“Elephants Can Remember”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

It features her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and the recurring character Ariadne Oliver. This was the last Christie novel to feature either character, although in terms of publication it was succeeded by Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, which had been written in the early 1940s but published last. The novel is notable for its concentration on memory and oral testimony.

Plot summary

While attending a literary luncheon, Ariadne Oliver finds herself approached by a woman named Mrs Burton-Cox, whose son Desmond is engaged to Oliver's godchild, Celia Ravenscroft. During their conversation, Mrs Burton-Cox questions the truth regarding the deaths of Celia's parents. Ten years ago, Oliver's close school friend, Margaret Ravenscroft, and her husband, General Alistair Ravenscroft, were found dead near their manor house in Overcliffe. Both had been shot with a revolver found between their bodies, which bore only their fingerprints. The investigation into their deaths found it impossible to determine if it was a double suicide, or if one of them murdered the other and then committed suicide. Their deaths left Celia and another of their children orphaned. Although initially put off by Mrs Burton-Cox's attitude, Mrs Oliver decides to resolve the issue after consulting with Celia, and invites her friend Hercule Poirot to solve the disquieting puzzle.

Meeting with a number of elderly witnesses associated with the case, whom the pair dub "elephants", along with researching the case further, the pair make note of a few significant facts: Margaret was in possession of four wigs; the Ravenscroft's dog was devoted to the family, but bit Margaret a few days before her death; Margaret had an identical twin sister Dorothea, who had spent time in a number of psychiatric nursing homes, and was believed to have been involved in two violent incidents in Asia, including the drowning of her infant son after the death of her husband; a month before the couple died, Dorothea had been sleep-walking and died after falling off a cliff. Desmond later gives Poirot the names of governesses who had served the Ravenscroft family, one of whom, Zélie Meauhourat, travelled to Lausanne after the couple's death.

Poirot soon turns his attention to the Burton-Cox family, and towards Desmond's birth, as Mrs Burton-Cox is his adoptive mother; Desmond knows he is adopted but doesn't know any details about his birth mother. Through his agent Mr Goby, Poirot learns that Desmond is the illegitimate son of deceased actress Kathleen Fenn, a woman who had conducted an affair with Mrs Burton-Cox's husband. Unbeknown to Desmond, Fenn bequeathed a considerable personal fortune to him, held in trust until he was of age or had married, and which would go to his adoptive mother should he die. Poirot suspects Mrs Burton-Cox desired to prevent the marriage between Desmond and Celia, through having the deaths of Celia's parents investigated, in order to obtain the use of the money, but he finds no suggestion that Mrs Burton-Cox wishes to kill her son. Eventually he begins to suspect the truth about the Ravenscrofts' death, and contacts Zélie to return to England to help explain it to Desmond and Celia.

Poirot reveals to the pair that the woman that died with Alistair was not his wife, but Dorothea. A month earlier, she fatally injured Margaret as part of a psychotic episode. Before Margaret died, she made her husband promise to protect her sister from arrest. Alistair had Zélie help him to conceal the truth of his wife's death, planting her body at the foot of a cliff and fabricating a story that it was Dorothea who had died, before having his sister-in-law take the place of his wife. While she fooled the Ravenscrofts' servants, the family dog couldn't be deceived as it could distinguish between the sisters, and thus bit her. A month after his wife's death, Alistair murdered Dorothea to prevent her from injuring anyone else, making certain she held the revolver before she was killed, and then committed suicide afterwards. Desmond and Celia recognise the sadness behind the truth of the events, but now knowing the facts are able to face a future together.

Characters

Literary significance and reception

Maurice Richardson in The Observer of 5 November 1972 said, "A quiet but consistently interesting whodunnit with ingenious monozygotic solution. Any young elephant would be proud to have written it."^[2]

Other critics were less kind. Robert Barnard wrote "Another murder-in-the-past case, with nobody able to remember anything clearly, including, alas, the author. At one time we are told that General Ravenscroft and his wife (the dead pair) were respectively sixty and thirty-five; later we are told he had fallen in love with his wife's twin sister 'as a young man'. The murder/suicide is once said to have taken place ten to twelve years before, elsewhere fifteen, or twenty. Acres of meandering conversations, hundreds of speeches beginning with 'Well, …' That sort of thing may happen in life, but one doesn't want to read it."^[3] According to The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, this novel is one of the "execrable last novels" where Christie "loses her grip altogether".^[4]

References to other works

Adaptations

Television

The novel was adapted into a TV film with David Suchet as Poirot, as part of the final series of Agatha Christie's Poirot. It was broadcast on ITV on 9 June 2013,^[8] and later on the Acorn TV website on 11 August 2014, over a year later.^[9] Zoë Wanamaker returned to the role of Ariadne Oliver, marking her fifth out of six appearances on the show in total. Greta Scacchi (Mrs Burton-Cox), Vanessa Kirby (Celia Ravenscroft), Iain Glen (Dr Willoughby) and Ferdinand Kingsley (Desmond Burton-Cox) were also among the cast.

The adaptation is generally faithful to the novel, but includes some significant additions to the plot. Most notably, there is a gruesome present day murder for Poirot to solve, which raises the tension and allows for a suspenseful ending. The plot of the novel, involving delving into the past, is reduced to background information leading to the present-day murder. Characters such as Mr Goby, Miss Lemon, George, Marlene Buckle (whose mother becomes Mrs Matcham's housekeeper) and ex-Chief Superintendent Spence were removed from the story (Spence's character is replaced with an original character named Beale), whilst the characters of Zélie Meauhourat and Mme Rouselle were combined.

Instead of immediately helping Mrs Oliver with the Ravenscroft case, Poirot instead chooses to investigate the murder of Dr Willoughby's father, which is a subplot that is not in the novel; as a consequence, Dr Willoughby's character is greatly expanded. When Poirot realises that Dr Willoughby and his institute have a connection to the Ravenscrofts, Poirot decides to solve both mysteries. This subplot also includes an original character named Marie McDermott, an Irish-American girl who works as Dr Willoughby's filing clerk and turns out to be his mistress. The character is ultimately revealed to be Dorothea Jarrow's daughter, who is avenging her mother for the cruel treatments she experienced at the hands of Professor Willoughby (an entirely fictional version of hydrotherapy), and also for her mother's murder (as she was at Overcliffe on the day of the tragedy and overheard General Ravenscroft make his plans) by trying to kill both Celia and Desmond. Zélie spirited her away to Canada after the tragedy, and she had to wait thirteen years before she could earn enough money to travel to England and exact her revenge. Also, in keeping with the other episodes, the story is moved from the early 1970s to the late 1930s. This leads to an anachronism when there are references to chemotherapy as a cure for cancer.

Radio

Elephants Can Remember was adapted for radio by BBC Radio 4 in 2006, featuring John Moffatt as Poirot and Julia Mackenzie as Ariadne Oliver.

Film adaptations

Publication history

The novel was serialised in the Star Weekly Novel, a Toronto newspaper supplement, in two abridged instalments from 10 to 17 February 1973 with each issue containing the same cover illustration by Laszlo Gal.{{cn|date=February 2017}}