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Authors: Otto Penzler
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labeling it for what it is.
Rachel asks, “What did you feel was her most persuasive insight?” To which Spenser answers, “Her suggestion that women occupied the position of other . Are we having a quiz later?”
Rachel has no sense of humor and tells him so. Instead of reassuring her it will be no problem, he says, “Okay if now and then I enjoy a wry, inward smile if struck by one of life’s vagaries?”
Perhaps he is trying too hard to impress her with his erudition; still, the remark is priceless.
Spenser’s intelligence is on display in every quip. In Early Autumn , Spenser has to rescue Paul Giacomin, a teenaged boy, from his dysfunctional family. This is not, of course, the job for which he was hired. In this case, the divorced wife is the client, and the initial task is to retrieve the boy from the father, who won’t return him.
Spenser quickly realizes the boy is nothing more than a trophy the two are fighting over in order to hurt each other. Not one to pull his punches, he sums up the situation for the wife: “Capture the flag.”
Short, punchy, insulting, and rude, but dead-on accurate.
To find Paul, Spenser tails the father’s girlfriend to his house, breaks in, and surprises the two of them. The father immediately threatens to call the cops.
Spenser’s response? “I enjoy meeting policemen. Sometimes if you’re good they let you play with their handcuffs.”
Spenser has the father and girlfriend buffaloed. As he describes the situation: “He looked at me. Elaine Brooks looked at me. If there’d been a mirror, I would have looked at me. But there wasn’t, so I looked at them.”
Humor permeates the scene. Even the description has a playful nature.
Spenser often takes delight in playing with words. In his first adventure, The Godwulf Manuscript , he is hired by a university to recover a rare stolen manuscript. The head of campus security takes exception to some of Spenser’s questions:
“Who the hell is employing who? I want to know your results, and you start asking me questions about professors.”
“Whom,” I said.
“Huh?”
“It’s whom, who’s employing whom. Or is it? Maybe it’s a predicate nominative, in which case . . .”
He also has fun with words in Hugger Mugger :
“Okay,” I said. “Let me just expostulate for a while. You can nod or not as you wish.”
“Expostulate?”
“I’m sleeping with a Harvard grad,” I said.
And Spenser is even more playful in Small Vices . He narrates:
Since my name was anathema at Pemberton, I had to employ guile. I called the alumni office and said my name was Anathema and I was with the IRS . . .
“What did you say you name was?”
“Anathema. Pervis Anathema, refund enactment agent.”
He claims to have a tax refund for a former student and asks for her address. And, yes, he gets it.
He also deals with the president of Pemberton College, who is surprised to find him well educated. When she tells him he speaks rather well, he replies, “You too.”
She is initially taken aback by the remark, then smiles and acknowledges that she was indeed being patronizing, which he has managed to convey brilliantly with two simple words.
This is something Spenser uses humor for frequently: to highlight the foolishness of other people’s assumptions. In particular, their assumptions that he isn’t very intelligent.
In Promised Land , when he and Susan Silverman bring a runaway wife he has tracked down to his apartment, she is impressed by the extent of his book collection.
“Look at all the books. Have you read all these books?”
Spenser counters in his usual way, with self-deprecating sarcasm that mocks her prejudiced assessment of him: “Most of them. My lips get awfully tired, though.”
Spenser is also not above using humor to highlight his own foolishness. While Spenser is driving Rachel in his car in Looking for Rachel Wallace , she pontificates on the idea that women are always named after their fathers not
Rachel asks, “What did you feel was her most persuasive insight?” To which Spenser answers, “Her suggestion that women occupied the position of other . Are we having a quiz later?”
Rachel has no sense of humor and tells him so. Instead of reassuring her it will be no problem, he says, “Okay if now and then I enjoy a wry, inward smile if struck by one of life’s vagaries?”
Perhaps he is trying too hard to impress her with his erudition; still, the remark is priceless.
Spenser’s intelligence is on display in every quip. In Early Autumn , Spenser has to rescue Paul Giacomin, a teenaged boy, from his dysfunctional family. This is not, of course, the job for which he was hired. In this case, the divorced wife is the client, and the initial task is to retrieve the boy from the father, who won’t return him.
Spenser quickly realizes the boy is nothing more than a trophy the two are fighting over in order to hurt each other. Not one to pull his punches, he sums up the situation for the wife: “Capture the flag.”
Short, punchy, insulting, and rude, but dead-on accurate.
To find Paul, Spenser tails the father’s girlfriend to his house, breaks in, and surprises the two of them. The father immediately threatens to call the cops.
Spenser’s response? “I enjoy meeting policemen. Sometimes if you’re good they let you play with their handcuffs.”
Spenser has the father and girlfriend buffaloed. As he describes the situation: “He looked at me. Elaine Brooks looked at me. If there’d been a mirror, I would have looked at me. But there wasn’t, so I looked at them.”
Humor permeates the scene. Even the description has a playful nature.
Spenser often takes delight in playing with words. In his first adventure, The Godwulf Manuscript , he is hired by a university to recover a rare stolen manuscript. The head of campus security takes exception to some of Spenser’s questions:
“Who the hell is employing who? I want to know your results, and you start asking me questions about professors.”
“Whom,” I said.
“Huh?”
“It’s whom, who’s employing whom. Or is it? Maybe it’s a predicate nominative, in which case . . .”
He also has fun with words in Hugger Mugger :
“Okay,” I said. “Let me just expostulate for a while. You can nod or not as you wish.”
“Expostulate?”
“I’m sleeping with a Harvard grad,” I said.
And Spenser is even more playful in Small Vices . He narrates:
Since my name was anathema at Pemberton, I had to employ guile. I called the alumni office and said my name was Anathema and I was with the IRS . . .
“What did you say you name was?”
“Anathema. Pervis Anathema, refund enactment agent.”
He claims to have a tax refund for a former student and asks for her address. And, yes, he gets it.
He also deals with the president of Pemberton College, who is surprised to find him well educated. When she tells him he speaks rather well, he replies, “You too.”
She is initially taken aback by the remark, then smiles and acknowledges that she was indeed being patronizing, which he has managed to convey brilliantly with two simple words.
This is something Spenser uses humor for frequently: to highlight the foolishness of other people’s assumptions. In particular, their assumptions that he isn’t very intelligent.
In Promised Land , when he and Susan Silverman bring a runaway wife he has tracked down to his apartment, she is impressed by the extent of his book collection.
“Look at all the books. Have you read all these books?”
Spenser counters in his usual way, with self-deprecating sarcasm that mocks her prejudiced assessment of him: “Most of them. My lips get awfully tired, though.”
Spenser is also not above using humor to highlight his own foolishness. While Spenser is driving Rachel in his car in Looking for Rachel Wallace , she pontificates on the idea that women are always named after their fathers not
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