Mon 19 Jul 2010
Reviews by L. J. Roberts
REX STOUT – Fer-de-Lance. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 24 October 1934. Preceded by an abridged version in The American Magazine, November 1934, as “Point of Death.” Reprinted many times, including once with a title change: Meet Nero Wolfe. Mercury Mystery #37, digest ppbk, abridged, 1941.
Film: Columbia, 1936, as Meet Nero Wolfe (with Edward Arnold and Lionel Stander as Nero Wolfe and Archie; director: Herbert Biberman).
Genre: Private investigator. Leading characters: Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin; 1st in series. Setting: New York City, 1934.
First Sentence: There was no reason why I shouldn’t have been sent for the beer that day, for the last ends of the Fairmont National Bank case had been gathered in the week before and there was nothing for me to do but errands, and Wolfe never hesitated about running me down to Murray Street for a can of shoe-polish if he happened to need one.
Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin’s first published case becomes one of two parts; a young woman hires Wolfe to find her missing brother, and a college president has been murdered on the golf course. The link: a golf club.
The fun of reading Nero Wolfe is not the plot, although this one did have a good twist to it, but for the characters. On one hand, you have Wolfe, the corpulent, beer drinking, gourmand who has orchids cultivated in his attic conservatory.
He is well-read, well-spoken, often difficult to deal with, yet a brilliant deductive and intuitive thinker. On the other hand is Archie, orphaned as a child, lives in Wolfe’s brownstone, uses common English, and drinks milk.
The two characters are complete opposites but one immediately senses the underlying respect and affection which goes beyond a working relationship. It is the dialogue and relationship of these two characters that make the book, and series, work.
An interesting aspect to this book is that we meet the characters seven years in, so references to previous cases abound. In most cases, this would annoy me as there would be that sense of something missing.
Stout, however, is so adept in his writing and his characters are so well developed, the previous case references simply become historical notations. Stout was writing in present time, now history to us.
Because of that, we are presented a living sense of time, place, social mores and behavior. There were certain expressions, common at the time. They are objectionable to us today and serve as a reminder of our advancement from the past.
One element with which I did have a problem was some of Archie’s slang. There were times I had to re-read sentences or paragraphs to understand what he was saying.
It was fun to go back and re-visit Nero and Archie, but not so much as to make me want to reread all the books. However, if you’ve never read Rex Stout, I do recommend picking up at least a few of his books.
Rating: Good.
July 19th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
It is hard to believe that this, the first appearance of Nero Wolfe, was written over 75 years ago. I’ve not read it in a while, but I’m sure that you’re right, LJ, that it’s beginning to show its age.
I did re-read THE LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN not so long ago, however:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=708
in which I said in part:
“… and not all of the characterizations were set in stone at this early date, although many of Wolfe’s many eccentricities had already been established: his rigid schedule, his aversion to leaving his home for the outside world (although he does in League and more often, I suspect, than his reputation would suggest), the orchid room upstairs, and so on.”
And also:
“League is a long book, perhaps a little too long, and the pace sags noticeably in the middle. Wolfe often knows things that neither the reader nor Archie does not, or at least not right away. In 1955 I thought this was a wonderful book, but I can see now why it may not be one for the novice Rex Stout reader to start off with.”
Maybe the same’s true about FER-DE-LANCE. I suppose Stout and Wolfe are not for everyone, but the books have been in print for a long time.
It’s me, I know, but one place I’d disagree with you, LJ, is that I’d recommend everyone picking up all of the Nero Wolfe books.
— Steve
July 19th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I had read a few Nero Wolfe books before I picked up this one, and I was surprised just how complete the whole environment was, as if Wolfe had sprung fully-formed from Stout’s brow. And it didn’t change a damn bit for almost 50 years, either.
I personally think most of the Wolfe novels go on just a little two long. I think the novella was the natural format for the series. Fortunately Stout wrote someting like 39 Wolfe novellas and they’re widely available.
July 19th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
My advice to anyone wanting to try Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin — and these books are among the greatest pleasures in all fiction, not just mystery — is to begin with the post-war works, which still read as very modern, and with Wolfe at the top of his powers (Stout, too) (also Archie). Begin with THE SILENT SPEAKER and travel through A FAMILY AFFAIR, then love these characters so much that the earlier novels — which suffer from Stout’s characters and world evolving, and perhaps too much length — will seem equally wonderful. So wonderful you’ll probably keep going and find yourself reading THE SILENT SPEAKER again.
Also: these are wonderful audio books. Great listening on long car trips.
July 19th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
I generally agree with Max in regard to novice Stout readers, though at some point they have to read BLACK ORCHID and SOME BURIED CAESAR. But considering the books cover some forty years they are remarkably consistent. Archie becomes a little more independent over the years, Wolfe a shade more human (reluctantly and always with a struggle), but read FER-DE-LANCE and any of the later books and it is remarkable how fully the characters and settings already exist from the first word on the first page.
I had read quite a bit of Stout before coming to FER DE LANCE and LEAGUE …, so I probably wasn’t as bothered by the dated elements as if I started with them. Since only three of the books really need to be read in order (the Zeck Trilogy) that is no real problem.
But read just a few Wolfe books? Is that possible? Once I started I had to read them all, and periodically pick one up and end up re-reading four or five and some of the novellas before I can stop myself.
Re the characters in the books Stout himself claimed that Wolfe and Archie were what he called ‘created characters’ in that they were fully (pardon the pun) fleshed out, and that since most books couldn’t handle more than a few such characters the presence of Wolfe and Archie limited him in that area.
I can truly say in the case of Wolfe and Archie Stout left me wanting more, which is a tribute to any writer and especially to a writer who wrote as much as Stout did about Wolfe and Archie.
July 19th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
I discovered Nero Wolfe when I was drafted and had to be hospitalized several times during basic and advance infantry training. Despite fevers and temperatures over 101 degrees, I eagerly looked forward to stopping off at the hospital library and checking out several Nero Wolfe books. These stories probably saved my sanity and helped me to survive the training.
Upon discharge, one of the very first things that I accomplished, was to haunt the second hand paperback stores for a complete set of all the novels and novellas. For me, the books are all about the characters and they hold up very well.
July 19th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Walker
I agree, I’m just reporting what Stout said when someone complained about the characters other than Archie and Wolfe not having much depth.
I always thought that the entire pantheon of regulars as well as the suspects were well drawn, but Stout himself claimed they were not more fully characterized because Wolfe and Archie were so fully drawn. I think he was underestimating himself, but that and the term ‘created characters’ were his.
It is possible though that Stout was merely pointing out one of the obvious differences between the mystery novel and the novel per se. But I can’t say I ever read a Wolfe novel for anything but Wolfe and Archie, however much I enjoyed the other elements along the way.
July 20th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
On second thought, I might revise my thinking about the pre-war books — a couple of them, in particular TOO MANY COOKS and SOME BURIED CAESAR — are fine places to start.
The attention FER DE LANCE and to a slightly lesser degree THE LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN have received have to do with a kneejerk reaction in mystery circles to value the first few books in a series (particularly the very first) more highly than later ones.
I am always hearing that TRUE DETECTIVE is the best of my Nathan Heller novels when I would rate it probably at the bottom (though I unmodestly like them all). I always felt like TD was me building the house. When I did the second one, TRUE CRIME, all I had to do was rearrange the furniture.
July 20th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
I think what happens with a book like TRUE DETECTIVE or the early Wolfe books is that in those cases they are all books that had some of the glamor of the new about them. They were books that caught our attention and made us sit up and take notice, where we were more comfortable with later books, familiar with the elements, and no matter how good they were they could not surprise us in the same way.
I would put both TRUE DETECTIVE and TRUE CRIME high on my list of favorite Heller novels, though I think the best in series (so far) would be STOLEN AWAY and BLOOD AND THUNDER because both of them surprised me about subjects I was familiar with to begin with, and did so with a depth both of feeling for the characters involved (fictional and non fictional) and the time in which they happened. DAMNED IN PARADISE runs a close third, again because it deals with a very well known story and theme and still surprised me.
The ending of STOLEN AWAY still lingers in my conscience as one of the most emotionally satisfying, and, to some extent, devastating finales in the genre.
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