Olifant vergeet niet gauw, Een

Inhoud

Toen Celia Ravenscroft nog een klein meisje was, pleegden haar ouders zelfmoord. Over de aanleiding daarvoor heeft Celia nooit nagedacht, maar nu ze op het punt staat te trouwen wordt het plotseling belangrijk precies te weten wat er indertijd is gebeurd. Hercule Poirot en de detectiveschrijfster Ariadne Oliver besluiten het verleden voor Celia te ontrafelen. 'Op zoek naar olifanten,' noemen ze het zelf. Een olifant vergeet immers nooit iets?

Bespreking

Confusing murder in retrospect mystery

Celia Ravenscroft is but a little girl when both her parents commit suicide. Never did she worry about the real reasons for that dramatic event, until today when she stands on the verge of getting married to Desmond Burton-Cox. Only one question suddenly seems of importance: Who killed whom, Celia's father or mother? Reason enough for Ariadne Oliver, Celia's godmother, to pay a visit to her old friend Hercule Poirot. The famous sleuth persuades Mrs. Oliver to delve -with his guidance, of course- into the past, to find the persons who are like elephants, the persons who will still remember the important details about this all-but-forgotten tragedy.

Elephants Can Remember is Agatha Christie's next to last work of detection and the author shows clearly signs of age, which is understandable since she was eighty-two years old and in failing health.

Elephants Can Remember is a "murder in retrospect" mystery. Although Christie has proven to fully master this format -see Sparkling Cyanide and Five Little Pigs- she now quickly looses touch with the story. She is forced to sow the narrative together with vague memories of a series of old spinsters and suddenly even events that should easily be remembered are covered by the veil of forgetfulness. No surprise that the plot is total confusion. It is less a mystery than a scrapbook of memories. Action is less important than atmosphere, which makes the story quite tedious and difficult to hang on to. Nevertheless, the experienced reader will figure out the solution to this not too mysterious mystery halfway through the book.