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Popular Culture Review
Dupin attests to the value of the scientific method wedded to
the discernment of the human heart; to the value of close
observation connected with an understanding of others; the
value of perseverance in the face of ridicule and doubt; and to
the value of not remaining a slave, to one’s own favorite
approach that may require modification in another case”
(Cemy 66), and we see all of these same characteristics in
Detective Pendergast.
The first half of that quote, “the value of the scientific method wedded to
the discernment of the human heart; to the value of close observation connected
with an understanding of others” is an explanation for Poe’s ratiocination. With
Poe’s detective setting the stage, both detectives fall into a sort of reverie when
each performs his heaviest thought processes, where they tap into their intuition
and partner it with their knowledge of the facts to reach the hidden conclusions
of their respective crimes. According to the narrator of “The Murders in the Rue
Morgue”, “His manner at these moments was frigid and abstract; his eyes were
vacant in expression. . . Observing him in these moods, I often dwelt
meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself
with the fancy of a double Dupin—the creative and the resolvent” (278).
Pendergast similarly practiced this division between the physical body from
the intuitive mental state; although, in the Preston and Child texts, these mental
journeys were more developed and better-explained. Rather than just having a
narrator’s distant description of the external evidence of this reflective state of
Dupin, Pendergast’s omniscient narrator is allowed to witness Pendergast’s
journey and take the reader along. In Cabinet o f Curiosities, Pendergast uses
what he terms the “Memory Palace” two times. The first is to discover how mad
scientist Enoch Leng gathered his victims on which to perform his experiments
(257-263), and the second time was to discover his familial relationship to
Enoch Leng and to solve the mystery of where the current villain was hiding out
and practicing his diabolical experiments (529-539). Pendergast explains in Still
Life with Crows what exactly the Memory Palace is, and it does seem related to
the same idea of Dupin’s “Bi-Part Soul” as explained above:
It is a mental exercise, a kind of memory training, that goes
back at least as far as the ancient Greek poet
Simonides. . . Here’s a simplified explanation: through
intense research, followed by intense concentration, I attempt
to recreate, in my mind, a particular place at a particular time
in the p ast. . . I attempt to reconstruct a finite location in time
and space within my mind . . . (286-287).
Pendergast specifically uses the Memory Palace in Still Life with Crows in order
to figure out exactly where the secret entrance to the caverns is located. The use
of the Memory Palace occurs in Brimstone, but is limited to just a single
occurrence, when Pendergast is described as “rising calmly from the sofa, where