{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/96", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 96, "subject": "Suzanne's secret", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-07-13T09:13:51+00:00", "last": "1997-07-15T14:00:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "al at interport.net" }, "date": "1997-07-13T09:13:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Suzanne's secret", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, mantis, I'll bite. What is Suzanne's secret origin? (I'm guessing it's\na link to another story.)\n\nOTOH, how many people have discovered the secret origin of \"Suzanne\nDelage,\" a quiet little story in ENDANGERED SPECIES? I mean: I\nfigured something out (largely by accident, as per usual) and asked a\nlot of people if they'd spotted anything intratextual (it really is a\nneedle in a haystack) and then (when none of them had seen it) told\nthem what I'd found.\n\n-alga-" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-07-13T20:14:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Suzanne's secret", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #8155535 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#\n\nalga,\n\nFOR YOUR EYES ONLY\n\n She spoke to me of myself, my family, my social background. She\nsaid: \"Oh, I know your parents know some very nice people. You're a\nfriend of Robert Forestier and Suzanne Delage.\" For a moment these\nnames conveyed absolutely nothing to me. But suddenly I remembered\nthat I had indeed played as a child in the Champs-Elysees with Robert\nForestier, whom I had never seen since. As for Suzanne Delage, she\nwas the great-niece of Mme Blandais, and I had once been due to go to\na dancing lesson, and even to take a small part in a play at her\nparents' house. But the fear of getting a fit of giggles and a\nnose-bleed had at the last moment prevented me, so that I had never\nset eyes on her. I had at the most a vague idea that I had once heard\nthat the Swanns' feather-hatted governess had at one time been with\nthe Delages, but perhaps it was only a sister of this governess, or a\nfriend. I protested to Albertine that Robert Forestier and Suzanne\nDelage occupied a very small place in my life. \"That may be; but\nyour mothers are friends, I can place you by that. I often pass\nSuzanne Delage in the Avenue de Messine. I admire her style.\" Our\nmothers were acquainted only in the imagination of Mme Bontemps,\nwho having heard that I had at one time played with Robert Forestier,\nto whom, it appeared, I used to recite poetry, had concluded from\nthat that we were bound by family ties. She could never, I gathered,\nhear my mother's name mentioned without observing: \"Oh yes, she\nbelongs to the Delage-Forestier set,\" giving my parents a good mark\nwhich they had done nothing to deserve.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Oh, now who could =that= be? ]\n\n\n\n\n\n[Proust, THE GUERMANTES WAY, Chapter Two, p. 381-382]\n\n=mantis=\n\nP.S. There is, of course, more to this story. For example, what was\nthe book the narrator was reading that set him off on his mental\njourneying? It =might= be Proust, it certainly =reads= like Proust,\nbut if it is Proust it didn't jump out at me, even after I'd found our\ngirl SD in Proust (and that =is= her only Proustian appearance).\nOtherwise the story seems like another PEACE satellite tale (I don't\nbelieve the town is ever named, but the tenor is the same).\n\n=m=\n\nP.S.S. What if I'm making all this up? \n\n=m=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-07-15T08:23:06+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Suzanne's secret", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeh, lotsa Proust in Wolfe.\n\nI guess my question is: Is there a fantasy element in \"Suzanne Delage,\" and\nif so, where is it? The story feels like *Peace,* so it is probably a ghost\nstory, but how so? Anybody know?\n\nAnybody up for discussing \"The Changeling\"? I've read it about ten times\nover the years, and it still puzzles me. I'll give it one more try and then\npost my questions, if anyone wants to join in.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-07-15T14:00:00+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Suzanne's secret", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #0156759 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INTERNET#\n\nNutria,\n\nThe PEACE/Proust aspect of \"Suzanne Delage\" is probably the fact that\nthe narrator is sitting/lying in the old house he's lived in all his\nlife, casting his mind about in nostalgia and detective work.\n\nThe \"fantasy\" element that occurs to me is the Wolfe favorite of\nreincarnation--Suzanne's daughter looks exactly like Suzanne did at\nthat age. This isn't fantasy in the hands of most authors, or in\nour everyday minds when we use such analogies, yet Apu Punchau =\nfuneral bronze = (\"second\") Severian . . .\n\nWhich does tie in nicely with the Peter Pan/communist, identity\nhijacker/history erasures complex of \"The Changeling.\" Which, in its\nown turn, links to \"A Cabin on the Coast\" with fairy deals . . .\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }