The Rubber Band
The Rubber Band is the third Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. Prior to its publication in 1936 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., the novel was serialized in six issues of The Saturday Evening Post (February 29–April 4, 1936). Appearing in one 1960 paperback edition titled To Kill Again, The Rubber Band was also collected in the omnibus volume Five of a Kind (Viking 1961).
Plot introduction
”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.”
— Clara Fox, pouring Archie’s after-dinner coffee in the dining room while wearing his yellow dressing gown in The Rubber Band, chapter 12
Archie books two new clients on the same day, and before the day is over Wolfe has to choose which to keep and there are more than two crimes to untangle. The client he keeps in the end is a beautiful young woman, but it's Wolfe who reads her Hungarian poetry, not Archie.
The novel introduces Lieutenant Rowcliff, not one of the NYPD's finest (in the opinion not only of Wolfe but Inspector Cramer). Rowcliff's search for Clara Fox in the brownstone earns Wolfe's enmity, which lasts until the final Wolfe novel in 1975.
The unfamiliar word
"Nero Wolfe talks in a way that no human being on the face of the earth has ever spoken, with the possible exception of Rex Stout after he had a gin and tonic," said Michael Jaffe, executive producer of the A&E TV series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery.[1] Nero Wolfe's erudite vocabulary is one of the hallmarks of the character. Examples of unfamiliar words — or unfamiliar uses of words that some would otherwise consider familiar — are found throughout the corpus, often in the give-and-take between Wolfe and Archie.
- Usufruct, chapter 5. Before taking Clara Fox as his client, Wolfe ascertains her level of personal involvement with her employers:
- Wolfe sighed. "Really, Miss Fox, we are wasting time that may be valuable. Tell me, I beg you, about Mr. Perry and Mr. Muir. Mr. Muir hinted this afternoon that Mr. Perry is enjoying the usufructs of gallantry. Is that true?"
- "Of course not." She frowned, and then smiled. "Calling it that, it doesn't sound bad at all, does it? But he isn't."
- Necromancer, chapter 6. Telling his client that no sorcery is responsible for his conclusions, Wolfe says, "I am not a necromancer, Miss Fox."
- Acarpous, chapter 13. Wolfe encounters another twist in the case while speaking to Lord Clivers:
- He looked at me. "Confound it, Archie. I have you to thank for this acarpous entanglement."
- It was a new one, but I got the idea.
- Weltschmerz, chapter 15. Archie returns to the office to find that Wolfe is in conference with himself:
- I would have tried some bulldozing if I thought he was merely dreaming of stuffed quail or pickled pigs' feet, but his lips were moving a little so I knew he was working. I fooled around my desk, went over Johnny's diagrams again in connection with an idea that had occurred to me, checked over Horstmann's reports and entered them in the records, reread the Gazette scoop on the affair at 55th Street, and aggravated myself into such a condition of uselessness that finally, at eleven o'clock sharp, I exploded, "If this keeps up another ten minutes I'll get Weltschmerz!"
- Wolfe opened his eyes. "Where in the name of heaven did you get that?"
- I threw up my hands. He shut his eyes again.
Reviews and commentary
- Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime — In the manner of its time, this early tale is long and brings up past history. ... It starts in New York City with a young woman who is accused of stealing $30,000 from the office where she works. Nero is voluble and Archie in good form. Despite complexity, the tidying up is neat and satisfactory.[2]
- John McAleer, Rex Stout: A Biography — Reviewers were enthusiastic. Yale's perdurable William Lyon Phelps called it "a work of art." Christopher Morley said: "The whole affair is brilliantly handled and gives complete satisfaction." Isaac Anderson [The New York Times] thought it "the peak of his achievements." To Will Cuppy, Wolfe was "the Falstaff of detectives."[3]
- Vincent Starrett — One of his most brilliant and exhilarating performances. Few better mystery stories have been written in our time.[4]
- Robert Van Gelder, The New York Times (April 17, 1936) — Another crackerjack Nero Wolfe story in which a Western promise bobs up later to cause murders and place a beautiful lady in peril. Told by that inimitable Watson, Archie Goodwin. You can't go wrong on this for entertainment.
- The Washington Post — Among the best Wolfe-Archie Goodwin tales; the whole gang makes an appearance — Inspector Cramer, Saul Panzer, etc. — and the writing crackles. A good one to start with for readers unfamiliar with America's shrewdest, orchid-growing, fat, stay-at-home detective.[5]
Adaptations
Il patto dei sei (Radiotelevisione Italiana)
The Rubber Band was adapted for a series of Nero Wolfe films produced by the Italian television network RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana). Written and directed by Giuliana Berlinguer, Nero Wolfe: Il patto dei sei first aired July 27, 1969.
The series of black-and-white telemovies stars Tino Buazzelli (Nero Wolfe), Paolo Ferrari (Archie Goodwin), Pupo De Luca (Fritz Brenner), Renzo Palmer (Inspector Cramer), Roberto Pistone (Saul Panzer), Mario Righetti (Orrie Cather) and Gianfranco Varetto (Fred Durkin). Other members of the cast of Il patto dei sei include Vittorio Sanipoli (Anthony Perry), Augusto Mastrantoni (Harlan Scoville), Carmen Scarpitta (Clara Fox), Cristina Mascitelli (Hilda Lindquist), Loris Gafforio (Mike Walsh), Sergio Reggi (Sergente Stebbins), Enrico Lazzareschi (Francis Horrocks) and Gastone Bartolucci (Lord Clivers).
Publication history
- 1936, The Saturday Evening Post, serialized in six issues (February 29, March 7, March 14, March 21, March 28 and April 4)[7]
- 1936, New York: Farrar & Rinehart, April 9, 1936, hardcover
- In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of The Rubber Band: "Turquoise cloth, front cover and spine printed with black; rear cover blank. Issued in a full-color pictorial dust wrapper … The first edition has the publisher's monogram logo on the copyright page. The second printing, in May 1936, is identical to the first except that the logo was dropped."[8]
- In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of The Rubber Band had a value of between $15,000 and $30,000.[9]
- 1937, New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1937, hardcover
- 1938, London: Cassell, 1938, hardcover
- 1939, Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1939, hardcover
- 1940, New York: Triangle, June 1940, hardcover
- 1943, New York: Pocket Books #208, February 1943, paperback
- 1960, New York: Hillman Books, 1960 (as To Kill Again), paperback
- 1961, New York: Viking, Five of a Kind: The Third Nero Wolfe Omnibus (with In the Best Families and Three Doors to Death), July 10, 1961, hardcover
- 1964, New York: Pyramid (Green Door), August 1964, paperback
- 1995, New York: Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-76309-1 April 1995, trade paperback
- 2006, Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 1-57270-527-2 April 28, 2006, audio CD (unabridged)
- 2009, New York: Bantam Dell Publishing Group (with The Red Box) ISBN 978-0-553-38603-5 February 24, 2009, paperback
- 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-75615-2 September 8, 2010, e-book
References
- ^ Quoted in Vitaris, Paula, "Miracle on 35th Street: Nero Wolfe on Television," Scarlet Street, issue #45, 2002, p. 36
- ^ Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. A Catalogue of Crime. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8
- ^ McAleer, John, Rex Stout: A Biography (1977, Little, Brown and Company ISBN 0-316-55340-9); p. 267
- ^ McAleer, John, Rex Stout: A Biography, p. 299
- ^ The Washington Post, Sunday, January 17, 1982
- ^ Barbara Tuchman told biographer John McAleer about Rex Stout's "magnificent tirade" when he learned she had a literary agent. He adamantly believed everyone was as capable of handling their own business affairs as he was. (Rex Stout: A Biography, pp. 570–571) When McAleer asked Stout about Archie's dedication of To Kill Again — "To RS, my literary agent" — Stout replied, "I was having fun, I guess." (Royal Decree: Conversations with Rex Stout, p. 44) Archie also refers to Rex Stout as his literary agent in "The Case of the Spies That Weren't" (Ramparts Magazine, January 1966).
- ^ Townsend, Guy M., Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980, New York: Garland Publishing; ISBN 0-8240-9479-4), pp. 10–11. John McAleer, Judson Sapp and Arriean Schemer are associate editors of this definitive publication history.
- ^ Penzler, Otto, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I (2001, New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, limited edition of 250 copies), p. 11
- ^ Smiley, Robin H., "Rex Stout: A Checklist of Primary First Editions." Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine (Volume 16, Number 4), April 2006, p. 32
External links
|
|
|
| Novels |
|
|
Short story
collections |
|
|