From: Peter Westlake <peter@harlequin.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) Suzanne
Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 01:00:23 +0100

At 18:17 1998/05/09 -0400, alga wrote:

>I tend to go along with Adam's explanation here, but I don't agree that it
>diminishes the story. I think there is something powerful and poignant about
>a middle-aged man's shock of realization that his entire life could have
>been entirely different, had it not been for the coincidences of fate. I
>think you're all looking too hard for a fantasy element. The godfather of
>this story is Proust (and for once that is proven, not conjectural), not
>Kafka or Borges. The flavor of regret is bittersweet.

That *does* make a lot of sense. In fact, I shall enjoy reading that
version of the story very much even if another explanation proves to
be the true one, just as I enjoyed reading "my" version. So do you
think that never seeing Suzanne is sufficiently odd to fit the
notion at the start of the story? Actually, I suppose it is,
and the narrator hadn't called it to mind before he read the idea.

It certainly is a powerful and poignant story, and at the moment
I think you're right.

Peter.



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