had to use all the available information to make headway on this. Full quotation and author only revealing itself right at the end.

[jockie]

It's been a long day, but well worth the sweat. Not absolutely sure that one of the 4-letter downs is actually a word, but I can see no alternative.

[icynorth]

Now that's a Listener Puzzle! Very clever grid and a wonderful challenge to locate the grid entries. Many thanks, Sabre!

[emcee]

What a slog! Brilliant construction though.

[Cruncher]

Blimey

[AHearer]

I agree with s_pugh that one of the words formed after replacing the six letters was obscure enough to be nudging the borders of acceptability at that stage of the solution process -- but overall I felt the neatness of the rest of the construction excused it. Basically, the other five were sufficiently convincing that I went back and dug around a bit to justify the sixth.

[perseverer]

Brilliant construction, some easy clues, some fun, some really tricky and huge satisfaction at (eventually) putting it all together, but quotation too obscure.
Have I enjoyed it overall or am I inclined to read the work. I doubt it!

[fallster]

Well that certainly was tough! I was wanting them to be tougher than they have been of late, and boy, I got my wish.

[Contrarian]

s_pugh and AHearer, the word you refer to may be obscure, but I don't see a problem with it. The set of acceptable words, at the point in the puzzle, is defined by whether or not they are in Chambers. It is, and so, although it's an alternative spelling of an obsolete word, it's fine. Of course, if it had only been in the OED, that would have been unacceptable.

[Cagey]

That was certainly challenging... Not so happy about double unching in the final grid, but I think that overall I enjoyed and certainly was very smuggly satisfied to finish.
Using logic / intuition and deduction could place a number of letters very quickly into solve which helped a great deal with the gridfill.

Thankfully the EV was straightforward this weekend. Back to the Magpie, which seems to have stumped me by the C-grade this month.

Thank you, Saber

[olichant]

Wow, but I was in the dark for a long time on this - notwithstanding some kind (and fun) clues. The second AU across was wonderfully smutty for a Listener. The penny dropped with some scattergun googling - not sure how far I would have got without the internet. Obscurity of the source aside (and in fact I bought myself a second-hand copy at the weekend to see what all the fuss was about) I found this enjoyable, and tough.

Actually, I still need to resolve the "twerp" clue, but that can wait for a few days whilst my brain recovers.

[UglyUncle]

The power of the waking mind is astonishing: both yesterday and today it has provided me with revelations that I'd given up any hope of on the two previous evenings.

Cagey has beaten me to be the first to comment on the double unches, but I don't think they matter unless they are in the grid from the start. After persevering through all the stages of solving this tour de force I don't object to a slight lack of elegance in the result.

The obscurity of the first part of the quotation would have defeated me had it not been for the strong probability hinted at by one of the unclued units: borderline unfair, perhaps? All I can say is that what was at first AA AI and then appeared to involve AH SO turned out to be a superb reward for the SS.

[Cagey]

sorry Saber, I meant Sabre

[Scorpius]

UglyUncle, I don't quite understand your comment that the double unches "don't matter unless they are in the grid from the start." They are in the grid from the start, since they are not the result of grid changes; they are just not visible. I should have thought they matter more in a carte blanche. Some of my grid construction was done on the basis that there wouldn't be double unches. How wrong I was.

Since this is the second instance of double unches in three weeks I guess we can expect to see more of the same in future.

On the other matter of the obscure word referred to by s_pugh and Ahearer, I agree with Contrarian that it's perfectly acceptable as it's easily confirmed in Chambers. No different from a clued word really.

[icynorth]

In defence of the double-unch, can I say that this puzzle required much more blind solving than most, aided by the clues being in alphabetical order. Given this, the grid-fill was more about locating a unknown position for a known answer than deriving an unknown answer from a known location, to paraphrase Rumsfeld.

[Scorpius]

That's a fair point, icynorth. Yes, most solvers will probably have solved those particular clues before building the grid, so as far as solving is concerned the double unch is irrelevant.

[Garaman]

I accept that the hard part of this puzzle was building the grid rather than solving the clues, but I don’t see how that means the double unches were defendable, particularly as we had to modify a number of answers before entry. They certainly gave me a problem as I tried to build a ‘normal’ grid with what I had.

[Philoctetes]

I would not have said the unches - in this puzzle - were of anything but minor importance. I presume this is why lines should be omitted. The difficult bit (and most fun) was building up the quotation into a meaningful whole. This could be done by combining the co-ordinates and the title and some of the earlier solved clues (the long ones). Once that fitting was done, it all fell into place quite smoothly needing only the starting points and lengths. Possibly not Ximenean, but a terrific series of logical steps.

[IainGrace]

Inclined to agree with s_pugh's initial comment. Done a fair bit of cold solving but, given the complexity of the structure and the opacity of the rubric, not sure we haven't got better things to do with our lives, even without the rugby. Is this a puzzle which shades from being an interesting challenge for the solver into being a form of self-gratification for the compiler?

[olichant]

IainGrace - I'd say not (quite strongly, actually). For my money, it's very much worth persevering, although it's obviously divided opinion.

[Scorpius]

Having reflected on the puzzle I think my earlier post was unduly negative. I still think there are weaknesses aside from the double unches – the somewhat random disposition of the bits of the quote (especially the clued bits), and the difficulty of tracking down the quote on the internet even when some of the bits are correctly sequenced. However, there are some admirable features as well, particularly the use of the quotation to provide the co-ordinates to solve the puzzle. This makes the quotation an inherent part of the puzzle (in my view it is the puzzle) rather than being supplied by a clue gimmick, which is something Sabre seems to shun. There was also the apposite choice of work for lovers of wordplay, and a bit of humour in the irony of the final part of the endgame.