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'?