I chose Elephants Can Remember on a whim from the library as it features one of my favourite Agatha Christie characters – Ariadne Oliver. In this tale, she is paired up with her good friend Hercule Poirot, to delve deeper into a passing comment someone makes to her at a literary luncheon.
Opening sentence: Mrs Oliver looked at herself in the glass.
Ariadne and the elephants
Elephants Can Remember focuses on a tragedy that happened many years ago. Ariadne’s goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft was left an orphan when her parents died in what the police ruled a double suicide, or a murder/suicide.
‘That’s the point, you see. Elephants remember. What I’ve got to do is – I’ve got to get in touch with some elephants.’
A chance remark to Ariadne Oliver leads her to look further into what really happened to Celia’s parents. She enlists the help of her friend, Poirot, but also takes it upon herself to talk to people she knew were around at the time. The duo then work to see if they can indeed find out the truth of this intriguing tale…
Not a classic but highly enjoyable
Now, while I did enjoy Elephants Can Remember and while the conversations between, and observations of, both Ariadne and Poirot were delightful, the overall plot was a little thin. There was a lot of repetition of the main points, which I know is an Agatha trait, but it felt more like page-filler here, as the actual story wasn’t one of her most complex.
In fact, other examples of this retrospective approach to solving a crime are directly referenced in the book – such as Five Little Pigs – and they are much better stories than this one.
‘Human curiosity,’ said Poirot. ‘Such a very interesting thing.’
I also guessed the ending, although at the time thought Agatha would never do something so obvious, so was a little surprised when, in fact, she did. This is one of the later Poirot novels, and it feels like it ran out of ideas a little bit. But, to end on a positive note, it’s worth a read for the Ariadne Oliver / Hercule Poirot double act if you, like me, hold affection for those characters.
