<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><FONT size=2><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Gwern Branwen <gwern0@gmail.com><BR><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"></SPAN><STRONG>[missed-chances theory]</STRONG></FONT></FONT><BR><BR>> I don't like this theory in general because while it works on its own<BR>> terms, its terms call for ignoring all the strange parts - Kidd's<BR>> introduction, the narrator's promise, the detailed incidents, the<BR>> pictures, etc etc.</DIV>
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<DIV>I think that if you imagine that unknown supernatural forces are causing all this it works, except for Kidd's introduction.</DIV>
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<DIV>The quilting business is because otherwise the reader would say, "Come on, in a small town there would be connections between people even if they weren't in the same clique in high school." So Wolfe provides a connection (with small-town atmosphere) and a reason it doesn't lead to a meeting between the narrator and Suzanne.</DIV>
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<DIV>The pictures were another thing for the supernatural forces to interrupt, and of course, to answer the question "Doesn't the narrator have yearbook pictures?" (I hadn't realized high school yearbooks with photos of clubs were that old, but they are. Next: were there high school debate teams at the time of the Spanish flu pandemic?)</DIV>
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<DIV>Jerry</DIV></div><br>
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