A brief but thorough look at Rex Stout’s literary accomplishments coupled with a thoughtful assessment of the many attempts...
A critical analysis of the different re-creations—in books, television, and film—of Rex Stouts’ Nero Wolfe series.
According to Shaw, Rex Stout’s fictional detective, Nero Wolfe, and his sidekick, Archie Goodwin, together constitute a “cultural landmark,” a “timeless” literary creation refashioned many times by others—evidence of its value. The author provides an impressively exhaustive account of what amounts to decades of homage to Stout’s work as well as the extant literature on it. He covers not only the movies made from Nero Wolfe’s debut, but also subsequent attempts to capture the quirky character on television and in novels featuring him written by other authors like Robert Goldsborough, who has produced more than a dozen reprisals of the protagonist. Ultimately, Shaw concludes that the film and television adaptations, while some had their virtues, miss the authorial “craftsmanship” of Stout’s “writing prowess,” which is the primary attraction of the series. Goldsborough, however, “captures and transmits the characters’ personalities through incisive descriptions, accurate dialogue, and references to events in Stout’s original body of work.” The author also discusses in great detail the narrative genius of the original series, expressed in Stout’s decision to make Archie’s perspective the principal one, a literary strategy that, in eschewing omniscience, permits a more accurate representation of the investigatory search for truth. Shaw’s command of the material is astonishing—his knowledge of all things related to Stout is encyclopedic. And more than just a storehouse of trivia, he furnishes consistently incisive interpretations of both Stout’s work and the attempts to re-create it. Also, despite his obvious admiration for Stout, Shaw’s study is not hagiographic—he sensibly points out Stout’s vices as well as virtues: “Not every Rex Stout story is at the lofty levels of his best. Some are mundane, lack vivid characters, have muddled plots, and present Wolfe and Goodwin in cranky, sometimes lackluster moods.” For readers with a similar enthusiasm for Stout’s work, this is a perspicacious analysis written with verve and infectious admiration.
A brief but thorough look at Rex Stout’s literary accomplishments coupled with a thoughtful assessment of the many attempts to reproduce it.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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