The Ageless Agatha Christie

by Bernthal, J. C. ;

  For practical reasons, as noted above, this discussion focuses on the “early years” episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, as shown on ITV under the direction of Exton and Eastman, as although some of the narrative arcs become less true to Christie’s originals in the post–2001 seasons, the less frequent appearances of Miss Lemon and Hastings is more in keeping with the textual originals. In addition to the disappearance of Poirot’s secretary and his companion in the later seasons, the filing cabinet that is such a prevalent part of the early episodes also disappeared when Poirot’s flat underwent a revamp in 2005; when he seemingly moved to another apartment in Whitehaven Mansions. This move came complete with a change in decor and with a loss of the outer office that had been occupied by Miss Lemon and her cabinet-creation, disrupting the role of the cabinet within the television series and leaving a gap in continuity—as the series, until this shift, had self-identified its cross-referential chronology as embodied by the case-by-case nexus of information contained within the filing cabinet, which is so central to the visual identity and overarching narrative of the early adaptations.

  To set this discussion (and Miss Lemon’s Cabinet) in a wider context, it is important to consider the ideas of collecting and curating so tied up with the hording of the rare and the wonderful in the enlightenment era collections, which, in their complete and complex networks form a visual embodiment of the early modern epistemology of knowledge through their contents, their creation and their controlled display; at once pre-figuration and echoic narrative of Miss Lemon’s fictional creation.

  To have a confessional moment, having grown up immersed in both the television series and the novels and short stories, Poirot (for me, and many others), is hard-wired “comfort reading/watching.” Over the last decade or so I have lost count of the number of times I have watched the series, or re-read the books, a continual background to other things, other topics. Spaces, structures and collections (of various forms) all play a role in my wider research so it is perhaps not surprising that somewhere in all these hours of watching I was subconsciously drawn to Miss Lemon’s superlative system. Things, for want of a better term, in boxes and cabinets are something I find academically irresistible, and all the while watching Suchet’s portrayal of Poirot’s “gray cells” in action I was becoming increasingly fond of the cabinet, as and when it had its moments on screen. Having established that, and having such a priori knowledge that Miss Lemon (and her patented system) are a significant part of the first twelve years of the Poirot productions, when I first came to research this chapter, I was slightly surprised by how ever-present the cabinet is across the early adaptations, functioning, almost, as an extra character operating alongside Poirot and his companions. As stated, this visual presentation of the cabinet is at odds with the original literary texts, where it is mentioned tantalizingly and then dropped out of sight. Here, though, in Agatha Christie’s Poirot, it is visually pervasive and Miss Lemon, her files and the cabinet which houses her system are prominent parts of encountering these narratives on-screen, acting as bracket and background to the more dynamic elements of the plot.

  “A multiplicity of frames”

  Visual examples of the manner and method in which Miss Lemon’s filing cabinet (and the system it contains) shapes, echoes, evolves and symbolizes Christie’s plots and characters will be considered in more detail below, but before addressing specific examples it is fruitful to consider analogous examples of systemic curating, collecting and containing information which is so much a part of the “modern moment” captured and presented in Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Curiosity cabinets and Wunderkammer, acknowledged forerunners of the modern museum, present encyclopedic systems that mirror that of Miss Lemon’s cabinet; all are types of composite epistemological collections that are located in fixed spatial environments, which are intrinsic to the identity of the collections they contain. The resemblances between the cabinet/system of Poirot and the Curiosity cabinet occur both in the manner they perform, and in the manner they are most usually presented. Cabinets of curiosities were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in pre-modern Europe, yet to be fully defined. Modern re-readings of these objects have subsequently designated them as belonging primarily to the field of natural history (albeit often a history that has since proved false—such as the ubiquitous narwhale tusk/unicorn horn conflation found throughout early collections), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings, which form a meta-narrative of the cabinet, presenting a microcosmic point of mirrored presentation where the cabinet encounters a version of itself within its collection, and thus must confront itself as a conceptual object), and various antiquities or scientific curios.

  The spaces of these early collections were widely regarded as microcosms or theatres of the world, conveying, through symbolic iconographies, abbreviated visual language and the potency of universalizing and totalitarian acquisition, a coherent and persuasive demonstration of their owner’s symbolic control of the world through the mastery of these contained replicas, which presented indoor, controlled and miniaturized reproductions of all creation and all understood knowledge; held and displayed in a known, mapped, contained space. While the specific items in any one curiosity cabinet or wunderkammer vary depending on the tastes, times and interests of the collector in general, there could be said to be three compulsory categories of inclusion for compiling and showcasing a curiosity cabinet: naturalia (products of nature), arteficialia (or artefacta, the products of man), and scientifica (the testaments of man’s ability to dominate nature, such as astrolabes, clocks, automatons, and scientific instruments). These theoretical underpinnings to the Curiosity cabinet may also be seen in the rationale behind Miss Lemon’s cabinet, with its specific taxonomic system of knowledge. This correlation becomes possible if, for example, we read the people concerned with Poirot’s case histories as being analogous to naturalia, the products of nature; the crimes committed as synonymous with the idea of artefacta, the products of man; and the deductive process itself as scientifica—all then may be said to have a place in the microcosmic world of the cabinet: whereby human history, activity and psychology is collected, ordered, confined and displayed.15

  Patrick Mauriès has described the space of the Curiosity Cabinet as “find[ing] its raison d’être in a multiplicity of frames, niches, boxes, drawers and cases, in appropriating to itself the chaos of the world and imposing upon it systems—however arbitrary—of symmetries and hierarchies.”16 This rationale of a confined, contained miniature that functions as a microcosm of the world, as expressed through its container and as demonstrated through the Curiosity cabinet, is again echoed in Miss Lemon’s system, which organizes the information generated by Poirot’s professional activity (which is, of course, also the psycho-geographic boundary of the world created by Christie for her audience). Indeed, in the 1989 televised version of “The Adventure of Johnny Waverly,” Miss Lemon describes her system thus:

  Miss Lemon: It’s nearly complete, you see. My system.

  Hercule Poirot: Ah.

  Miss Lemon: Every one of your cases classified and cross-referenced five different ways.

  Hercule Poirot: Five?

  Miss Lemon: Oh, yes. In this cabinet, names of witnesses; in this, name of perpetrator, if known. Victim’s trade or profession. Type of case: abduction, addiction, adultery—see also under marriage, bigamy—see also under marriage, bombs.

  Hercule Poirot: See also under marriage?17

  So described, a vivid idea of the scale and scope of Miss Lemon’s cabinet of curiosities forms; even as a purely conceptual entity, as in the original literary texts, the system has a monumentality that echoes its complex and shifting visual arrangement as found in the adaptations—where it changes shape throughout its on-screen life, reflecting the events of the series, the narrative of the cases and the actions of the characters. The reflection of the wider encyclopedic collections of
curiosity cabinets is also found in the fictive presence of the arranged system of data; in its being housed in a separate space in Poirot’s apartment and in the symbolic presence of the knowledge and memories it houses, as well as in the systematic exactitude with which it is composed. Alone, the comprehensive litany of types of criminal activity listed by Miss Lemon is impressive, but it is the ease and effortlessness of the cross-referencing mechanisms set within her system that most completely illustrate the complexities of the system (a system capable of housing the myriad nuances of vast swathes of information associated with both criminal and detective alike), that begin to highlight the sophistries of Miss Lemon’s system. Moreover, Poirot’s teasing response of “see also under marriage” speaks to his relationship to the system, as will be expounded below.

  Alongside the Curiosity cabinets recalled by Miss Lemon’s filing system, a further analogous example of an equally comprehensive social machine for thinking is found in Marino Auriti’s Encyclopedic Palace of the World, created in the 1950s and currently housed in the American Folk Art Museum, New York. The model was conceived by Auriti as an imaginary museum, a building to “hold all the works of man in whatever field, discoveries made and those which may follow … [It wa]s an entirely new concept in museums designed to house humankind’s greatest achievements, ‘everything from the wheel to the satellite.’”18 A scale model of a building Auriti dreamed would eventually be constructed in Washington D. C., the Encyclopedic Palace is comprised of seven tiers of lathe-turned skyscraper, made of mixed media, including various woods, metal, plastic (including hair combs), celluloid, and topped by a television antennae. The model took about three years to build and is on a scale of 1:200, which means that if it were actually built, the palace would stand 136 stories and 2,322 feet, which would have made it the tallest building in the world at the time Auriti imagined it.19 From its relative obscurity as a quasi-lost cultural object (akin to the largely vanished wunderkammer of early modern Europe), the Encyclopedic Palace of the World was reclaimed by the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, which used Auriti’s piece as its curatorial rationale envisioned by Massimiliano Gioni, and indeed, for its title—Il Palazzo Enciclopedico. Gioni termed his vision for the Biennale an exhibition on obsessions and the transformational power of imagination; acknowledging its homage to Marino Auriti’s imagined architectural utopian encyclopedia, complete with its tiny celluloid windows with its hand-drawn mullions and tiny balustrades made of hair combs, elevating ephemeral everyday objects to art and possessing an imagined scope that far outweighs its scale.20

  Now, encyclopedic systems for thinking and for containing (all) knowledge are not new; nor were they as Auriti was designing his Encyclopedic Palace, but such models have been prominently returned to popular consciousness of late by projects such as last years’ Biennale or, more recently, by the BBC’s Sherlock—wherein Sherlock Holmes’ Mind Palace is presented as a highly visual encyclopedic structure which, like Miss Lemon’s filing system in its on-screen incarnation, provides an immersive encounter with the invisible mechanics of the deductive process for the viewer. The method of loci,21 also called the memory palace, is a mnemonic device introduced in the classical world and, in short, is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualization to organize and recall information; an imaginary filing system if you will. As part of this technique the subject memorizes the layout of a familiar piece of architecture—a place, a building, the arrangement of shops on a street, or any similar geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. If one wishes to remember an item or, indeed, a set of items, the person using the system literally “walks” through these loci and commits an item to each one by forming a linked bond between the item and a/ny distinguishing feature of that locus. Retrieval of remembered items is subsequently achieved by “(re)walking” through the loci, allowing the associative bond between visualized locus and memory-object to produce the memory. The Sherlockian Memory Palace, as played out on-screen in the adaptations enables the viewer to locate themselves within the narrative of deduction; we are, at times, physically placed into Holmes’s Memory Palace as it meanders and unfurls across the screen. Although the on-screen presence of this encyclopedic system is showier and more visceral than the analogous processes shown in Poirot where a slow blink or a satisfied smile communicate the ending of deductive reasoning for the Belgian detective, the memory palace and the encyclopedic cabinet have several things in common. If (in an unlikely, but nonetheless appealing, hypothetical scenario) the two methods of visualizing a deductive process on-screen were conflated by the producers of both shows, then surely Christie’s viewers would have taken an imaginary walk through Miss Lemon’s filing cabinet.

  From these considerations of encyclopedic systems in wider cultural, literary and televisual contexts, we can turn to address the various presentations of Miss Lemon’s own encyclopedic system within the Poirot adaptations. From the outset, it is noteworthy that while the filing cabinet that houses the system is almost always present during any interior shot of the apartment, it is not a static background presence—the cabinet evolves over the course of the episodes, a mutable point of shifting, fluid movement and change. Such phenomena of flux are seen in the various points of its use, in its compilation, creation and ordering. Over the course of the episodes, we often see Miss Lemon actively involved in the process of creating, revising or curating it. It grows; it expands; additional cabinets are added to the original system of shelving; on an almost permanent basis various loose files and papers surround it, waiting to be incorporated into the system; and, once, it is rehoused, stored and then rearranged in its entirety having been retrieved from storage following Poirot’s brief and unsuccessful retirement.

  Ownership of the system and its overarching cabinet is a tricky thing to locate. Clearly the taxonomical system of ordering belongs to Miss Lemon, indeed she and it are often conflated on-screen for the viewer. During the course of the episodes, we frequently see her immersed in it, surrounded by it. We see it constantly in the process of creation in the background of the detective stories, evolving under her authority. Miss Lemon is seen continually typing, as we witness her generating more paper, more parts for admission to the system as it expands across seasons. Her protectiveness of it is fierce, as exemplified by her reaction to Hastings’ disastrous attempts to use the system in her absence in the 1991 adaptation of “How Does Your Garden Grow?” adapted for television by Andrew Marshall and directed by Brian Farnham.

  This type of authoritative, authorial control is also demonstrated in her engagements with the moving firm who are returning the system to its proper place in Lord Edgware Dies, adapted for television by Anthony Horowitz and again directed by Farnham, in 2000. Indeed, such is the ferocity of her reaction when the removal men, who have already disordered the system in the liminal and vulnerable moment of its fragmented and fragile state of transportation outside the protective confines of cabinet-container, drop the carefully arranged and cataloged boxes that hold the disparate components of the cabinet (and thus the encyclopedic system), that it creates a comedic effect. However amusing, in that moment, her ownership of the encyclopedic system is complete. Once disaster (i.e., the dropping of a box or two of files during their transportation before the cabinet is recreated as a functioning systemic whole) is averted, her barely suppressed, slightly maniacal glee at the need to reorder the system is as amusing as it is all encompassing, demonstrating the (inter)relationship between Miss Lemon and the cabinet. The system, as it stands, must be continually updated or it will cease to function as an active and useful member of the team; becoming instead obsolete, cold. In that moment, the cabinet and the information it holds teeters in its object-identity; at risk of transforming into something other; at risk, in other words, of becoming solely an archive, rather than an encyclopedic system that performs with something between memorial and active agency.

  Evolution and Disappearance of the Cabinet

  A fundame
ntal aspect of the cabinet’s identity, however, is that as much as it reflects Miss Lemon, the filing cabinet and its contents also reflect Poirot himself. While Hastings’ engagement with it is fraught and marginalized, Poirot does not directly engage with it, yet it is clear that it is linked to him; indeed in many ways, being his the product of his psychological output and representing his metal cosmology, it is him. In the presentation of Poirot and cabinet on-screen we see a clear link between the two; in moving through his apartment and his day, whether alone or engaging with others, he often situates himself in direct relation to it—sitting or standing opposite, facing it—it is frequently in his sight line, forming a visual counterpoint to his totemic intellectual presence in the space of his apartment, serving to recall and present his past successes as he wrestles with (and inevitably solves) his current problem/s. It bears repeating that the cabinet functions as both a figure of the past and a harbinger of the future; a colossus of information, a quiet, galvanic presence that forms a visual parallel to Poirot’s deductive processes, endlessly housing and ordering information while life goes on around it.