(urth) Short Story 81: Suzanne Delage

[Gerry Quinn]

On 06/08/2014 01:45, Greg Bates wrote:
> I have never been able to make hide or hair of this story! Someone 
> needs to hold Wolfe down and force him to explain what he was going 
> for with it, beyond an extended riff on Proust.

I think it is a twist on the theme of romantic love.  The narrator 
*doesn't* ever meet the woman who should have been the love of his 
life.  We are told early that he had two brief and insipid marriages 
that ended in divorce; he and his partners bored each other.  His life 
was lonely and dull.  There's a reason we are told these things, and it 
doesn't seem likely to have much to do with potential 'vampire' themes, 
or whatever.

At the end he sees the daughter of Suzanne Delage, who - we are informed 
- looks just like her, and in his only display of emotional animation, 
he is instantly enchanted by her.

Some malign conspiracy of chance or fate prevented him from meeting the 
woman who should have been his love.  He recognises the oddness of not 
ever meeting a particular small-town contemporary, but doesn't fully 
realise the implications - that is left to the reader.

- Gerry Quinn