ACL Grid: 6 mins, Meta: 15 mins 
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G’day from Downunder! Ben here at the start of another month with another selection from Ariadne’s Crossword Library. This month, entitled “In Search of a Colorful Metaphor”, was constructed by Emma Oxford with the prompt: The meta answer is a metaphor with its origins in American literature that could serve as a fifth theme entry.
That tells us there are four themers in the grid, and they stand out clearly even though their clues also have leading asterisks:
- 16A {*Absolutely perfect candidate, to human resources} PURPLE SQUIRREL [I have never heard of this one!]
- 21A {*Hidden-away family member, perhaps} BLACK SHEEP
- 43A {*Awkward suspect for a detective to accuse in a murder mystery} RED HERRING
- 59A {*Bizarre hallucination} PINK ELEPHANT
As I’m writing these out, it occurs to me that the answer could be SCARLET LETTER, a colour-based metaphor with its origins in American literature. But is it as easy as that? Is there anything in the grid/clues that will act as a “click”? That novel was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the scarlet letter was an “A”. Is there anything special going on in the grid with the “A”s? Not that I can see.
But what about the fact that the four themers are all animals? And is the puzzle seasonal? Emma’s introduction spoke about the onset of fall. So something to do with orange or brown, perhaps? But then, as I read through the themers again, WHITE WHALE occurs to me. That will be it: COLOUR + ANIMAL… and it fits with the title: the white whale is a metaphor for an obsessive goal, a highly sought-after but elusive objective. The white whale features in a classic novel of American literature: “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville (which I have actually read… and enjoyed!) Then, as I am looking for an additional click, I notice that the first letter of the clues for the themers start with A, H, A and B. Captain Ahab was, of course, the one searching for the white whale. Nice click!
Thanks for another fun puzzle, Emma.
Puzzle: ACL; Rating: 4.5 stars
I thought of a lot of “color + animal” phrases and thought that WHITE WHALE had the best “dictionary nature”, but didn’t send it in until I spotted the AHAB hint. Very nice.
Thanks Ben! 68 correct answers this month. I have to give credit to my test solvers for the idea of putting AHAB at the beginning of the clues, which I’m very glad they suggested because I think it gave that extra click to a lot of solvers.
“I notice that the first letter of the clues for the themers start with A, H, A and B. Captain Ahab was, of course, the one searching for the white whale. ”
I did *not* notice that!
I figured COLOR IDIOM right away and could think of a few (BLACK SWAN and WHITE ELEPHANT and PURPLE COW came up but I figured it’d be inelegant to rehash elements [and prior to the discovery of polar bears there was discussion of WHITE BEARS {there’s an entire chapter in Tristram Shandy about that}] also). I’m embarrassed to say I googled and got a few more including WHITE RABBIT and WHITE WHALE. So which one? Then I reread the prompt. *American* literature. So WHITE WHALE which tied in with the title of a search.
And I won! I’m so excited!