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 If Death Ever Slept (1957) 
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You're invited to use this topic to discuss the quotations from If Death Ever Slept (1957) – a Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout.

You may also use this thread for general discussions about this literary work; you do not necessarily need to discuss specific quotations.

Or, if you'd like to talk about anything else related to Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, or Rex Stout, feel free to create a new discussion topic.


Last edited by Faterson on Fri, 27 Jul 2007, 6:36, edited 1 time in total.

Fri, 6 Jul 2007, 23:42
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Thought I would use this thread to christen my new avatar - many thanks for indulging an awkward poster and increasing the file size yet again! :wink:

I've already posted a few quotes from this book, but I have more - it's one of my favourites out of the corpus. Archie is at once out on his own, using his initiative, yet still tied to Wolfe, professionally and personally - I love when he sends a postcard to Fritz! :wink: And why does Wolfe always bring Orrie in? Does he know how much Archie resents his presence, and hire him as a temp on purpose? One of my favourite quotes, already up, is Archie's report 'home' - I can always imagine Wolfe smirking despite himself at Archie's dry version of events ('I have met the family and they are not mine'). Orrie really doesn't stand a chance at impressing Wolfe, and I think he knows this - Johnny Keems didn't, but Stout had to bump Orrie's ego up a notch when Johnny was killed.

More quotes soon

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Sat, 7 Jul 2007, 11:34
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AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
I've already posted a few quotes from this book, but I have more - it's one of my favourites out of the corpus.

I've never quite understood why If Death Ever Slept seems to be so well-regarded by some critics and fans.

Unlike some other Wolfe stories I could currently name as examples (The Second Confession or Champagne for One or, still not being completely persuaded otherwise, Where There's a Will), If Death Ever Slept is not bad or boring, mind you, but it did not strike me as outstanding when I read it for the first time. Your quotations, Adonis, may help me understand the novel's appeal better. Of course, a first-time chronological re-read of the entire Corpus is coming up for me, so a second reading of If Death Ever Slept might dramatically improve the original impression I got from it.

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
Thought I would use this thread to christen my new avatar

It's a great one! :D It was well worth increasing the forum's file size limit to accommodate your avatar. 8)

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
More quotes soon

Thanks a lot for everything :!: Your delightful contributions will soon outnumber those provided by the site admin – and that's perfectly OK. That's the reason why this site has been turned into a wiki where any site visitor may contribute their share of great quotes.


Sat, 7 Jul 2007, 12:13
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Faterson wrote:
I've never quite understood why If Death Ever Slept seems to be so well-regarded by some critics and fans.

Unlike some other Wolfe stories I could currently name as examples (The Second Confession or Champagne for One or, still not being completely persuaded otherwise, Where There's a Will), If Death Ever Slept is not bad or boring, mind you, but it did not strike me as especially interesting when I read it for the first time.


What is the magic formula for a favourite Nero Wolfe story? I know it differs - widely! - between readers, but I'm interested in the criteria other people use to rate the books. I've discussed this with Danielle - Goodwingrad - as well, and we rarely agree on anything! :wink:

My taste begins on a personal level, with the characters; I don't say that Stout didn't write some excellent mysteries, but I rarely focus on the 'whodunnit' when reading - his master stroke will always be Archie and Wolfe (in that order). So I prefer the books set in the traditional confines of the brownstone; perhaps I share the same needs for comfort and security as Wolfe! Maybe I've been scarred by Dude, but I prefer Wolfe at home, or at least to remain in the city.

Also important but not as narrow is the timeline - I've discovered that most of the stories set in the 1960s and 1970s are somehow harsher and not as familiar as the 1930s-1950s novels. I love to read about Archie's pre- and post-wartime New York, so much so that I have branched out into other books set in that era and city, to 'pad out' the corpus. For me, Archie will always be from the time when men wore hats and lit cigarettes for ladies - I know the characters don't age with the passing decades, but I find the later books somewhat reactionary and crude. I still haven't read 'Please Pass the Guilt', because there's a revolting passage about etymology in there that I think is beneath Stout.

And to be really picky, Archie's 'damsels' are a factor in whether I take to a book or not - I cannot stand docile, 'good' girls, and neither can he, apparently; he is most obnoxious with women who won't stand up to him. Lily, Lois in In Death Ever Slept, Madeleine in The Second Confession, Phoebe in The Silent Speaker, Julie in Death of a Doxy (creeping into the 1960s, there), and even Lucy in The Mother Hunt (a curious blend of romance and flirting that had Wolfe worried!) - these are Archie's best choices, and also therefore stories that I can return to again and again.

The story doesn't actually matter to me! :roll:

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Sat, 7 Jul 2007, 12:40
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AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
What is the magic formula for a favourite Nero Wolfe story?

To me, an ideal Nero Wolfe story is the combination of three elements: comedy and mystery (=detection) and romance.

That's why, without hesitation, I might nominate Too Many Cooks as the best Wolfe story of all time. Because all three elements: comedy and mystery and romance are very strong in Too Many Cooks.

However, I admire Fer-de-Lance, The Silent Speaker, and In the Best Families just as much as Too Many Cooks, even though the romantic element is not as pronounced in those three as it is in Too Many Cooks.

So, one might argue that comedy and mystery are the two main ingredients of a successful Nero Wolfe mystery, while romance is something of an extra ingredient, thrown in every once in a while in the overall mixture, with excellent results.

Of the two main aspects, comedy is decidedly more important for the success of a Nero Wolfe story than the mystery angle. Therefore, I hold Rex Stout to be primarily the master of comic prose, like Mark Twain or P. G. Wodehouse, and only secondarily do I perceive Rex Stout as a writer of mysteries.

The whodunnit aspect of Nero Wolfe stories is actually pretty weak, especially compared to masters of that discipline such as Agatha Christie.

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
I rarely focus on the 'whodunnit' when reading

I for one, never. :? One might get all too easily disappointed if one primarily expected great suspense and a surprising resolution of the mystery from a Nero Wolfe story.

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
his master stroke will always be Archie and Wolfe (in that order).

I agree with you, and with Agatha Christie who said the same thing: that Rex Stout's main triumph was Archie Goodwin, not Nero Wolfe.

It's interesting, though, that it's usually Rex Stout's female readers who prefer Archie over Wolfe, while male readers tend to prefer Wolfe over Archie. I may be an exception in that regard. 8)

It's also funny that I was reviled, years ago, by some seasoned Wolfe fans when I propounded the “Archie over Wolfe” viewpoint in mailing list discussions. They seemed to find it offensive that anyone could appreciate Archie even more than one appreciates Nero Wolfe, and I do have the highest esteem for Nero Wolfe. :lol:

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
So I prefer the books set in the traditional confines of the brownstone

That's true of me, too, on a general level, but strangely enough, some of the finest Wolfe stories seem to take place out of the Brownstone. Perhaps it is frequently the disruption of a rule, as much as its observance, that produces an uplifting effect on those who enjoy observing the rule so much. :wink: All of this may well be taking place on the level of the readers' subconscious minds.

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
perhaps I share the same needs for comfort and security as Wolfe!

Perhaps all readers share a bit of those needs; perhaps there is a bit of Nero Wolfe in each and every reader, and that may be one of the reasons why the Nero Wolfe stories remain so enduringly popular :!:

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
Maybe I've been scarred by Dude

I don't exactly understand what keeps bugging you about Death of a Dude. :) The fact of it taking place in Montana on Lily's ranch can't be the only reason; and I for one found the Montana milieu fascinating and excellently described by the 83-year-old Rex Stout pretending to be a 30-ish Archie Goodwin. 8)

The two final novels following Death of a DudePlease Pass the Guilt and A Family Affair – I found to be equally excellent. It really was a good decision made by Stout in the mid-1960s or so (perhaps influenced by his very high age by then) to stop churning out Nero Wolfe stories as frequently as he did throughout the 1950s. The result, in the 1950s and early 1960s, were frequently insipid Wolfe novelettes or forgettable Wolfe novels such as Champagne for One and The Final Deduction.

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
I still haven't read 'Please Pass the Guilt', because there's a revolting passage about etymology in there that I think is beneath Stout.

Really? :o I've never noticed anything like that myself in Please Pass the Guilt. I have only good memories of this novel; it's not among the finest ones in the Corpus, but it is decidedly in the top half (in terms of quality) of all Nero Wolfe stories, I'd say.

In fact, Please Pass the Guilt features what I'd call the best ever verbal exchange between Fritz and Archie – romance-laden, quite surprsingly. Fritz makes the following memorable statement in talking to Archie:

Quote:
Then she is washed up, not you. You are looking at the wrong side. Just turn it over, that’s all you ever have to do, just turn it over.

I think there's some old-age wisdom on the part of the (by then) 86-year-old Rex Stout creeping into those words uttered by Fritz.

Could you specify, Adonis, what objectionable comment in Please Pass the Guilt you have in mind :?: Are you by any chance a person for whom political correctness is in any way important? :P Well, I'm not, and maybe that's why I've never noticed any comment about “etymology” in Please Pass the Guilt. And I'm pretty sure if Archie were still alive today, we'd get to read tons of jokes about political correctness in present-day Wolfe stories. :lol:

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
The story doesn't actually matter to me! :roll:

Neither to me. :twisted:


Sat, 7 Jul 2007, 14:16
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Faterson wrote:
To me, an ideal Nero Wolfe story is the combination of three elements: comedy and mystery (=detection) and romance.


How are you defining 'romance' - quixotic ideology or behaviour, as Wolfe often professes to operate by (and Archie frequently displays), or the 'birds do it, bees do it' type? :wink:

Faterson wrote:
It's interesting, though, that it's usually Rex Stout's female readers who prefer Archie over Wolfe, while male readers tend to prefer Wolfe over Archie. I may be an exception in that regard. 8)


I don't think that the two characters can be separated, but it is Archie speaking to the reader about Wolfe, so any interest or affection we have for the latter is because the former is sharing his own thoughts and feelings with us, and his love and admiration for the fat genius is certainly what endears Wolfe to me. I've come to realise that Archie is the younger, active version of Wolfe - they both share the same 'romantic' view of the world, and both value honour and valour - and their work - above all else. And of course, both are arrogant and vain! :P


Faterson wrote:
I don't exactly understand what keeps bugging you about Death of a Dude. :) The fact of it taking place in Montana on Lily's ranch can't be the only reason; and I for one found the Montana milieu fascinating and excellently described by the 83-year-old Rex Stout pretending to be a 30-ish Archie Goodwin. 8)


I just found the whole episode rather insipid and slow, and it didn't hold my interest; it was basically a travelogue for Montana by a man who obviously enjoyed spending time there, but I felt as if I was as duty-bound as Wolfe whilst reading it. And Lily, my goodness was she plumbing the depths of the matronly socialite act, with a ranch full of good will gestures - I didn't care a fig for the secondary characters, and Lily eventually became one herself. I think the only thing I enjoyed was the fact that Wolfe was only there to reclaim Archie, who gives a punchy speech towards the end about Wolfe risking losing him completely if one of his 'razzle-dazzles' backfires without him letting Archie in on it. Being stranded out in Montana throws Wolfe and Archie closer together, and this time Archie acknowledges what it means for Wolfe to make such a sacrifice.


Faterson wrote:
Could you specify, Adonis, what objectionable comment in Please Pass the Guilt you have in mind :?: Are you by any chance a person for whom political correctness is in any way important? :P


I refer to the discussion between a female talk-show host and Archie on the origin of certain words beginning with 'p', which I found by accident whilst flicking through a new purchase (a bad habit of mine). It smacked to me of Stout delighting in a new-found freedom of press, including 'biological' words merely because he could; I haven't read the book, so I can't place the dialogue in context, but I find such talk unnecessary, and, as Danielle has pointed out, our 'proud prude' was also embarrassed! :oops: This is a narrator who finished a chapter rather than reveal exactly how he helped Wolfe change for bed on a moving train, and who refers to Lily Rowan as 'good friend' instead of going into details, after all.

And political correctness in the corpus bothers me in some cases and not so much in others; I am not ignorant of history, but some references and actions still make me uncomfortable. The derogatory terms for other races in Fer de Lance, Too Many Cooks, Over My Dead Body, etc. are unfortunate but representative of contemporary speech; Archie sending champagne to a wife-beater in Too Many Clients is not acceptable, and I applaud Timothy Hutton for qualifying that scene in the episode so that no doubt remains. Similarly, feminist ranting of the 1960s gives me a pain, but Archie launching himself on female clients is not about girl power, it's about polite behaviour and chivalry - isn't Archie supposed to be a gentleman? But there again, the same male-fantasy indulgence crops up in Chandler and Hammett, so I suppose such behaviour is also contemporary! Perhaps I'm just expecting too much of our good friend! That's certainly a female trait :wink:

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Sat, 7 Jul 2007, 20:49
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AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
How are you defining 'romance' [...]?

I would define romance in art as follows: descriptions of the yearning for, or admiration of, someone else's beauty.

Based on that definition, Too Many Cooks is indeed a comic and romantic mystery novel (and I'd say, a masterpiece in that particular genre), and the whole Corpus is romatically tinged.

That's not surprising, considering that even the misanthropic Wolfe unequivocally describes himself as a romantic person. (Most noticeably in Over My Dead Body.)

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
it was basically a travelogue for Montana by a man who obviously enjoyed spending time there

And so did I! :D I've never been to America, much less to Montana, and I loved imbibing the local atmosphere. Or to experience Wolfe wetting his toes in a local creek – what more could a Wolfe fan wish for? ;-)

BTW thanks a lot, Adonis, for launching the Death of a Dude collection of quotations earlier today. I'll be adding quite a large number of quotes from that novel myself, and I'll also be expanding your collection of quotes from If Death Ever Slept :!:

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
Being stranded out in Montana throws Wolfe and Archie closer together

Yes, and I thought Death of a Dude was a much more successful description of this type of situation than, say, The Black Mountain, where Wolfe and Archie are stranded, too, this time in Wolfe's homeland Montenegro, but the novel only seems to be of mediocre quality.

Perhaps it's because I'm from (very roughly!) a similar region of the world to the one where Montenegro is located, that I didn't enjoy The Black Mountain too much, as when you read the novel, it seems all too obvious that this is a novel by an American writer who doesn't really know this part of the world very well.

Now, Montana in Death of a Dude has quite a different feel: all the descriptions immediately strike you as authentic; that's why they are so memorable, at least to me.

Well, we're getting off-topic for the current thread, which is supposed to be about If Death Ever Slept. So, I'm rushing off to set up a new dedicated discussion thread for Death of a Dude, so that any further discussion of that novel can take place right there. :wink:

AdonisGuilfoyle wrote:
I refer to the discussion between a female talk-show host and Archie on the origin of certain words beginning with 'p'

I can only very vaguely recall what this was about (and don't have the time right now to look up the passage), but I remember having been amused by the exchange, rather than outraged. :wink:

Well, every reader has his or her own perceptions. It seems that what you, Adonis, find objectionable about the 1960s Nero Wolfe novels, I find refreshing – their certain roughness, as I think you called it. I do find quite a large number of the 1950s Nero Wolfe novels and especially novelettes to be too tame, too run-of-the-mill – ho-hum, you know. So, as far as I'm concerned, the 1960s brought a much-needed breath of fresh air into Rex Stout's prose that seemed to be getting ever more stale as years went by.

I think this uncomfortable trend was reversed, at the latest, by the excellent A Right to Die (1964, a sort of sequel to Too Many Cooks after almost 30 years), immediately followed by one of the greatest Wolfe masterpieces, the FBI vs. Wolfe novel The Doorbell Rang (1965), which in its turn was followed a year later by yet another superb romantic mystery novel, Death of a Doxy. The freshness of Death of a Doxy has always amazed me – let's remember it was written by an 80-year-old man! :o

Plus, the 1964 collection of novelettes, Trio for Blunt Instruments, is definitely among the finest from among the 14 Wolfe collections that are available.

So, thank heavens for the 1960s in the Nero Wolfe Corpus, and that Rex Stout was able to live long enough to write all the fine books he did in the 1960s, even adding another pair of highly enjoyable novels in the 1970s! :)


Sun, 8 Jul 2007, 21:37
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Faterson wrote:
Well, every reader has his or her own perceptions. It seems that what you, Adonis, find objectionable about the 1960s Nero Wolfe novels, I find refreshing – their certain roughness, as I think you called it. I do find quite a large number of the 1950s Nero Wolfe novels and especially novelettes to be too tame, too run-of-the-mill – ho-hum, you know. So, as far as I'm concerned, the 1960s brought a much-needed breath of fresh air into Rex Stout's prose that seemed to be getting ever more stale as years went by.


After reading 'The Gun with Wings' in 'Curtains for Three' (1951), and finding it depressingly similar to 'When A Man Murders' in 'Three Witnesses' (1956) - the order I read them in, obviously - I would have to agree with you on the 1950s novelettes, at least!

I found both of the 'Help us find true love and happiness by clearing up this minor complication of a murder' couples to be nauseating, the dialogue clunky, and I was actually siding with the murderer by the end, praying he/she would clear up the rest of the cast in a mad fit of panic in Wolfe's office! :wink: And whereas my idea of 'romance' crops up in both stories - Archie's chivalrous spirit is moved by the plight of both couples - I know that Stout has penned the same situations with subtlety in other books (Archie reluctantly agreeing to go after the murderer in 'Instead of Evidence', because he feels Wolfe is going back on his word).

The best of the novelettes are really only worth watching as episodes, because they form a neat template upon which Hutton and the writers could indulge in the relationships between Wolfe, Archie and the team, and have fun with the vivid yet fleeting cast of secondary characters; Eeny Meeny Murder Mo and Disguise for Murder are two of my favourite instalments, linked together with the original yet Stout-esque card game with Saul, Archie, Lon and Orrie.

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Mon, 9 Jul 2007, 16:26
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I love If Death Ever Slept! 8) I have to say I'm really excited about all these quotes showing up for the novels. It is finally becoming a place where we fans can share our love for Wolfe by showing off Stout's wonderful wit! These quotes are already making me want to reread the corpus again. :D

Okay, now back to business. I have to come in here to add a little balance to everything. I love how you said, Faterson, that Stout was a writer of comic prose comparing it to people like P.G. Wodehouse. Fantastic! It is exactly what I think, and it is definitly on the top of what makes his series so great. Though, that is more like second place for me, because Numero Uno is Wolfe and Archie's partnership/friendship/father and son-ship! Archie was the one that made me love the novels at first, so it is the comedy of it that drew me in. However once I started getting a better idea of what was going on, I think Stout's genius lies in those two. So, really it isn't comedy, romance, and mystery...but Archie/Wolfe, comedy, and mystery!

I would have to argue that romance is just an extra ingredient, because it isn't like they're really great romances or anything. It's just mostly Archie playing around. I basically dislike every single female he comes across. (Adonis you named the worst ones of the lot! Haha! Well, besides Lucy.) If I was going to like the books for the romance aspect, I would be disappointed. If I was going to dislike the books because I disliked the females, then I would hate practically every book! Romance...not a big issue with me.

As for the mystery aspect, I'm probably the ONLY Wolfe fan who enjoys his mysteries. I agree he isn't Christie, obviously, but I still think he can be clever in his own way. I never know whodunit and it always comes as a surprise to me at the end. I don't know, I love the idea of Wolfe pitting his brains against the criminal mind and winning because he can draw conclusions from the oddest things. Yes, most of his mysteries are rather mundane, such as Wolfe just sending Saul out to dig around somewhere. However, it amazes me how Wolfe can retain SO MUCH information, and pull it out anytime like it is a filing cabinet. I love how he can grill the suspects asking them tons and tons of questions that seem to get no where, but then something catches and somehow Wolfe can keep track of the complex web of events and draw conclusions. It's amazing!

Holmes has deduction, Poirot has psychology, Wolfe has his brain.

I'm a mystery fanatic. 8)


Mon, 9 Jul 2007, 18:23
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Today, I've finally finished tinkering with the collection of quotations from If Death Ever Slept that was first launched 15 days ago by Adonis Guilfoyle.

I have added 12 more quotations to the original 14 excerpts selected by Adonis, bringing up the current total number of quotes from this novel to 26. It's interesting that none of the quotations selected by me or Adonis overlap.

However, where both Adonis and I seem to agree, is that there is a lot more to choose from in the first than in the second half of the novel. In fact, that's why If Death Ever Slept mostly left me a disappointed reader: it started out great, as if it could become one of the best Wolfe novels ever – unfortunately, it ended on a flat note. There is a distinct drop-off in quality as you read the novel, moving from its second to the final third, approximately. I for one found the final third, or perhaps the entire second half of this novel, unremarkable. :?

Several new webpages had to be set up on this site to accommodate all quotations related to If Death Ever Slept.

First of all, I decided to include a quotation on the page that does not belong to Rex Stout. Rather, it's Stout's narrator, Archie Goodwin, quoting someone else: George S. Kaufman (allegedly) talking to his collaborator Moss Hart.

In conjunction with this quotation, therefore, it was necessary to set up separate new webpages for both George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. After all, they're both great writers in their own right, and this site will also showcase quotations from their own works, such as the classic comedy You Can't Take It With You.

Plus, two additional sections of Rex Stout quotations have been founded:
The former section, as of right now, contains only the link to the Kaufman to Hart quotation, while the latter section contains quotations of what other writers, or literary magazines, said about Rex Stout; the three quotations to be found in this section as of today were all taken from the front and back cover of the edition of If Death Ever Slept I used to select excerpts from this novel.

Two more special Rex Stout categories of quotations will be added later on:
  • Rex Stout’s Miscellaneous quotations
  • Rex Stout’s Worst quotations
(That's right: not everything that Rex Stout ever wrote was of high quality. Some snippets may be so bad, in fact, that they may deserve to be quoted on these webpages as examples of bad writing. :twisted: After all, we want to examine all writers' works critically – not merely fawn or act as a fan club, but also criticize where criticism is due. I for one will say that in all the years I've been reading Rex Stout, that's over 20 years, I've only found 2 or 3 snippets by Stout that will deserve to be included in the Worst Quotations category. What's that compared to the dozens or hundreds of fabulous, high quality Rex Stout quotations that can be admired on these pages :?: )


Sat, 21 Jul 2007, 16:13
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