Popular Culture Review Vol. 22, No. 1, Winter 2011 | Page 62

58 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