Elephants Remember and Death in the Clouds
Have you read And Then There Were None yet? If so, you may be in the market for a lighter mystery. Both Elephants Remember and Death in the Clouds offer that lighter experience, though Elephants Remember is perhaps the Agatha Christie that appeals most to the niche, cerebral audience. It has nearly no tension, leading to almost the entire flow coming from an immense dose of realism.
Even though Poirot is in it, the majority of the chapters are from the perspective of Ariadne Oliver. To understand why this is the case, it must be noted that Elephants Remember is one of the last novels Christie wrote, and, as she grew older, she wanted to use her personal experiences to create a testament to her life. So she breathed her own life into her work through Ariadne Oliver, who embodies Christie’s exact personality and perspective on life. This is seen in her dislike of literary luncheons, as well as her humble dislike of praise, especially the inordinate amount from young women who consider her their hero. But even she cannot ignore the request of a particularly bossy woman. That woman asks her to investigate a crime that was not solved twelve years ago, and not knowing where to start, she seeks Poirot’s help. Together, they meet with all acquaintances of those involved, with the intention of piecing together the mystery by finding a “True Elephant.” This section of the novel is once again powerful, this time as a commentary on Christie’s failing memory, as all the characters have varied and hazy recollections of the past. The only exception to this foible is the second-to-last one interviewed, who points the sleuths to a person willfully concealing information and gives Poirot the ammunition to draw the truth out. The slow pace can be exempted from negative consideration only if you find this theme of memory intriguing. While the mystery is not particularly difficult to solve, it is redeemed by the result: the matrimony of two worried parties and the cathartic easing of an old woman’s troubled spirit. The final sentiment is that while grief can be difficult to overcome, while Elephants Remember, humans can forget, finding solace in moving on to the next chapter of life.
Death in the Clouds has a lighter tone for an entirely different reason: a cornucopia of properly spaced comedic moments. From a jury who suspects Poirot simply because he is Belgian, to a scatterbrained author who has a negative perspective of Sherlock Holmes that matches the perspective of Christie, to two very dynamic secondary detectives whose reasoning is entertaining to recognize as faulty, to a funny impersonation of a fake identity. The final nail in the lighthearted coffin is Poirot himself: his disheartened realization that he slept through the crime, the geniality he displays as he uses guile to draw truth from deceptive characters, and his matching a hair stylist with an archeologist. What truly completes the novel as a memorable read is the surprising ending, which is all the more surprising given the multitude of tactics used by the murderer, including framing, misdirecting evidence, and releasing a wasp to draw people's attention.
The Chase Verdict is that Death in the Clouds and Elephants Remember are both a unique adaptation of the mystery genre, with Death in the Clouds being in the top five novels that Christie enjoyed writing, and that if you carefully consider your personal sensibilities and find that one of these ideas appeals to you, I couldn’t recommend enough for you to follow that intuition.