Rex Stout has long been one of my
favorite authors, and it was an honor to be able to give the keynote speech at
the Bouchercon Nero Wolfe Banquet, and meet Mr. Stout's daughter, Rebecca Stout Bradbury. The dinner itself was a fun and lively affair. The
toasts that were offered were imaginative and well-researched by true Wolfeans,
and Weronance (emcee) Ira Matetsky kept things moving quickly with the wit of a
Catskills comedian.
Below is the keynote speech that I
gave--and nobody pelted me with dinner rolls! (of course, they were all eaten
by the time I gave my speech!!)
The
Curious Case of Mr. Katz, Mr. Wolfe, and Two Archies
I’ve been invited to talk here tonight because of my
Julius Katz mysteries which Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine have been publishing.
Even if you didn’t know that Julius’s assistant in these stories is named
Archie, it should be no surprise given the name of my detective that these
mysteries are an unabashed pastiche of Nero Wolfe. My talk tonight will be
comparing Julius Katz with Wolfe and my Archie with Archie Goodwin. I
don’t expect for us to glean any great insights from my talk, but I hope these
comparisons help illuminate some of the qualities that we enjoy so much from
Stout’s Nero Wolfe books.
I am by no means a Wolfean scholar, but I have spent
100s of highly enjoyable hours visiting Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I first
discovered Nero Wolfe as a teenager when I bought a dog-eared copy of
Fer-de-Lance from a used bookstore. What hooked me was the ingenuity and
cleverness of Stout’s writing, but what drove me to keep searching out more of
the Nero Wolfe books was how much I enjoyed spending time with the characters,
even Lieutenant Rowcliff. I’d like to offer the following quote from Donald
Westlake, which sums up my own feelings:
“I go there to see my old friends and watch Archie
be archly secretive about his sex life and hear Wolfe say, ‘Pfui.’”
By the time I entered college I had read maybe a
quarter of the Wolfe books, and I soon discovered that my university’s library
had a full collection. My grades suffered my first year as I couldn’t help
myself from devouring all the rest of the books in the series. What made this
especially a treat—and maybe some of you might’ve had a similar experience—was
discovering notes left in the margins by other Wolfe fans. Since college
I’ve reread my favorite Wolfe books at different times, have read everything
else I’ve been able to find from Stout, and loved the A&E series starring
Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton. I mention this so people here understand that
while I’m not a Nero Wolfe expert, I am a fan, and while there are few writers
who can match Stout’s talent, and I’m certainly not claiming to be one of them,
it was nonetheless important to me to take great care in trying to
duplicate for my Julius Katz series the enjoyment that I experienced reading
all those Nero Wolfe books.
Now to the subject at hand. Both Julius and Wolfe
live in brownstones, Wolfe’s is located at West 35th Street in
Manhattan, Julius’s in the Beacon Hill section of Boston. Both detectives
are brilliant, display some eccentricities, and have lazy tendencies where they
prefer other pursuits than being actively engaged as a detective. Both have
expensive lifestyles. Both have discerning palates where they not only enjoy,
but demand fine food. Wolfe’s beverage of choice is beer, Julius’s wine. Both
are gracious hosts. Both enjoy the comfort of their homes. Both have strict
requirements in how they choose to live their lives, Wolfe more so than Julius.
Both live refined lifestyles, again more so with Wolfe than with Julius.
Wolfe’s hobby is orchids, Julius’s is collecting wines. Both have a nemesis on
the police force named Cramer. In Nero Wolfe’s case, it’s Inspector Cramer, in
Julius’s case, it’s Detective Mark Cramer. Both Cramers often suspect that the
private detective in question is pulling a fast one on them, and withholding
critical information. Both Cramers also begrudgingly respect the private
detective in question. Both Wolfe and Julius at times hire freelance
detectives. In Wolfe’s case, these detectives are Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin and
Orrie Cather. In Julius’s case, they’re Saul Penzer, Tom Durkin, and Willie
Cather. Both Wolfe and Julius have assistants named Archie.
Now for some differences. Wolfe is in his
mid-fifties and weighs one-seventh of a ton. Unless he’s in training to kill
Germans in World War II, his idea of exercise is throwing darts. Julius is 42,
weighs less than one-eleventh of a ton, is handsome, very fit, holds a
fifth degree black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu, and spends two hours every
morning engaged in rigorous exercise. While Wolfe might be occasionally charmed
by a woman, he has no intention of becoming involved with one, or ever letting
a woman live under his roof. Julius is a notorious womanizer—or was until he
meets Lily Rosten in the first of the Julius Katz stories—and becomes smitten
by her, and dates her throughout the rest of the stories, at least so far.
Wolfe rarely leaves his home, and while Julius has cultivated a similar image,
he often leaves his home to dine at fine restaurants and to gamble, but like
Wolfe, prefers not to leave his home for anything work-related. Wolfe employs a
chef, Fritz Brenner, Julius does his own cooking. Finally, Julius’s true
passions are very different than Wolfe’s; namely: Lily Rosten, wine, and
gambling—he’s an expert poker player, and will often use bluffs and his skill
at reading a player’s tell in his detective work.
Now for the two Archie’s in question. Archie
Goodwin, along with being Nero Wolfe’s assistant, also performs a number of
other tasks, including doing Wolfe’s bookkeeping and banking, typing Wolfe’s
correspondences, and keeping the germination and other records for Wolfe’s
orchids. His primary job, though, is detective work, and he’s very good at it.
Tough, tenacious, and a keen observer who has the ability to report
conversations verbatim, Goodwin is more than capable, although he accepts that
Wolfe is the genius, and that his job is to assist, and occasionally to pester
when Wolfe needs prodding. Goodwin is also fiercely loyal to Wolfe. In many
ways Julius’s Archie is very similar to Archie Goodwin. He’s fiercely loyal to
Julius, and pesters Julius when he feels it’s necessary. Along with being
Julius’s assistant, he performs a number of other tasks, including being
Julius’s accountant, wine purchaser, secretary, and all around man Friday. Just
as Goodwin will collect information for Wolfe, Julius’s Archie does the same,
except instead of going out into the field to do this and flashing shoe
leather, Julius’s Archie collects the information over the Internet, usually by
hacking into computer sites. One way in which they’re very different, is that
Julius’s Archie isn’t human. Instead this Archie is a two-inch rectangle piece
of advanced technology complete with audio and visual circuitry and a
self-adapting neuron network. All the great 20th century detective
novels, including the complete Nero Wolfe works, were loaded into his knowledge
base leaving this Archie with the heart and soul of a hardboiled private eye.
Since Julius wears him as a tie clip, he has a very different self-image of
himself than say Goodwin—picturing himself as only five foot tall, which is his
distance from the ground when Julius is standing.
Other than having an image of himself as a human,
Archie is very self-aware, and understands that Julius named him Archie as an
inside-joke—that he is destined to also being the second banana, always to be
one step behind his boss in solving a case, and this brings up yet another way
in which Julius’s Archie is very different than Goodwin—he badly wants to beat
Julius to the punch in solving a case, and believes if he observes Julius in
action enough times, he can keep refining his adaptive reasoning module and
knowledge base so that he can accomplish this.
One
final way that Julius’s Archie is very different than Goodwin is that when
Goodwin is pestering Wolfe, there’s not much Wolfe can do about it, except to
threaten to fire him, which I can’t remember ever happening. Julius, though,
always has the option of turning his Archie off.
