(urth) e: memory and Suzanne (offshot of Typhon's nature)

Marc Aramini marcaramini at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 17 19:57:18 PDT 2011


Gerry says:
 
>The title is explained well enough by it being the name of a girl the narrator should have >met but never did, just like the girl in Proust.  And I don’t think the story sucks at all – in >fact, I like it a lot.  The best fantasy is often that which is closest to reality.
 
Fair enough.  For me the question is whether the reference is synechdochic (part for whole) or purely specific to the passage naming Suzanne.  If it refers to the total work, memory is a HUGE theme.  If just to the section with Suzanne, then, yes, Proust having not met the girl but knowing of her is the complete reference.  
 
What sways it to the supernatural interpretation for me is just the strangeness of her attraction, the decimation of the town, and the premise that an explicitly "supernatural" event that embodies "there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy" would be completely forgotten if it occurred ... which would be more like Proust's involuntary/suppressed juvenile memories than the section with Suzanne's name in it.
 
So I still think the reference could go either way.  The very idea of completely forgetting something mentioned in the text just screams of elision (and yes, I understand the circumstance of the quote, but it does say that in the text, like Chekhov's gun, supernatural events will be forgotten)
 
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