A colleague of
mine once told me that whenever he was doing research in the library, after he
had located the desired book, he turned around and selected a volume at random
from the opposite shelf. He called this
‘serendipity research’ and claimed it frequently gave him new insight into the
topic he was researching.
I’ve tried this
method a few times myself, but unfortunately, I have a mind like a ping-pong
ball. I start out researching British
logistics in the Revolutionary War and end up reading about sewage treatment plants in
Mozambique. The problem seems to be that
I will read anything from soup cans to westerns—anything but romance novels,
that is. (My taste in westerns is
old-fashioned: the hero is only allowed
to kiss either the schoolmarm or his horse.
I recommend the works of James
Reasoner, a
grade school classmate.)
Now that I’ve
retired from the classroom, I've decided to give myself a small gift: I’m going to buy and reread all of the Nero
Wolfe books by Rex Stout—in order. After
a protracted search, I think there is space on the top of the second bookcase
in the guest bedroom. I thought I had
located space for another entire bookcase, but The Doc stubbornly insists that
the guest bedroom should contain at least one bed.
If you have
never read any of these books, I envy you the enjoyment of first discovering
the brilliant armchair detective, Nero Wolfe.
When Stout created the characters of Nero Wolfe and Archie
Goodwin—Wolfe’s assistant and narrator of the stories—the American version of
the mystery was still new. In the early
1920’s, Carroll John Daly invented the hard-boiled detective story, and when he
did, murder left the British vicar’s rose garden to enter the seedy dark alley
of the American metropolis.
Enough has been
said about Nero Wolfe—the character—what drove me to the library stacks this
week was trying to figure out who Rex Stout was. Who was this man who wrote his books on a
schedule of thirty-eight days, completed them on time, and never did
re-writes? And most importantly, how did
he come up with Nero Wolfe? There have
been some fantastic answers proposed:
Was he the result of an illicit affair between Sherlock Holmes and Irene
Adler? Or was he the son of Arsene
Lupin? Just as most people mistakenly
"identify" Harper Lee with "Scout" in To Kill A
Mockingbird instead of “Boo Radley” because the story is written in the
first person, by the same token Rex Stout is frequently miss-identified with
Nero Wolfe, yet his personality is much closer to that of Wolfe's assistant,
Archie Goodwin.
An American
detective needs an American origin, and I think I have some of the answers—and
if I am correct Wolfe’s origin is as surprising as one of the endings in the
detective’s most infamous murder mysteries.
Rex
Stout came from a long line of hardy Quakers, and his American roots dated back
over 400 years. Growing up, he heard
fascinating stories about his ancestors. In 1642, Penelope Van Princin was
scalped and partially disemboweled, yet she somehow survived to have 19
children, and lived to see her 109th birthday.
A century later, another ancestor, Regina Harman, spent 19 years as a
captive among the Native Americans;
still another ancestor was the sister of Benjamin Franklin.
Stout
was born in Indiana in 1886 and after graduating high school early, drifted to
New York City—the future home of Nero Wolfe—to enlist in the Navy in July of
1905. As a condition of his being
accepted in the Navy, Stout had to have his tonsils removed. He paid a doctor two of his last three
dollars so he could undergo the tonsillectomy while reclining in a barber chair—in
order to report for duty the following day (after he had spent the night
"recuperating" in agony on the floor of the barber shop where the
surgery had been done!).
The
next day, Stout passed his physical and enlisted for four years. This was a time of transition for Navy, and
the receiving ship where Stout was trained was one of the last three-masted
vessels still in service. After training
as a yeoman pay clerk, Stout was assigned to the USS Mayflower, the
presidential yacht, which was frequently used by President Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt
was a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a naval historian, and an ardent—if
frequently sea-sick—sailor. The
president had received the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a settlement to
the Sino-Japanese War aboard the yacht.
Accompanying Roosevelt, Stout traveled 20,000 miles aboard the
Mayflower, visiting such as exotic ports as The Canal Zone, Havana, Guantanamo,
Argentina, and making four separate trips to Puerto Rico. While on shore leave in Santo Domingo, Stout
was in a brawl that resulted in his being shot in the leg.
The
presidential yacht could barely make 20 knots, and the president frequently
passed the time by reading and discarding popular fiction books. Rex Stout frequently snatched up these books
and read the British detective stories of Anna Katherine Green, Israel Zangill,
and Lord Godfrey Benson.
Stout
(pictured at left on the Mayflower) later confided that he wasn’t too
impressed with President Roosevelt. He
disliked his choice in literature (he was dismayed to find that Teddy disliked
Thomas Paine), he hated the President’s overtly macho attitude, and on at least
one occasion, he disliked the president's losing his temper. Teddy Roosevelt demanded that his yacht be
run to strict regulations and Stout thought the ship exhibited a little too
much, pointless ‘spit and polish’.
Decades
later, Stout would admit that he patterned the New York policemen, whom he
called the “flat-footed myrmidons”, after some of the worst officers of the Mayflower. But, what if that was not the only
inspiration he got from the ship?
Nero
Wolfe was obese, sedentary, and the antithesis of archetypal virile male. In short, he was the opposite of Teddy
Roosevelt who championed the vigorous life.
Whereas Wolfe was contemplative and given to long periods of reflection,
Teddy was impulsive and quick to act.
Roosevelt delighted in long hikes while Nero Wolfe never left his
beloved brownstone residence. Roosevelt
had a rifle range and a boxing ring on the White House lawn. The closest Nero Wolfe got to outdoor
activity was raising orchids in a hothouse on the top floor of his brownstone
(In a private moment, Rex Stout admitted to hating orchids, but liking
lilies). Teddy Roosevelt was practically
a teetotaler, while Wolfe consumed five quarts of beer a day (though frequently
promising to restrict his consumption in the future to only two quarts a day).
Roosevelt’s
family was wealthy, and the president never gambled, eschewing all non-physical
games. While on board the Mayflower,
Stout was paid $26.20 a month, and estimated he earned another $150 a month
playing whist (with the officers).
Teddy
Roosevelt loved the military. He formed
his own volunteer regiment of cavalry to fight in the Spanish American War, rising
to the rank of Colonel and being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for
his exploits on the San Juan Hills. Rex
Stout, after serving two years in the navy, secured a bogus letter showing his
acceptance into law school and purchased his discharge for $80.
In
short, I maintain that President Theodore Roosevelt was the inspiration—more
like the "anti-inspiration"—for Nero Wolfe. Now, as I reread the 33 novels and 39 various
novellas and short stories, I frequently find Teddy Roosevelt hiding in Nero
Wolfe's mirror.
Nor is
that the last influence I discovered at the library. Rene Magritte, the Belgian surrealist
painter, named several of his paintings after detective stories by Dashiell
Hammett and Rex Stout. His painting, The
Companions of Fear, painted during World War II was influenced by the Nero
Wolfe story, The League of Frightened Men...
But,
that’s a story for another time.
Haven't seen the Nero Wolfe TV series nor read the books. Makes me want to start reading them. Thanks. - Tom
ReplyDeletePlausible. I wish I could read faster - I read about as fast as I can talk, and it would take me years to read all those novels!
ReplyDelete