Book Club: Fer-de-Lance as Pilot Episode
Apr. 5th, 2010 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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milk_and_orchidsOkay, so I started working on my Fer-de-Lance post and, like, fifteen paragraphs later, I realized that it was getting really long and kind of needed to be two posts, one talking about Fer-de-Lance as the "pilot episode" for the whole series and discussing the general set-up & dynamics that are established in this book, and then another one talking about Fer-de-Lance specifically. So, here's the first post, I'm still working on the other one. :)
Fer-de-Lance is interesting in that, as you'd probably expect from a first book in a series (especially one where the author couldn't be sure it would become a popular series) a lot of stuff is established that later gets changed, from minor details of canon to major shifts in characterization.
Throughout the series, Rex Stout regularly contradicts himself on various minor canon details, most often (according to him) because he forgot that he'd already established something else. I kind of like this-- it makes it feel really organic, and perversely it makes it easier to believe in the "reality" of Archie as the author of the books, because Archie *would* totally (1) lie about things and (2) not bother to keep up a consistent lie when it's really obvious that he's lying about something, and why. *Obviously* he's not going to tell us the real address of the brownstone, or the real first names of important people who were involved in Wolfe's cases. That would be why (for example) Orrie's first name is Orvald in one book and Orville in another, because that's not his real name in any case to begin with, it's a pseud that Archie made up. So there's no real point in being consistent with it anyway.
That being said, there's a whole huge laundry list of things that are set up in Fer-de-Lance that are contradicted, corrected or ignored in later books. It's interesting to think about them from both a Watsonian & Doylist POV, both as things that Stout changed to make stories/characters more interesting, (or just because he forgot he'd established something one way already) and also as things that Archie changed around, either because felt like he'd revealed too much and needed to create confusion on certain points, or alternately because he'd been too cautious and after a while loosened up and could tell more of the truth about things. Which are which, though-- that's definitely a point to discuss. *G*
Some of the details that are set up in "Fer-de-Lance" and either changed later or never referred to again:
-- Archie mentions that pre-Depression both Saul and Fred were Wolfe's salaried employees, rather than freelancers. Also, Fritz drives the car. I'm pretty sure Fritz never drives the car after "Fer-de-Lance." In later books Archie is Wolfe's only permanent employee (well, permanent detective-related employee, you know what I mean) and also the only one who ever drives the car.
-- Wolfe's mother is mentioned; she's alive and lives in Budapest. (IIRC, this is the only hint we get that Wolfe might be anything but a natural-born American until many books later.) Also Archie mentions that both his parents both died when he was a kid. This does get contradicted in a later books, but it could really go either way-- he could be lying in Fer-de-Lance, or he could be lying later on. I personally like to think of Archie as an orphan, possibly with siblings, but definitely an orphan.
-- The layout of everyone's sleeping arrangements switches around. Fritz is on the top floor, and Archie and Wolfe sleep on the same floor. Theodore is also on the top floor, which doesn't change. Purely from a logistics standpoint it makes more sense to me to have Fritz in the basement-- he gets way more room, which is appropriate to his status, plus he's closer to the service entrance to accept deliveries, closer to the kitchen in general, has to deal with less stairs (although of course if he had stayed on the top floor, there's always the elevator), etc.
Getting away from minor details & into major characterization changes--
-- The way Archie relates to Saul and Orrie completely reverses. He seems to have warm feelings towards Orrie, or at least look forward to hanging out with him, and he and Saul snap at each other in a much jerkier, less playful way than they usually do. (Also, Orrie chews tobacco; maybe originally he was going to be one of Rex Stout's cowboy types instead of a sophisticated city guy?)
-- Theodore also changes around completely-- Archie calls him "Horstmann," whereas in later books he's just "Theodore," and late in chapter 15 of FDL he actually willingly goes up and hangs out in the plant rooms with him for a while, in an attempt to cheer himself up. (He also mentions, introducing Theodore, that he has a contentious relationship with Wolfe and often yells at him about stuff-- as opposed to later books where Archie resents Theodore for "babying" him.) Just from a story-structuring POV it makes more sense for Archie and Theodore to not like each other-- it's an excuse not have *another* character actually involved in the everyday running of the household or commenting on the various cases that push their way into the brownstone. (Now that I think about it, *does* Theodore not like Archie, actually? He really doesn't seem to have a personal problem with Archie the way that Archie has a problem with him, but maybe if we were seeing things from Theodore's POV we'd learn differently).
IMO, Theodore getting on Archie's nerves adds a nice note of reality to the world of the series, in that there's always one person like that, in every extended family or workplace, somebody who just gets on your nerves and yet you have to co-exist with them, because people have to co-exist with each other, and there's just nothing you can do about it. Without the Archie-Theodore dislike to add a note of discord, the brownstone might just be *too* perfect and homey and domestic and generally adorable. Yes, we'd still have the Wolfe-Archie and Wolfe-Fritz bickering, but we know that in reality they respect and esteem each other underneath and the bickering is really just everybody trying to prod everybody else to do their best for the greater good-- it's not like anybody is going to say something totally unforgivable while arguing about garlic vs. onions or whether Archie needs a new typewriter. But Archie doesn't respect or esteem Theodore, he just plain *doesn't like* him. (To the point of being kind of unfair to him, imo, in some books.)
-- Archie and Wolfe's relationship also changes tenor over the next couple of books. It's definitely very different in the post-war stories, so it'll be interesting to read more closely as the discussion goes along in chronological order and try to pinpoint the exact change. But anyway, in the earlier books, Archie just seems so much *younger*, especially in Fer-de-Lance-- I'm thinking of a bit in Chapter 13: Then I went to the kitchen. Fritz was making cherry tarts; a pan was just out of the oven and I nabbed one and stuffed it in and darned near burned my tongue off. That's totally adorable, and also totally *twelve years old.* Anyway, this younger!Archie is much more admiring of Wolfe, much more of a Kid Sidekick type than an equal partner. Personally I don't see Fer-de-Lance Archie as someone who could (if he wanted) be successful as a private detective all by himself.
I don't remember when in the series that Archie first mentions that one of the most important parts of his job is, basically, kicking Wolfe in the ass to get him to work, and that Wolfe knows it and *he* knows it-- but you don't get any hint of that here. Wolfe has a relapse in Chapter 6, but Archie clearly states: I had never really understood Wolfe’s relapses. ..... He was out and that was all there was to it. Nothing that I could say made the slightest dent on him.
FDL!Archie enjoys the occasional sarcastic remark, but he would never dream of pulling some of the stunts he pulls in later books. Wolfe is definitely the man in charge and Archie is just "omg, I'm so lucky to be here watching the Great Man work, I've learned so much from him, eeee!" Which, although it is totally adorable to watch Archie mooning around the office man-crushing on how tooootally aaaawesome Wolfe is, sooo smart and sooo scary with that level tone in his voice and so on and so forth-- probably would have gotten tiresome after a while. I mean, I like worshipful man-crushing Archie, but I also like how he is later on, say in "Black Orchids", when Wolfe wanders off for like *five minutes* and Archie freaks out like he's missing a small child. Because clearly if he takes his eyes off Wolfe for even a moment, Wolfe will immediately "fall in a hole" or "catch cold" or be lured into a van by a man with candy. FDL!Archie would never *worry* about Wolfe quite like that.
-- Another thing I'll be keeping an eye out for is the first time Archie mentions the constant dance of quitting and getting fired that he and Wolfe do as a way to relieve the stress/tension of their relationship or just as a manipulative tactic in an argument-- interestingly it's tied into Wolfe's "relapse" in this book:
At such times I usually had my tongue out from running all over town from the Battery to Bronx Park, trying to find some herb or root or maybe cordial that they needed in the dish they were going to do next. The only time I ever quit Wolfe was when he sent me to a Brooklyn dock where a tramp steamer from China was tied up, to try to buy some badden-root from the captain. The captain must have had a cargo of opium or something to make him suspicious; anyway he took it for granted that I was looking for trouble and filled my order by having half a dozen skinny savages wrap things around my skull. I quit the next afternoon, phoning from the hospital, but a day later Wolfe came and took me home, and I was so astonished that he actually came himself that I forgot I had quit. That finished that relapse, too.
I honestly kind of can't believe this is just a throwaway reference, because it's totally an entire romantic comedy third-act in a four-sentence flashback. Three, if you cut the introductory sentence and just start with "The only time I ever quit Wolfe..." (And, okay, how telling is it that Archie phrases it like that-- he's not quitting *his job*, he's quitting *Wolfe*.)
And Wolfe comes down to the hospital! And Archie is "astonished!" And it's super adorable that the resolution is specifically Archie "forgetting" that he quit-- not telling Wolfe "Hey, I take it back, you'd fall in a hole without me, so I un-quit," or meekly asking for his job back and getting re-hired, or even opportunistically hitting Wolfe up for a raise like he would in later books. He just forgets it, in the emotion of the moment-- and of course Wolfe wouldn't bring it up either. He'd be way too proud to ask Archie to come back after he nearly got him killed going out after condiments. I can totally see him just sort of assuming that Archie will pack his stuff and leave as soon as he recovers from getting bonked in the head, and then the part where Archie shows up in the door of the office on Monday and Wolfe is pretending to read papers or work on the case, making like he never had a relapse. And Archie hangs out for a second seeing if Wolfe is going to say something, and Wolfe of course doesn't, because he totally wasn't worried about Archie quitting!! Not at all!! And then both of them just go about their business pretending they're not having an Extremely Significant Relationship Moment, in an "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?!" kind of way. <3
It's too bad that you couldn't really *write* "How Wolfe And Archie Super-Adorably Hooked Up After Archie Was Bonked On The Head On The Docks" without including Archie's early-days casual racism, which is not so bad (and by not so bad I mean only in comparison to other parts in Fer-de-Lance. Which sadly isn't saying much) in the short form version but would be kind of unavoidably ugly in an expanded version. Unless you wrote it from like 2010!Archie's POV, I suppose.
-- Last thing I'll mention, a bit from Chapter 3 where Archie is describing his room: I had lived there seven years, and it certainly was home; and seemed likely to remain so for another seven, or even twenty-seven, for the only girl I had ever been really soft on had found another bargain she liked better. That was how I happened to meet Wolfe - but that story isn't for me to tell, at least not yet. There are one or two little points about it that will need clearing up some day. .... So this totally sets up the Wolfe-Archie relationship as an erzatz marriage, I mean there's no other way to read that, basically. Second, it is intriguingly mysterious-- what about it could still be for Archie "not to tell" *seven years* after this girl ditched him? What could still be a secret? I mean, you'd think that anything that's still a secret after seven years is the kind of thing that needs to stay a secret forever. Like, suppose maybe Archie's girl killed someone and Archie covered it up. (I don't really think it was anything that dramatic, but just for example.) OK, I can see him saying in that case "I can't talk about it, it's a secret" but then why go on to say that it still needs to be cleared up "some day?" What could still need to be cleared up? And then, cleared up between who? Archie and the girl? Archie and the Other Guy she dumped him for? Archie and Wolfe? It's just really curious.
-- Wolfe's characterization also starts to evolve, shifting away from kind of a moody, deep, tortured super-genius in FDL to a more human, flawed (petty, lazy, etc.) man in later books-- it's kind of cute to imagine that it's because Archie himself is maturing and isn't as over-awed by Wolfe as he used to be. I think I'll have more to say about that in the actual FDL-plot-related post.
Fer-de-Lance is interesting in that, as you'd probably expect from a first book in a series (especially one where the author couldn't be sure it would become a popular series) a lot of stuff is established that later gets changed, from minor details of canon to major shifts in characterization.
Throughout the series, Rex Stout regularly contradicts himself on various minor canon details, most often (according to him) because he forgot that he'd already established something else. I kind of like this-- it makes it feel really organic, and perversely it makes it easier to believe in the "reality" of Archie as the author of the books, because Archie *would* totally (1) lie about things and (2) not bother to keep up a consistent lie when it's really obvious that he's lying about something, and why. *Obviously* he's not going to tell us the real address of the brownstone, or the real first names of important people who were involved in Wolfe's cases. That would be why (for example) Orrie's first name is Orvald in one book and Orville in another, because that's not his real name in any case to begin with, it's a pseud that Archie made up. So there's no real point in being consistent with it anyway.
That being said, there's a whole huge laundry list of things that are set up in Fer-de-Lance that are contradicted, corrected or ignored in later books. It's interesting to think about them from both a Watsonian & Doylist POV, both as things that Stout changed to make stories/characters more interesting, (or just because he forgot he'd established something one way already) and also as things that Archie changed around, either because felt like he'd revealed too much and needed to create confusion on certain points, or alternately because he'd been too cautious and after a while loosened up and could tell more of the truth about things. Which are which, though-- that's definitely a point to discuss. *G*
Some of the details that are set up in "Fer-de-Lance" and either changed later or never referred to again:
-- Archie mentions that pre-Depression both Saul and Fred were Wolfe's salaried employees, rather than freelancers. Also, Fritz drives the car. I'm pretty sure Fritz never drives the car after "Fer-de-Lance." In later books Archie is Wolfe's only permanent employee (well, permanent detective-related employee, you know what I mean) and also the only one who ever drives the car.
-- Wolfe's mother is mentioned; she's alive and lives in Budapest. (IIRC, this is the only hint we get that Wolfe might be anything but a natural-born American until many books later.) Also Archie mentions that both his parents both died when he was a kid. This does get contradicted in a later books, but it could really go either way-- he could be lying in Fer-de-Lance, or he could be lying later on. I personally like to think of Archie as an orphan, possibly with siblings, but definitely an orphan.
-- The layout of everyone's sleeping arrangements switches around. Fritz is on the top floor, and Archie and Wolfe sleep on the same floor. Theodore is also on the top floor, which doesn't change. Purely from a logistics standpoint it makes more sense to me to have Fritz in the basement-- he gets way more room, which is appropriate to his status, plus he's closer to the service entrance to accept deliveries, closer to the kitchen in general, has to deal with less stairs (although of course if he had stayed on the top floor, there's always the elevator), etc.
Getting away from minor details & into major characterization changes--
-- The way Archie relates to Saul and Orrie completely reverses. He seems to have warm feelings towards Orrie, or at least look forward to hanging out with him, and he and Saul snap at each other in a much jerkier, less playful way than they usually do. (Also, Orrie chews tobacco; maybe originally he was going to be one of Rex Stout's cowboy types instead of a sophisticated city guy?)
-- Theodore also changes around completely-- Archie calls him "Horstmann," whereas in later books he's just "Theodore," and late in chapter 15 of FDL he actually willingly goes up and hangs out in the plant rooms with him for a while, in an attempt to cheer himself up. (He also mentions, introducing Theodore, that he has a contentious relationship with Wolfe and often yells at him about stuff-- as opposed to later books where Archie resents Theodore for "babying" him.) Just from a story-structuring POV it makes more sense for Archie and Theodore to not like each other-- it's an excuse not have *another* character actually involved in the everyday running of the household or commenting on the various cases that push their way into the brownstone. (Now that I think about it, *does* Theodore not like Archie, actually? He really doesn't seem to have a personal problem with Archie the way that Archie has a problem with him, but maybe if we were seeing things from Theodore's POV we'd learn differently).
IMO, Theodore getting on Archie's nerves adds a nice note of reality to the world of the series, in that there's always one person like that, in every extended family or workplace, somebody who just gets on your nerves and yet you have to co-exist with them, because people have to co-exist with each other, and there's just nothing you can do about it. Without the Archie-Theodore dislike to add a note of discord, the brownstone might just be *too* perfect and homey and domestic and generally adorable. Yes, we'd still have the Wolfe-Archie and Wolfe-Fritz bickering, but we know that in reality they respect and esteem each other underneath and the bickering is really just everybody trying to prod everybody else to do their best for the greater good-- it's not like anybody is going to say something totally unforgivable while arguing about garlic vs. onions or whether Archie needs a new typewriter. But Archie doesn't respect or esteem Theodore, he just plain *doesn't like* him. (To the point of being kind of unfair to him, imo, in some books.)
-- Archie and Wolfe's relationship also changes tenor over the next couple of books. It's definitely very different in the post-war stories, so it'll be interesting to read more closely as the discussion goes along in chronological order and try to pinpoint the exact change. But anyway, in the earlier books, Archie just seems so much *younger*, especially in Fer-de-Lance-- I'm thinking of a bit in Chapter 13: Then I went to the kitchen. Fritz was making cherry tarts; a pan was just out of the oven and I nabbed one and stuffed it in and darned near burned my tongue off. That's totally adorable, and also totally *twelve years old.* Anyway, this younger!Archie is much more admiring of Wolfe, much more of a Kid Sidekick type than an equal partner. Personally I don't see Fer-de-Lance Archie as someone who could (if he wanted) be successful as a private detective all by himself.
I don't remember when in the series that Archie first mentions that one of the most important parts of his job is, basically, kicking Wolfe in the ass to get him to work, and that Wolfe knows it and *he* knows it-- but you don't get any hint of that here. Wolfe has a relapse in Chapter 6, but Archie clearly states: I had never really understood Wolfe’s relapses. ..... He was out and that was all there was to it. Nothing that I could say made the slightest dent on him.
FDL!Archie enjoys the occasional sarcastic remark, but he would never dream of pulling some of the stunts he pulls in later books. Wolfe is definitely the man in charge and Archie is just "omg, I'm so lucky to be here watching the Great Man work, I've learned so much from him, eeee!" Which, although it is totally adorable to watch Archie mooning around the office man-crushing on how tooootally aaaawesome Wolfe is, sooo smart and sooo scary with that level tone in his voice and so on and so forth-- probably would have gotten tiresome after a while. I mean, I like worshipful man-crushing Archie, but I also like how he is later on, say in "Black Orchids", when Wolfe wanders off for like *five minutes* and Archie freaks out like he's missing a small child. Because clearly if he takes his eyes off Wolfe for even a moment, Wolfe will immediately "fall in a hole" or "catch cold" or be lured into a van by a man with candy. FDL!Archie would never *worry* about Wolfe quite like that.
-- Another thing I'll be keeping an eye out for is the first time Archie mentions the constant dance of quitting and getting fired that he and Wolfe do as a way to relieve the stress/tension of their relationship or just as a manipulative tactic in an argument-- interestingly it's tied into Wolfe's "relapse" in this book:
At such times I usually had my tongue out from running all over town from the Battery to Bronx Park, trying to find some herb or root or maybe cordial that they needed in the dish they were going to do next. The only time I ever quit Wolfe was when he sent me to a Brooklyn dock where a tramp steamer from China was tied up, to try to buy some badden-root from the captain. The captain must have had a cargo of opium or something to make him suspicious; anyway he took it for granted that I was looking for trouble and filled my order by having half a dozen skinny savages wrap things around my skull. I quit the next afternoon, phoning from the hospital, but a day later Wolfe came and took me home, and I was so astonished that he actually came himself that I forgot I had quit. That finished that relapse, too.
I honestly kind of can't believe this is just a throwaway reference, because it's totally an entire romantic comedy third-act in a four-sentence flashback. Three, if you cut the introductory sentence and just start with "The only time I ever quit Wolfe..." (And, okay, how telling is it that Archie phrases it like that-- he's not quitting *his job*, he's quitting *Wolfe*.)
And Wolfe comes down to the hospital! And Archie is "astonished!" And it's super adorable that the resolution is specifically Archie "forgetting" that he quit-- not telling Wolfe "Hey, I take it back, you'd fall in a hole without me, so I un-quit," or meekly asking for his job back and getting re-hired, or even opportunistically hitting Wolfe up for a raise like he would in later books. He just forgets it, in the emotion of the moment-- and of course Wolfe wouldn't bring it up either. He'd be way too proud to ask Archie to come back after he nearly got him killed going out after condiments. I can totally see him just sort of assuming that Archie will pack his stuff and leave as soon as he recovers from getting bonked in the head, and then the part where Archie shows up in the door of the office on Monday and Wolfe is pretending to read papers or work on the case, making like he never had a relapse. And Archie hangs out for a second seeing if Wolfe is going to say something, and Wolfe of course doesn't, because he totally wasn't worried about Archie quitting!! Not at all!! And then both of them just go about their business pretending they're not having an Extremely Significant Relationship Moment, in an "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?!" kind of way. <3
It's too bad that you couldn't really *write* "How Wolfe And Archie Super-Adorably Hooked Up After Archie Was Bonked On The Head On The Docks" without including Archie's early-days casual racism, which is not so bad (and by not so bad I mean only in comparison to other parts in Fer-de-Lance. Which sadly isn't saying much) in the short form version but would be kind of unavoidably ugly in an expanded version. Unless you wrote it from like 2010!Archie's POV, I suppose.
-- Last thing I'll mention, a bit from Chapter 3 where Archie is describing his room: I had lived there seven years, and it certainly was home; and seemed likely to remain so for another seven, or even twenty-seven, for the only girl I had ever been really soft on had found another bargain she liked better. That was how I happened to meet Wolfe - but that story isn't for me to tell, at least not yet. There are one or two little points about it that will need clearing up some day. .... So this totally sets up the Wolfe-Archie relationship as an erzatz marriage, I mean there's no other way to read that, basically. Second, it is intriguingly mysterious-- what about it could still be for Archie "not to tell" *seven years* after this girl ditched him? What could still be a secret? I mean, you'd think that anything that's still a secret after seven years is the kind of thing that needs to stay a secret forever. Like, suppose maybe Archie's girl killed someone and Archie covered it up. (I don't really think it was anything that dramatic, but just for example.) OK, I can see him saying in that case "I can't talk about it, it's a secret" but then why go on to say that it still needs to be cleared up "some day?" What could still need to be cleared up? And then, cleared up between who? Archie and the girl? Archie and the Other Guy she dumped him for? Archie and Wolfe? It's just really curious.
-- Wolfe's characterization also starts to evolve, shifting away from kind of a moody, deep, tortured super-genius in FDL to a more human, flawed (petty, lazy, etc.) man in later books-- it's kind of cute to imagine that it's because Archie himself is maturing and isn't as over-awed by Wolfe as he used to be. I think I'll have more to say about that in the actual FDL-plot-related post.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 07:36 am (UTC)And, yes, every time Wolfe hires Orrie I think it is just to goad Archie.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 09:42 am (UTC)I mean, they want to be big shots, not do the dusting in the office and arranging chairs and typing out orchid records.
*nodding* And also, considering pros vs. cons specifically for Johnny and Orrie, I have to think it's a pretty serious drawback for a young, single, handsome ladykiller to NEVER EVER be able to take a girl back to "your place," because (1) you live with your boss and (2) your boss is Wolfe. I mean basically you either never sleep with a girl again or you only sleep with girls who don't care if you roll out of bed at 3am and go home, EVERY TIME, which, ok, might not actually be a problem for Orrie as written, but still, you have to figure even a casual sex partner would eventually be like "seriously, you always have to take off afterwards? Seriously."
(This is of course not a problem with Lily Rowan because she is the most awesome lady friend in the world, and very understanding re: Nero Wolfe's requirements, and probably doesn't want Archie stealing the covers all night anyway, so there. But Orrie and Johnny don't have the special qualities required to attract a woman like Lily. *G*)
I've always felt that the real reason Archie is so threatened by Johnny and Orrie is because Archie has moments when he is fairly insecure about his looks and it makes him nervous when Wolfe has other attractive young men vying for his attention.
Aaaawwww, poor Archie!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-06 12:24 pm (UTC)