EV1629
Ceaselessly by Curmudgeon
Setter’s Blog
Extra letters from down clues give LAST LETTERS OF CLUES; last letters of across clues give SHADE WHO SPEAKS GATSBY’S END.
Two films (1974 and 2013) have been made of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel (and a lost 1926 one) and both reveal the rich story of the Jazz Age, prohibition, bootlegging, and Gatsby’s all-consuming love for shallow social butterfly Daisy but, to my mind, nothing can compete with the superb novel where every line is magical.
Nick Carraway’s unreliable narrative has led the reader to totally sympathise with Gatsby in his quest to win and love Daisy again, despite the shady dealings that have given Gatsby his fabulous wealth. Nick claims to reserve judgement, but he is outspoken about Tom Buchanan and Daisy and their shallowness and lack of moral fibre.
Those wonderful final words ‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past’ summarise Fitzgerald’s view of ‘the American Dream’ and of Jay Gatsby’s personal evocation of it.
I really wanted to use this novel for a crossword theme (and perhaps persuade solvers who do not already know it to read it – to my mind it figures with classics like ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ as the greatest the twentieth century produced in the USA). It was luck that that final quotation fitted so well round the perimeter leaving out the one word which became the title of the crossword.
The devices were just a bit of fun, probably giving a speedy clue to experienced solvers – to read the final letters of clues – but I felt that most solvers would still have to fill the grid and maybe consult Wikipedia to get the name of the novel’s narrator – and hunt for NICK CARRAWAY in their completed grid.
The novel was written 99 years ago but is still powerfully moving.
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A full review of this puzzle can be seen over on fifteensquared.