The Xword Rabbit never ceases to be amazed by the myriad of ways you Muggles can go astray.
"Finishing the Story" from Mr. Shenk sounded easy enough: Five characters led to five books --
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
and THE SUN ALSO RISES, and that's when the fun started.
So many comments are worthy of note, if not nomination. There was Reb and Hunter X who
connected "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with EGGOS, conjuring up an image of Audrey Hepburn
pounding down frozen waffles.
Many more of you got hung up on PAPA, maybe because the annual Ernest Hemmingway look-alike
contest was held a month ago in Key West, Florida. Here's the winner, celebrating his victory.
But the Rabbit digresses. On to this week's report:
Good ol' reliable DBMiller was in the running again, trying to make sense of the last words and letters
in the book titles, but he had plenty of company. Miki, however, took it one step further with this:
“Since I didn't see the meta right away like everyone else did, I thought that Finishing the Story was a clue to unfinished novels.
It turned out that all five of our quoted authors had unfinished books they were working on before their death. Surely, the first
letter (or last) of each of these books would spell out something that would click.
Jane Austen - Sanditon
Dickens - The Mystery of Edward Drood
Capote - Answered Prayers
Dostoyevsky - Netochka Nezvanova
Hemingway- The Garden of Eden
And therefore "STANT"?! (Or NDSAN)”
Thank you, Miki -- and Google -- for helping make bigger and better rabbit holes everywhere.
Lest some of you Muggles think that the XWord Rabbit can only be impressed by long and winding explanations, consider this
nominated entry from Olof who smoothly raced along, finding the start letters of the book titles, identified the “finishing” letters
in the five grid entries and then fell into a rabbit hole much like the ending of "Thelma and Louise."
“(I) got the letters TAOSH, which suggested “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
First time to be ‘sure about an answer that ended up not being the answer.’
Does it get any better than that? Not for your faithful Rabbit who will take his leave now.
He sends his regrets to Porthos, Aramis and the rest of you who didn’t make it into his report.
Until next week, then.