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Meave's Reviews > Elephants Can Remember
Elephants Can Remember (Hercule Poirot, #42)
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I was too distracted by the impossible timeline of Mrs. Oliver's age vs. the length of time she and Poirot have been friends to focus on the story.
If she was a bridesmaid at her friend's wedding, then they must have been around the same age--presumably within five years of each other. Now, if that school friend was 35 when she died, and her death occurred 13 years ago, that would make Mrs. Oliver at most 53 years old. How, then could she and Poirot have been friends for 40 years, as she says in the beginning of the book? When they meet, she's already "Mrs. Oliver," a lady, all enormous and gray-haired and loopy--certainly not a 13-year-old girl.
Trying to figure out whether Christie meant to write that they'd been friends for 20, even 30 years, or if the entire "we were school friends" connection was a mistake to begin with, drove me NUTS. It was very sloppy and detracted from an otherwise acceptable--if boring--mystery.
If she was a bridesmaid at her friend's wedding, then they must have been around the same age--presumably within five years of each other. Now, if that school friend was 35 when she died, and her death occurred 13 years ago, that would make Mrs. Oliver at most 53 years old. How, then could she and Poirot have been friends for 40 years, as she says in the beginning of the book? When they meet, she's already "Mrs. Oliver," a lady, all enormous and gray-haired and loopy--certainly not a 13-year-old girl.
Trying to figure out whether Christie meant to write that they'd been friends for 20, even 30 years, or if the entire "we were school friends" connection was a mistake to begin with, drove me NUTS. It was very sloppy and detracted from an otherwise acceptable--if boring--mystery.
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Reading Progress
August 16, 2010
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Started Reading
August 16, 2010
– Shelved
August 17, 2010
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Finished Reading
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Mary Ellen
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rated it 2 stars
Sep 06, 2016 04:32PM
There were many discrepancies with age and time and numbers generally - the friend is first said to be 35, and her husband 60, when they died; later the length of their relationship makes the age gap unlikely. Then another character is said to be around 35, when that, too, doesn't fit other facts. Very sloppily written/edited, this one!
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This was published 4 yrs before Christie's death. Already she was not well, but her editors and fans were very forgiving.
And they spend a lot of time talking about how she can't remember all her godchildren.. but she's spent a lot of time with this kid and taken her out many times
