While it isn't the main point of this blog post, I find it interesting that Ayn Rand disapproved of Rex Stout. To be clear, she was a fan of mystery fiction, and was full of praise for the detective novels of the left wing Dashiell Hammett. (Since Hammett had frustrated ambitions to write "serious" books that would make everyone forget Sam Spade, I'm not sure how much comfort he got from this.) But as Evans states, she thought of Stout as an un-American "Red." While I don't know whether Stout would have exactly welcomed her hatred, I doubt it bothered him a great deal.
It got me thinking about The Second Confession. That's the Nero Wolfe novel that probably reflects most its having been written during the Red Scare. It concerns a wealthy man―not an uncommon condition among Wolfe's clients―who wants Wolfe and Archie to prove that his daughter's boyfriend is a communist so that maybe she'll see the light and dump him. Stout is not to be underestimated. The premise sounds like it would date poorly, but he wrings some unexpected twists from it and winds up with a very satisfying yarn.
Not surprisingly, the Canadian-produced Wolfe show that aired on A&E never touched this one.
It got me thinking about The Second Confession. That's the Nero Wolfe novel that probably reflects most its having been written during the Red Scare. It concerns a wealthy man―not an uncommon condition among Wolfe's clients―who wants Wolfe and Archie to prove that his daughter's boyfriend is a communist so that maybe she'll see the light and dump him. Stout is not to be underestimated. The premise sounds like it would date poorly, but he wrings some unexpected twists from it and winds up with a very satisfying yarn.
Not surprisingly, the Canadian-produced Wolfe show that aired on A&E never touched this one.
2 comments:
Despite the fact I've read all of them more than once I had to dig the book out to remind myself of the plot only to be reminded it's the one where a bunch of machine gun toting criminals shoot the heck out of the orchids but, thankfully, miss Theodore. You can't say Arnold Zeck (the name Archie can't remember) hadn't warned Wolfe even as he 'jumped the gun' shooting first and paying the damages later..
It's interesting to note how fast the enemies changed in society (and still do for that matter). In the books immediately previous the common enemies were Japan/Germany and by this one things were ratcheting up fast for the 'Cold War'. Communists weren't popular in the US even before McCarthy but this book takes some of the hype out, even when "commie, commie, who is the commie" is a central plot point. It's extra interesting that Wolfe solves the murder by coercing the assistance of the American Communist Party.
Ayn Rand was a very strange person. After having heard descriptions of a couple of his Mike Hammer books I can understand why she liked Mickey Spillane. At the same time I can't help but feel some satisfaction on behalf of Dashiell Hammet and Rex Stout that she chose to disparage them. Seems like something of an honor to those of us who don't appreciate Libertarianism. Still, the play 'The Trial of Mary Dugan' sounded like a provocative way to present a courtroom drama.
That was a nice blog you found.
The Nero Wolfe series, to my mind, takes the basic format of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories but goes in a different direction with it. Zeck, Stout's answer to Moriarty, is one of the closer points of comparison. He's a little amped up from the original, albeit probably not as much as if the books were being written now.
Yes, the fact that he gets the cooperation of two officials in the Communist Party is a nice twist. So is the fact that the boyfriend and eventual murder victim turns out to be a crook rather than a Commie, and in fact got murdered because he was trying to blackmail the actual Red. Not a smart move on his part and it also shows the client to be pretty far in the wrong.
Rand was strange and at some points self-contradictory, which makes her more interesting. I've never gotten into her because reading her books promises an extended period of being beat in the head. The play does sound interesting on a formal level. Not miles away from Brecht, although she might not appreciate the comparison.
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