Mystery writer Blyton / TUE 3-30-21 / Mortal lover of Aphrodite / Compensating reduction of greenhouse gas emissions / Fourth word of a Star Wars prologue / Swivel on an axis / Leading female role in Pulp Fiction

Constructor: Alex Rosen and Brad Wilber

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: MONONYM (38A: Person known by a single name, as found in 20-, 29-, 47- and 55-Across) — one-named *musical* performers all found inside longer theme answers:

Theme answers:

• CARBON OFFSET (20A: Compensating reduction of greenhouse gas emissions)
• SPIN KICK (29A: 360º martial arts maneuver)
• TEN YARDS (47A: Distance for a first down)
• "MINE, MINE, MINE!" (55A: Greedy person's cry)

Word of the Day: ENID Blyton (35D: Mystery writer Blyton) —

Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer whose books have been among the world's best-sellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Blyton's books are still enormously popular, and have been translated into 90 languages. As of June 2018, Blyton is in the 4th place for the most translated author. She wrote on a wide range of topics including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives and is best remembered today for her Noddy, Famous Five, Secret Seven, and Malory Towers. [...] Blyton's work became increasingly controversial among literary critics, teachers and parents from the 1950s onwards, because of the alleged unchallenging nature of her writing and the themes of her books, particularly the Noddy series. Some libraries and schools banned her works, which the BBC had refused to broadcast from the 1930s until the 1950s, because they were perceived to lack literary merit. Her books have been criticised as being elitist, sexist, racist, xenophobic and at odds with the more progressive environment emerging in post-Second World War Britain, but they have continued to be best-sellers since her death in 1968. [...] Accusations of racism in Blyton's books were first made by Lena Jeger in a Guardian article published in 1966. In the context of discussing possible moves to restrict publications inciting racial hatred, Jeger was critical of Blyton's The Little Black Doll, published a few months earlier. Sambo, the black doll of the title, is hated by his owner and other toys owing to his "ugly black face", and runs away. A shower of "magic rain" washes his face clean, after which he is welcomed back home with his now pink face. Jamaica Kincaid also considers the Noddy books to be "deeply racist" because of the blonde children and the black golliwogs. In Blyton's 1944 novel The Island of Adventure, a black servant named Jo-Jo is very intelligent, but is particularly cruel to the children. ^// Accusations of xenophobia were also made. As George Greenfield observed, "Enid was very much part of that between the wars middle class which believed that foreigners were untrustworthy or funny or sometimes both". The publisher Macmillan conducted an internal assessment of Blyton's The Mystery That Never Was, submitted to them at the height of her fame in 1960. The review was carried out by the author and books editor Phyllis Hartnoll, in whose view "There is a faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia in the author's attitude to the thieves; they are 'foreign' ... and this seems to be regarded as sufficient to explain their criminality." Macmillan rejected the manuscript, but it was published by William Collinsin 1961, and then again in 1965 and 1983. [...] In December 2016 the Royal Mint discussed featuring Blyton on a commemorative 50p coin but dismissed the idea because she was "known to have been a racist, sexist, homophobe and not a very well-regarded writer". (wikipedia) (emph. mine)

• • •

This is a concept looking for a hook. As it is, it's not much different from a puzzle where ELM and FIG and OAK are "hidden" inside longer theme answers and then the revealer is just TREE. Where is the ... Where is the Why? Why these names? Why musical names? Nothing but nothing about the revealer suggests music. A tight grouping is nice, but it's not tied to ... anything. No wordplay, no zingy revealer, nothing. Just, "here are four MONONYMs, they are all related to music For Some Reason" (?). It's not that the answers on their own aren't nice. Really seems like "MINE, MINE, MINE!" was probably the impetus for this thing (easy to hide four-letter names, a lot tougher to hide a six-letter). And CARBON OFFSET has a nice modern feel, while SPIN KICK is entertainingly dynamic (TEN YARDS is blah, but you get one blah per theme set if you want it, that's the rules). I just wish the puzzle could've done something, anything, with the mononyms as a group—highlighted some kind of logic. MONONYM is such a technical, anticlimactic revealer. What about "The Masked Singer," isn't that something? Yes, the TV show ... and it's a grid-spanning 15-letters long, too. I'm not saying that that would be a top-notch revealer here. I'm just saying that it's at least Trying. MONONYM isn't trying. P.S. I think mononyms who are also singers should be called BONONYMS. All in favor? Great, it's done. P.P.S. SADE and CHER and ADELE have Got to be calling their agents right about now.

The short fill on this is quite creaky, but it's offset (!) somewhat by the nicer longer stuff. Not just the themers, but HOT TAKE and SIT BACK and BAD MOVE and EYE MASK, all give a certain life to the grid that it desperately needed. It's actually a pleasant enough puzzle to solve overall. The HUGO Boss clue even made me laugh (10A: Who's the Boss?). One thing, though: I have no idea why ENID Blyton was the ENID of choice today. First of all, she's bygone—very bygone. Second, she's British, so actually most Americans, and certainly most Americans under 60, aren't going to have a clue who she is (unless they do a lot of crosswords) (never encountered one of her books in my life; know about her only because my wife grew up in the British Empire). Third, it's slightly weird to call her a "mystery writer"—although she was that, she was far far more famous (and infamous) as a children's writer. I get her confused with ENID Bagnold (who was also a British writer—National Velvet). As I wrote in ENID I thought "Wait, is this the children's writer? The racist caricature lady? With the golliwogs? That ENID!?!" And so I looked her up and yup. It's that ENID. Maybe let's not bring her back, and look, if you can't think of any good ENIDs, just stick to Oklahoma, OK? 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

UPDATE: I just learned that HUGO Boss was an actual Nazi, so while I still think the HUGO clue is clever, I'm never gonna be able to unsee the Naziness now. (Thank you to the thoughtful reader who filled me in)

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