Molecules of Memory in "A River Runs Through It": Giving Form to the Immaterial

October 24, 2018

In Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It, molecules are constructed as metaphor for the familial bond between Norman and his brother. By consistently associating them with memory of Paul, molecules become the substance in a sacrament of remembrance – a way for Norman to resurrect and reaffirm an image of his brother, and the bond they shared in life. The nuanced etymology and definitions of the word thus provide a way into meaning – for both Norman and the reader.

Maclean first constructs molecules as representative of the bond between Norman and his brother by consistently placing the word alongside acknowledgements of their familial connection. The justification for this association lies in the meaning of the word itself: a molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by chemical bonds, just as Paul and Norman are two parts of a greater whole connected to one another through chemistry and biology, things tied to their very nature (Brittanica). This is first seen in-text when Norman explains his preference to “remember the molecules” rather than watch Paul – his only way of translating the statement to have it “make any sense” is to invoke their familial connection, saying: “He’s my brother” (Maclean 27). Norman doesn’t need to watch Paul or stand near him because even apart they are connected: ‘molecules’ acts as synonym for a bond stretching across space. Maclean reinforces this through parallel structure: in the very next sentence he says, “because I was his brother” followed by “because I was molecular” (27). The clauses mirror one another to suggest molecules are a reflection of brotherhood – to look through one is to see the other. This is important as molecules are what give substance to matter. On their own, hydrogen and oxygen are without form and void, but bonded together – they create water. Thus, when Norman awakes from sleep – the intangible land of dreams – he “ascend[s] through river mists and molecules” to an immediate reminder of the bond which gives substance to his reality: “Are you Paul’s brother?” (27). Maclean constructs molecules as the medium through which their relationship comes into focus.

This function of molecules as a clarifying substance is made even more clear in that Maclean often refers to them in the context of memory, suggesting an active process by which he (in the present tense) tries to give form to a half-remembered past. For example, Norman utilizes the metaphorical function of molecules in that his image of Paul is constructed entirely through them: he sees his brother’s rod-line only as “mini-molecules of water” (24); he can see only a “halo” of his brother’s body created through a “spray” of “finer-grained” water; more than that, the only way he can visualise the molecules is to keep them “retained in memory” (25). Given the framing of the novel as a past-tense recollection, this scene could be interpreted as Norman’s present-tense attempt in writing to retain an image of the past, using water molecules his resurrect his bond with Paul across not only space but time. This is why Paul is not embodied in the scene, leaving only “images of himself” as though image in a mind’s eye (25). This is why those images flicker, “always there and always disappearing,” as if to speak to the fallibility of memory with age (25). This is why he later says, “I’d rather remember the molecules” (27), as he wants to retain his connection with Paul past his death, to remember that which gives things form (molecules), thereby giving form to his brother through time. This idea is cemented at the very end of the novel using identical language, as Paul approaches his father and brother “showering molecules of water and images of himself” upon them (115). By having “molecules” precede the “images” within the sentence, Maclean possibly suggests that the former leads to or even creates the latter. If this is true, then Paul – by dripping the water on them both – at once affirms the molecular, familial bond between them, while also blessing them with the substance necessary to remember him clearly. As a result, in one of the book’s last acts of remembrance, Norman recalls Paul’s artistry only as a “distant abstraction,” visualising him most clearly in molecules: “as a closeup in water” (115).

As an author heavily concerned with water as the substance of religious ritual, Maclean’s use of the word “molecules” is interesting as it frames this complex process of remembrance as a sacrament in itself. The word is derived from “molecula,” a diminutive of the Latin “moles,” meaning mass (Etymology Online). While mass is a measurement of the amount of matter in an object, it is also a liturgy, the central sacrament within Christianity that Jesus himself characterises as an act of remembrance: “This is my body which is given to you: this do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Just as the Eucharist imagines Christ’s body in bread, so too does Norman attempt to imagine Paul’s body through molecules. It is an act of transubstantiation in which memory is transformed into lived substance within the world of the text. Both sacraments create through memory someone who has gone and reaffirm the bond between him and those still living. This paints Paul as a sacrificial Christ-figure – an appropriate and likely uncoincidental parallel given that he, like Christ, is destined for death, with the inevitability of that death heavy and ever-present throughout the text, the driving force for its creation.

Ultimately, Maclean takes the fundamental building blocks of nature – the patterns that give earth, air, and water substance, the infinitesimal and incomprehensible – and uses them to enact the rituals of grief and time that define human consciousness. He realises this struggle to bring form to memory as well within the form of the text itself – in word placements, structures, parallels. The effect is that, in reading, one comes to see the universe as a place defined by connections and orbits: electrons bond to atoms, atoms bond to molecules, brothers bond to brothers, and authors bond to readers through story.

Works Cited

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Molecule.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia

Britannica, Inc., 14 Sept. 2016, www.britannica.com/science/molecule.

Maclean, Norman. A River Runs Through It. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976.

Print.

“Molecule (n.).” Etymology Online Dictionary, www.etymonline.com/word/molecule.