Dear Associates,

I am the literary critical detective.

In my work I examine the mise en scene of classic detective stories carefully, paying attention to the smallest metaphorical detail, sifting through the facts and then distorting them according to my whim.
My friends have been kind enough to express some interest in my observations and so to this end I am making this journal available. I hope that you might also find it of some interest.


The Literary Critical Detective.


Saturday 2 October 2010

Case Notes

Points for further consideration:

  1. In Agatha Christie's novel Elephants Can Remember one of the key facts turns out to be that Margaret Ravenscroft (whose death Poirot is investigating) had four wigs. The detective is upset by this, and is eventually able to work out that these hair pieces were used to pass one character off as another. I can't help wondering what other significances this strange fact concerning the wigs might have. At the beginning of the novel Christie treats us to a long description of Ariadne Oliver's four hats. What is the sense of the hat connection here?
  2. In this novel Poirot asks: 'One wants to know more about the people, and how can you know people separated from you by a gulf of years' (p 159). This, it seems, might be the cruical question. And it is not only Dame Agatha's but also Marcel Proust's. His answer, of course, is that we are not separated from the past at all
  3. Question: Is the novel Elephants Can Remember really about fogetfulness? Is it even about what Nietzsche terms 'active fogetting'?

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