Enigmatic Variations No. 1595: Barred Off by Chalicea

Chalicea offers us a relatively small (11 x 11) grid, with an extra row BARRED OFF across the top…

(Apologies for the late posting of this blog – there have been a few technical issues with the site, and it has taken me a while to log on and finish this off…)

The preamble states that:

“In one answer in each column the definition and wordplay give a pair of words differing by one letter. The shorter word must be entered in the main grid and the unused letter must be put in the BARRED-OFF area above. The wordplay in all the other clues leads to an extra letter that is not required by the answer. These, read in clue order, will tell you what you have done when you have completed the puzzle. Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.”

It seemed logical to start with the Across clues, as they should all fall into the ‘extra letter from wordplay’ category, and I made reasonable progress in a couple of passes, but not enough to be able to make any sense from the extra letters yet.

I then started on the Downs, and found the first three almost straight away – COMBING/COMING, LEAP/LAP and RAFTER/AFTER, giving BER as the first three barred-off letters. These were soon followed by TRILL/RILL, SHEEP/SEEP and ASH/SHY, building up to BERTHA…or BERT HA…

Which didn’t help much, even when …SON appeared at the top right!

It was only once I’d solved virtually everything, and worked my way more systematically through the extra letters, that I was able to twig what was going on.

The extra letters spelt out: ‘PUT BRONTE’S MAD WOMAN IN THE ATTIC’. The attic being the barred off row in the ‘roof’ of the grid, and Bronte’s mad woman being BERTHA MASON. And a little Wiki-oogling informed me that BERTHA MASON was the first wife of Mr Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Said wife was declared ‘mad’, or ‘violently insane’ (I’m sure we’d use some other words these days!), and locked in a third floor room at Wildfell Thornfield Hall, leaving Mr R free to dally with the eponymous Jane:

 

(I’m sure it is obvious from the above that I have never read the book! My apologies for my cultural deficiencies in this regard…happy to have any more erudite literary criticism in the comments below…)

My only slight quibble would be that the preamble refers to the ‘definition and wordplay’ in thematic clues differing by one letter, but seven of the eleven are ‘subtractive double definitions’, so technically there is no ‘wordplay’ in them. However, that did not detract too much from the gist of the device being used.

As is often the case, Chalicea has given us a nicely constructed (and educational, for my part) puzzle with a feminine theme/twist. My thanks to her, and also my thanks to kenmac/Admin, for resurrecting the site!

(NB. It was a bit of a challenge to get that top row in the grid on the PeeDee utility – the only way to stop it putting numbers in (apart from turning the numbering off, and then I’d have had to put them all in manually), was to bar off every cell on the top row – rather fitting, given the theme!…)

 

Across
Clue No	Extra/ Barred off Letter	Solution	Clue (definition underlined) Logic/Parsing
1	P	CLARE	Applaud concerning member of religious community (5) CLA(P) (applaud) + RE (concerning)
5	U	SOLACE	Comfort one’s spiritual being – outstanding (6) SO(U)L (spiritual being) + ACE (outstanding)
9	T	OAFISH	Rough and ill-mannered in behaviour to a chum, say (6) (T)O A FISH (chum)
11	B	DALLY	Play with ball in deserted yard (5) D (deserted) + Y (yard) around (B)ALL
13	R	YICKER	Utter sharp little cries as leaders of youths in choir knowingly make a mistake (6) YICK (leading letters of ‘Youths In Choir Knowingly’ + ER(R) (make a mistake)
14	O	IRELESS	Life stories (rejecting the not exactly fit) sorted out without any resentment (7) subtractive anagram, i.e. sorted out, of L(IF)E S(T)(O)RIES, rejecting the letters of FIT
15	N	CYMA	Moulding of hollowed-out contemporary human being (4) CY (hollowed out ContemporarY) + MA(N) (human being)
16	T	GRAPETREES	Development of pest greater in tropical fruit producers (10) anag, i.e. development, of PEST GREA(T)ER
19	E	GENRO	Historically Japanese elder statesman bountiful (not as above) (5) GEN(E)RO(US) – bountiful, without US (ut supra, Latin, as above)
21	S	SUNNA	Stars absorbing oddly neat root of Muslim law (5) SUN_(S) (stars)around (absorbing) NA (odd letters of NeAt)
23	M	STRONG MEAT	What arouses repulsion in garment most damaged (10, two words) anag, i.e. damaged, of GARMENT (M)OST
26	A	VIOL	Way with case of orchestral instrument (4) VI(A) (Latin, road, or way) + OL (outer letters, or case, of OrchestraL)
28	D	CHOWDER	Thick soup in China more strange with whiskey put in (7) CH (China) + O_D(D)ER (more strange) around W (whiskey, phonetic alphabet)
30	W	UNPLAIT	Undo twists in law, surrounded by United Nations depression (7) UN (United Nations) + P_IT (depression) around (surrounding) LA(W)
33	O	ZOEAL	Animal park debacle from time to time about creatures’ larval stage (5) ZO(O) (animal park) + EAL (occasional letters, i.e. from time to time, of ‘dEbAcLe’
34	M	CURLEW	Unkempt mongrel essentially kills seagull and wading bird (6) CUR (unkempt mongrel) + L (middle letter, or essence, of kiLls) + (M)EW (seagull)
35	A	INDOLE	Sadly no ideal organic compound (6) anag, i.e. sadly, of NO IDE(A)L
36	N	WEENS	Fancies once turning over new being (5) WE(N) (new, turning over) + ENS (entity, being)
Down
Clue No	Extra/ Barred off Letter	Alternatives	Clue (definition underlined) Logic/Parsing
1	B	COMBING / COMING	Thoroughly searching on the way (6) subtractive/thematic double defn – COMBING = thoroughly searching; COMING = on the way
2	E	LEAP / LAP	Violently rush one circuit (3) subtractive/thematic double defn – LEAP = to rush violently; LAP = one circuit
3	R	RAFTER / AFTER	One operating flat boat contrived feat on river (5) AFTE (anag, i.e. contrived, of FEAT) + R (river)
4	T	TRILL / RILL	Tremulous sound – small brook (4) subtractive/thematic double defn – TRILL = tremulous sound; RILL = small brook
5	A	ASHY / SHY	Throw of pale grey colour (3) subtractive/thematic double defn – ASHY = of pale grey colour; SHY = throw
6	M	MODISTS / ODISTS	Followers of fashion writers with tendency to elaboration (6) subtractive/thematic double defn – MODISTS = followers of fashion; ODISTS = writers with tendency to elaboration
7	I	ALKY	Drunk in trouble on Skye losing clothing (4) A(I)L (trouble) + KY (sKYe losing outer letters, or clothing)
8	N	CLEMENT	Generous line with followers later taken in by small US coin (7) C_E_NT (small US coin) around L (line) and then later ME(N) (followers) [the extra N could be in CENT or MEN]
10	H	SHEEP / SEEP	Observe quiet people who follow meekly (4) SEE (observe) + P (piano, music, softly/quietly)
12	T	ACCRUE	Article about small church wine container to fall due (6) A (indefinite article) + C (circa, about) + CRUE(T) (small church wine container, e.g. for the Eucharistic wine)
16	H	GET IN ON	Contribute to one night in a fashion (7, three words) anag, i.e. in a fashion, of ONE NIG(H)T
17	E	AROLLA	Siberian cedar in area including holly with bark stripped (6) AR(E)_A around (including) OLL (hOLLy, stripped of outer letters, or bark!)
18	A	EUGH	Not at first beau, good hard wood for the Bard (4) E(A)U (bEAU, not at first) + G (good) + H (hard)
20	T	ON CALL	All at once crammed together, stripped off and changed, ready as needed (6, two words) subtractive anag, i.e. changed, of (A)LLA(T)ONC(E) – concatenate the words ALL AT ONCE, then strip off the ends
22	N	NARROWS / ARROWS	Chief shoots elderly contracts (6) subtractive/thematic double defn – ARROWS are obsolete, i.e. elderly, chief shoots of a plant; and to NARROW can be to contract
24	T	MOTU	Way of working with totally abstaining united Melanesian group (4) MO (modus operandi, way of working) + T(T) (teetotal, abstaining totally) + U (united)
25	S	SADDLE / ADDLE	Say further on the French col between two peaks (5) ADD (say further) + LE (the, definite article, in French)
27	I	OP-ED	With no copyright, copied newspaper page expressing writer’s opinions (4) (C)OP(I)ED – copied, with no C – copyright
29	A	AWARE / WARE	Conscious of state of conflict over energy (4) WAR (state of conflict) + E (energy)
31	C	ICE	Coldness of manner in civic centre (3) hidden word in ‘civIC (C)Entre
32	O	OPEN / PEN	Uncovered animal enclosure (3) subtractive/thematic double defn – OPEN = uncovered; a PEN can be an animal enclosure