Book Club: The Rubber Band

[dorinda]

The Rubber Band, I think, is where many of the tropes of the Wolfe corpus start to settle down into their familiar patterns. Plus, it has a few of my fannishly-favorite passages!



THE BEGINNING

It starts with Archie being all BORED NAO POKE POKE (as in League), with a lot of badgering. The badgering in this book in general feels much more robust and zingy, with less of the youthful-hero-worship of Fer de Lance. They have many vigorous (and bantery) back-and-forths, and the power dynamic seems more even--as, for instance, later on when Archie starts a sally with an unapologetic "Don't be so damn snooty."

The dart game at the beginning also gives us a nice glimpse into things like 1) Archie The Unreliable Narrator and 2) Physically-Skillful Wolfe. For instance:

What I mean to convey is, it would have been a swell game for a little girls' kindergarten class; no self-respecting boy over six months of age would have wasted much time with it. [...] Over a period of two months Nero Wolfe nicked me for a little worse than eighty-five bucks, playing draw with the Joker and deuces wild, at two bits a go. There was no chance of getting any real accuracy with it, it was mostly luck.

Archie showers the game with scorn, as if it is too sissy and he too much the Red-Blooded American Man to care about it...and at the same time, in this game that's "mostly luck," Wolfe has been consistently stripping Archie of his pocket money for months. Archie's no slouch at darts, either--we see him landing accurate shots into the picture of Clivers. It's just that Wolfe is better (at his STUPID DUMB-LUCK BABY GAME HMF). So if you're ever wondering whether Archie is the kind who might Protest Too Much...yep. :D

THIS IS MY ARCHIE, HE IS AWESOME

One of my favorite tropes that's solidified in this book is the call-and-response bit where a client who wants to tell Wolfe something sensitive/secret will eye Archie suspiciously or even ask that he be sent away, and Wolfe makes an unhesitating and unqualified statement of praise for/trust in Archie. Here it goes like this:

"Is, as I say, confidential." Perry cleared his throat, glancing at me as I opened up my notebook. "I suppose Mr. ..."

"Goodwin." Wolfe poured a glass of beer. "Mr. Goodwin's discretion reaches to infinity. Anything too confidential for him would find me deaf."

Keep an eye out for those. The variations are mighty sweet, and always a pleasure. (Fer de Lance does have a wonderful moment of 'Wolfe highly praising Archie to the client in front of Archie,' when he says to Sarah Barstow, "Mr. Goodwin is a man of discretion, common decency, and immeasurable valor"--but it wasn't yet refined into the two-step version.)

A PENCHANT FOR COWBOYS

The Rubber Band is the first book with a touch of the American (Old) West about it:

-- For one thing, we have Harlan Scovil, a sample of a certain kind of masculinity--subtype, Rural American West--that Archie seems to really like (we see more of this in later stories and books). They don't meet for long, but Scovil's unpretentiousness and rough-hewn down-to-earth nature seem to get high marks. Not to mention his physicality. When he heads for a chair, according to Archie, "He panthered for it."

-- Also, the plot is founded on an event with a very Old West flavor that happened in 1897--which, as liviapenn remarked in the Fer de Lance post, feels weird, especially after reading books at the very end of the series. 1897, and that whole event with the lynch mob and the daring escape on horseback, is well within living memory of many of the characters. (Not to mention WWI--even Clara Fox, the ingenue, was past the age of reason by then.)

A FEW RECURRING CHARACTERS AND THEIR NATURES:

SAUL
In this book, Saul seems finally to be in the place he'll occupy for the rest of the corpus: stealth superhero. We get Archie's very high opinion of him, but also Wolfe's:

-- Archie re-introduces him to us with "He can't push over buildings because he simply hasn't got the size, but there's no other kind of a job he wouldn't earn his money on," and mentions Saul's dazzling photographic memory for faces.

-- Wolfe, in his turn, says "Miss Lindquist, this is Mr. Saul Panzer. I would trust him further than might be thought credible." Plus, later, it's dinnertime and he sends Johnny Keems home while keeping Saul (Saul's presence at the dinner table is not mentioned, but it's not ruled out, either).

We don't yet have the palling-around and cameraderie of Saul & Archie's regular card games, nor yet an onstage glimpse of Saul's personal friendship with Wolfe, but those are only a matter of time.

KEEMS
Johnny Keems still has that combination of attractiveness, vanity, and a presumed desire for Archie's job that is all later given to Orrie. Archie harps a couple times on how handsome Johnny is, and how he's angling for Archie's chair,

Which doesn't bother me a bit, because I know Wolfe would never be able to stand him. He puts slick stuff on his hair and he wears spats, and he would never get the knack of keeping Wolfe on the job by bawling him out properly. I know what I get paid high wages for, though I've never been able to decide whether Wolfe knows that I know.

(Doesn't bother you a BIT, honey, I'm sure. That's why you keep bringing it up, along with how good looking he is. *pat pat*)

(Also, there's that distilled focus on Archie's job partly being goading and gadflying. So this is the answer to liviapenn's question in the Fer de Lance post, about when Archie first mentioned it.)

CRAMER
Actually lights and smokes his cigar! (Though he chews them as well.)

ROWCLIFF & HOMBERT
Now we get a couple of recurring antagonists. There's Lieutenant Rowcliff, who gets off on the worst of wrong feet with Wolfe and Archie by invading the Browstone with a search warrant. His relationship with them never recovers.

Police Commissioner Hombert spends his onstage time huffing and puffing and threatening and goggling his eyes. He's sort of delightful in a relentless and totally wrongheaded way.

ETHELBERT (!) HITCHCOCK
Wolfe's counterpart in England, who comes in handy in the next book as well.

HENRY H. BARBER
Their lawyer at this point--no Nathaniel Parker yet.

WOLFE AND WOMEN

You know, here Wolfe doesn't appear as disturbed by women, it seems to me, as he does later. In this book, he has that Lewis-Carroll-style list of things for which women are best-adapted ("chicanery, sophistry, self-adornment, cajolery, mystification and incubation") which seems more like disdain than perturbation, a much cooler and more distant frame of mind--and more importantly, this disdain doesn't actually have any material effects.

Like, here it's Wolfe's idea that Clara Fox stay the night; there are later books in which Archie has to push fiercely for that sort of thing and doesn't always succeed. And in any case, Wolfe actually seems to approve of her from the beginning, the way he smiles at her levelheadedness and recites poetry and hums to her a bit over dinner.

Not to mention that, when she's going hysterical after Walsh gets killed, "Wolfe stepped to her and put his hand on her shoulder." !!! In later books, when a woman is revving up to cry or otherwise display uncontrolled emotions, Wolfe becomes visibly uncomfortable or even fearful, demanding/begging that Archie do something, make her stop. We see no sign of that here, nor of Archie's later awareness of Wolfe's aversion to hysterics (and thus the way he'll later work hard to keep female clients/witnesses from breaking down, or worry privately over their composure, fearing a disruption of the investigation when Wolfe flips out).

ARCHIE AND WOMEN

Here we have one of Archie's motivational "don't make me leave you for a woman" moments:

"If you take the case on we'll at least get expenses, and if you don't take it on Clara Fox may get five years for grand larceny and I'll have to move to Ossining so as to be near her and take her tidbits on visiting day. Balance the mud-shoveling against the loss of my services--but that sounds like visitors. I'll finish my appeal later."

He doesn't really keep on with this idea, though--certainly not like he does in some of the other stories and books. Not even much to himself, really, even before Horrocks is on the scene. And in re: Horrocks--the dynamic of "young levelheaded ingenue pursued by a sort of dopey, easily-led young man" reminds me of a similar relationship coming up in The Red Box.

...SPEAKING OF WOMEN, HERE'S THE ERSATZ MARRIAGE

Clara Fox is the one bringing it to the fore this time:

"You know, Mr. Goodwin, this house represents the most insolent denial of female rights the mind of man has ever conceived. No woman in it from top to bottom, but the routine is faultless, the food is perfect, and the sweeping and dusting are impeccable. I have never been a housewife, but I can't overlook this challenge. I'm going to marry Mr. Wolfe, and I know a girl that will be just the thing for you, and of course our friends will be in and out a good deal. This place needs some upsetting."

...but of course Archie puts the kibosh on that homewrecking tout de suite.

PAST CASES

An interesting mixture here, of 'past cases' we've never seen, and a past case that's actually recent enough for us to be in on it:

Cramer, chewing his cigar, looked at him. "You know something, Wolfe? Someday you're going to fall off and get hurt."
"You said those very words to me, in this room, eight years ago."

and

It was Morley who would have lost his job, and maybe something more, but for Wolfe pulling him out of a hole in the Banister-Schurman business about three years before.

versus Archie yelling at Cramer:

"How about that cripple Paul Chapin and that bird Bowen? Did he obstruct justice that time?"

And Wolfe to Cramer:

"As you know, I leave my house rarely, and only when impelled by exigent personal considerations. The last time I left it was in the taxicab driven by Dora Chapin, for the purpose of saving the life of my assistant, Mr. Goodwin."

...which is interesting, because if we aren't coming to the novels chronologically, those lines might potentially spoil us, at least vaguely, for parts of League. But in any case, the reference slips right in among all the other past cases, painting a backdrop of history and cases all woven together.

THE MYSTERIOUS TALE OF THE SILK PAJAMAS

There is something going on here behind the scenes with Archie's pajamas! Clara Fox has been invited to sleep there, and Wolfe says:

"Mr. Goodwin owns some handsome silk pajamas which his sister sent him on his birthday, from Ohio. They are hideous, but handsome. I'm sure he won't mind. I presume, Fritz, you'll find them in the chest of drawers near the window. Unless... would you prefer to get them for Miss Fox yourself, Archie?"

I could have thrown my desk at him. He knew damn well what I thought of those pajamas. I was so sore I suppose it showed in my cheeks, because I saw Fritz pull in his lower lip with his teeth. I was slower on the come-back than usual, and I never did get to make one, for at that instant the doorbell rang, which was a piece of luck for Nero Wolfe."

Archie goes to the door and is nearly bowled over by two cops, and he blames The Pajama Issue:

the cause of my taking something for granted when I shouldn't, since that's always a bad thing to do in our business, was that my mind was still engaged with Wolfe's vulgar attempt to be funny.

My question is...what is going on with Wolfe, Archie, and the pajamas?

-- How should we parse "hideous, but handsome"?

-- What does Wolfe know damn well that Archie thinks of the pajamas?

-- Archie! Why so touchy?! I mean, he's distracted from his actual job, he sounds shockingly stiffnecked about the "vulgar" joking--this, given the sorts of things Archie says to Wolfe without a qualm--and even more, his reaction, from the imaginary thrown desk to his reaction actually showing in his face so that Fritz reacts to it (is it the red flushing of anger? Is it a blush?)...it just doesn't seem like anything he can take in his stride, which is surprising.

AND SPEAKING OF PAJAMAS

...in a related note, we find out that Wolfe gave Archie a dressing gown for Christmas four years ago. And--of course!--it is yellow. The color Wolfe wears next to his skin, the color Wolfe sleeps in. The intimacies revolving around Wolfe's involvement with Archie's nightwear in this book are manifold. ♥

POWERS OF DISSIMULATION

There seems to be more emphasis in this book than in the preceding books on Wolfe's efforts to keep Archie out of certain things, and Archie's disgruntlement over it (it becomes very common, of course, throughout the corpus). Archie claims not to feel too tetchy, though, despite at one point kicking over his wastebasket:

My powers of dissimulation were being saved from strain again. But that kind of thing didn't really get me sore, for I knew perfectly well why Wolfe didn't always point out to me the hole he was getting ready to crawl through: he knew that half the time I'd be back at him with damn good proof that it couldn't he done, which would only have been a nuisance, since he intended to do it anyway.

As more of them mount up through the series--those claims (at least, via Archie's translation of Wolfe's reason for keeping secrets from him) that Archie's powers of dissimulation mustn't be overworked--I'd love to discuss it further. Because...how are his powers? Is he really truly lacking in the lying department? Does Wolfe believe that? Does Archie? (And after all, in this book we do have Archie's sudden anger apparently showing in his cheeks...) Or is the secrecy really for some other reason(s), as Archie claims above?

(I know that on a Doylist level, it's to keep us as readers out of parts of the loop so we can be surprised. *g* But I'm talking Watsonian/within-the-narrative, here.)

THAT INTIMATE PSYCHIC CONNECTION

This book actually has one of my favorite passages of all time! I've quoted it to other fannish friends when introducing them to Wolfe and Archie. It's Archie rhapsodizing a bit about his ability to read Wolfe through their ineffable connection:

Wolfe was drinking beer and I was watching him out of the corner of my eye. I was keyed up, and I knew why I was, it was something about him. A hundred times I tried to decide just what it was that made it so plain to me when he had the feeling that was he closing in and was about ready for the blow-up. Once I would think that it was only that he sat differently in his chair, a little further forward, and another time I would guess that it was the way he made movements, not quicker exactly but closer together, and still another time I would light on something else. I doubt if it was any of those. Maybe it was electric. There was more of a current turned on inside of him, and somehow I felt it.

MAN THAT'S GOOD STUFF. *whew* The intimacy of it, the acknowledgement of Archie's constant close scrutiny and fixation on Wolfe, the idea that it might just be AN ELECTRIC CURRENT BETWEEN THEM. I mean, cue the violins. I need a cigarette.

ATTACK AND AFTERMATH

As in Fer de Lance, we have Wolfe in sudden mortal danger, and Archie's heightened reactions. However, now we also have the final piece of the tableau: Archie's smart-ass remark once he knows all is well.

As a reflex, Archie shoots Perry just as Perry is shooting Wolfe--and then:

I dived around the desk for Wolfe, who was sitting there looking surprised for once in his life, feeling with his right hand at his upper left arm.

Him protesting, I pulled his coat open and the sleeve off, and the spot of blood on the outside of the arm of the canary-yellow shirt looked better to me than any orchid. I stuck my finger in the hole the bullet had made and ripped the sleeve and took a look, and then grinned into the fat devil's face. "Just the meat, and not much of that. You don't use that arm much anyhow."

The diving! The manhandling! The sheer relief, and the comparison of Wolfe's mostly-unwounded arm, Wolfe's safety, to something we know Archie finds beautiful. Ripping Wolfe's sleeve right open like he's Captain Kirk or something. Grinning at him, and smoothing over those moments of jagged emotion with a bit of snark (which surely must be as reassuring to Wolfe as it is to Archie). How much do I love it, let me count the ways!

ASSORTED ADORABLENESS

-- Wolfe winks at Archie in this book. Once, it's more of a signal not to bring Clivers in as a surprise for Muir. But once, it seems to have no function other than being ADORBS:

Having sent Orrie home and Saul to the kitchen, he was ready for me, and he disclosed the nature of my mission with Mike Walsh. It wasn't precisely what I had expected, but I pretended it was by keeping nonchalant and casual. He drank beer and wiped his lips and told me, "I'm sorry, Archie, if this bores you."

I said, "Oh, I expect it. Just a matter of routine."

He winked at me, and I turned and picked up my milk to keep from grinning back at him, and the telephone rang.

...OH, BOYS.

-- Archie physically blocks and forces two cops out of the house at once as they try to get past him. Horatius at the bridge!

-- Some of my favorite exclamatory lines from Wolfe:

* "Great hounds and Cerberus!"

* "Confound all of you! You marquises that need protection, you hyenas of finance, you upholders of the power to persecute and defame!"

(...and in the same speech...)
* "If you want to protect your precious marquis, for God's sake do so! Surround him with a ring of iron and steel, or immerse him in antiseptic jelly! But don't annoy me when I'm trying to work!"

-- It's made clear that Wolfe is a man of appetites, but not greedy withal: when there will be an unexpected group for dinner, Wolfe shares around the choicest food even though that means he will go without some. Fritz offers to serve the guests lower-quality fare, and Wolfe categorically refuses. "If there are to be hardships, I must share them." Awww.

-- Archie offers to dress up in one of these for Rowcliff and Cramer. Come clean, Archie, did you reeeeeeally win it in a raffle?

-- Archie says to Clara Fox, "Nero Wolfe is probably even better than I think he is, and that's a mouthful." I...just can't help feeling innuendoish about that.

-- We have the Man! Of! Action! again, from Wolfe:

"Pleasant afternoon, Archie?"
"No, sir. Putrid. I went around to Perry's office."
"Indeed. A man of action must expect such vexations. Tell me about it."

It's almost like this is one of Wolfe's pet phrases for Archie or something, given that each time we've heard it it's come from Wolfe first. ♥

-- In this book, Wolfe's and Archie's bedrooms are still mentioned on the same floor: "where he had lived for over twenty years, and I had slept on the same floor with him for eight"--boy, that phrasing is so intimate, it's no wonder the books shortly move Archie up a floor. :D

Thoughts? Comments?

...oh, yes, the book also has a plot. *g* I read a review on Amazon that complained about piles of coincidence, but I admit, I don't see it. I mean, it seems super-coincidental at first, and that's why the two cases (and Perry/Coleman as the nexus) need a genius to unravel them and knit them back up. But I think by the end it's pretty clear--Perry first found Clara Fox because he saw her ad seeking the others in the Rubber Band, and he kept her close, and then tried to frame her once she was making too much progress. Perry had already hired Wolfe before, as Archie mentions...and unfortunately for Perry, his high opinion of Wolfe on that case influenced Clara to seek Wolfe out for her own problem. Cue the super-genius and the knitting. I suppose the biggest actual coincidences are either largely-immaterial (Archie talking about Clivers at the beginning because he read about him in the paper) or highlighted as such in the book (Clivers being found over Walsh's body). At least, that's how it seems to me.


How about y'all?

(ETA: I'm having tag trouble...I can't seem to make the tag 'books: the rubber band' stick. Is there a permission I need to be granted, or can a mod do it?)

Comments

[jest]

If were talking 1930s, men's socks were held up by garters, which the trousers would catch on and thus need to be shaken down.

In Too Many Cooks Archie learns some word that means "Chief" and confeses that he can't wait to use it on Wolfe because he knows Wolfe won't know it. It is SO CUTE!