All Wet
To better appreciate the atmospheric style of This Is Happiness, the delightful 2019 novel by Niall Williams from which we drew the quote for this week’s acrostic, here is the full passage:
“Nobody in Faha could remember when it started. Rain there on the western seaboard was a condition of living. It came straight-down and sideways, frontwards, backwards and any other wards God could think of. It came in sweeps, in waves, sometimes in veils. It came dressed as drizzle, as mizzle, as mist, as showers, frequent and widespread, as a wet fog, as a damp day, a drop, a dripping, and an out-and-out downpour. It came the fine day, the bright day, and the day promised dry. It came at any time of the day and night, and in all seasons, regardless of calendar and forecast, until in Faha your clothes were rain and your skin was rain and your house was rain with a fireplace. It came off the grey vastness of an Atlantic that threw itself against the land like a lover once spurned and resolved not to be so again. It came accompanied by seagulls and smells of salt and seaweed. It came with cold air and curtained light. It came like a judgment, or, in benign version, like a blessing God had forgotten he had left on. It came for a handkerchief of blue sky, came on westerlies, sometimes—why not?—on easterlies, came in clouds that broke their backs on the mountains in Kerry and fell into Clare, making mud the ground and blind the air. It came disguised as hail, as sleet, but never as snow. It came softly sometimes, tenderly sometimes, its spears turned to kisses, in rain that pretended it was not rain, that had come down to be closer to the fields whose green it loved and fostered, until it drowned them.”
Though you would hardly know it from this virtuosic description of a rain-soaked small town in Ireland, the novel takes place during a curious period when it had stopped raining there. Still, we couldn’t resist the fun of theming this puzzle to rain and wetness in general. In Clue W, we even shamelessly borrowed a word – previously unknown to us – from Williams’s full quote: mizzle, a verb meaning to rain in very fine drops.
How many other themed clues and answers did you spy? One that might not have been obvious appears in Answer H:
One note from our previous blogpost: Thanks to Dan for pointing out that the Place Vendôme in Paris does not actually abut the Tuileries. It’s a good 300 meters away.
I like all of the quotes which appear in David and Jane’s acrostics, but this one was particularly evocative and poetic (particularly the extended version which appears at the top of the blog post). Although it’s drawn from a work of fiction, I learned that the author resides in a village not far from the coast in western Ireland, so I’m sure he’s intimately familiar with wet weather of all kinds.
I always learn new words (or new meanings for familiar words) in each acrostic. For me, STRATA (as clued in O) was one such word. I also hadn’t realized that “messengers” ( in the clue for M) could serve as a verb (unlike “messages”, which I’ve often seen used as a verb).
I did note that the quote in the acrostic uses “dreeping” while the full quote uses “dripping”, but I guess it was a necessary adjustment in order to construct the puzzle (and, in any case, the two words are synonymous).
I am glad that Richard Z. pointed out that the puzzle uses “dreeping instead of dripping. I have been doing the Acrostic puzzle for over 50 years (haven’t missed a single one since 1972). I have never seen a word changed in this way. Ruined my day!
So sorry, folks: the mistake was in our transcribing the quote into the blog post. Williams’s word in the book is indeed — as in our puzzle — “dreeping”!
Drove me crazy as well. I have never had to resort to “cheating” by finding the quote in situ, but I couldn’t resolve the seeming error of “dreeping” instead of “dripping” any other way. Live and learn.
I also enjoy learning new words in the acrostics. This week’s new word is “dreebing”. I’ll look for the next rainy day to impress family and friends. In my family, the word for a cold, rainy day is “snively”. Perhaps you can use that in the future and drive all players crazy.
Yeah, the “dreeping” thing was driving me nuts, too. Took me a while to determine that it was British dialect variant.
Other than that, a great quote and a fun solve. Obviously related clues: A, B, D, J, N, P, Q (where A landed), R, W, and X.
Stretches: C (hey, it’s 95% water), K (maybe he was dumped in New York harbor, a traditional terminus for mob hits), and S (H2O).
Glad to learn “dreeping” was not a puzzle error. I knew it couldn’t be, but for a while i assumed it was “sweeping”… It wasn’t the only troublesome word. I’ve never heard of a seaboard other than “Eastern,” and ‘Atlantic’ seemed to confirm that. Even after I got ‘grey’ I didn’t see its significance for the placing of the quote…For too long, weirdly, i was convinced that “land like” was “land line”…I’m annoyed with myself for not remembering the capital of Kazakhstan, but proud for not looking it up!
One of the most challenging yet rewarding yet. Thanks, Jane and Dave
A meteorological masterpiece. Puddle wonderful, one might say.
Dreeping???
Fun!
Dreeping gave me fits too, but I ultimately accepted it because I was confident that the answers to the clues had to have an E and a P instead of an I and a P. I’m glad to learn a new word, or variant of a familiar word. I got sidetracked by wuthering into trying find a Brontë theme in the puzzle. Great fun as always.
Ah yes, Rainy Days and Mondays. Dreeping and mizzle also new to me!
“This is Happiness” is one of my favorite books of all time. It took me a very long time to finish because I reread almost every sentence, savored every paragraph; practically every page has underlines . It is a masterpiece not to be missed. I have given it as gifts many times. I was thrilled to see it quoted as this week’s acrostic!
Whew, got sidetracked listening to Dylan’s “Hurricane,” one of my favorites. Anyway, my last entry was DREEPING, so I had to look it up. After a skirmish with auto-fill and spelling corrections, according to the OED, its origins are Old English. In modern written English, occurrences are 0.01 per million words. 🤣 good one! Maybe it’s use is more frequent across the (stormy) pond.
Oops… make that its use… (another skirmish with auto-fill)
I’m very happy you chose the best book I’ve read in years & years … maybe ever. And happy you included I. Scranton, that gave me some hope I’d be able to solve this, as is not always the case. Many of us native Scrantonians are descended from “County Mayo, God Help Us,” and the surnames in Faha are those of schoolmates, neighbors, as well as relatives. My brother Jim escaped to Miami eons ago, & had a nice email exchange with Mr. Williams after he read Niall’s book. You’re doing wonderful work, & I look forward to, & always learn from, each of your iterations. Please keep up the good work!
This acrostic was perfect in being not too easy and not too hard but instead at a perfect Goldilocks point. And the quote was exceptional. We had a lot of fun with this one (as we always do).
Thank you for another fun challenge and for giving folks the opportunity to comment on the source of the quote here. It’s on my reading list now! I will have fun with “mizzle” and “dreeping” in the future. I learned about “debris balls” just this past season as I was intently watching minute-to-minute weather reporting on an Arkansas weather channel. It was that clue, along with the one about Dylan’s song, that revealed to me the overall topic. Thanks again for another delightful puzzle!