Thought I should just put up one post while I’m on holiday. Not because I’m an addict, but because…er, well…
Anyway, I’m posting from sunny Turkey. Been reading the wonderful Netherland on the beach. If you’re a frustrated cricketer like me, you’ll love this book. It’s set in New York, and, though it’s a mystery at heart, much of it riffs on the pleasures and pains of playing the truly beautiful game.
The pleasure of cricket is in the order and complexity the game requires, the beauty of batting well against a good bowler, or in defeating a batsman through inspired bowling – the outswinger bowled left arm over the wicket was always my speciality.
Most of you will probably not get that last paragraph, but that’s not important. Here’s something that everyone will get. While reading, I was struck by the appearance of a Turkish character early on. What are the chances, I thought? Reading about a Turk, while in Turkey. I couldn’t remember another Turkish character in any book I had ever read.
A couple of days earlier, I watched the Turkish news, and saw that Barack Obama was in Turkey too. Amazing, huh? Then, watching an episode of The Wire last night (last episode of Season 2 – have to get on Amazon and order Season 3 quick smart), and there was a Turkish flag in one scene.
I was extraordinarily tempted to read something into all of this – even though I’m professionally aware of the human proclivity for interpreting coincidences as something profound. It’s so unbelievably hard to resist.
I’m not even getting into that today, though (see here for a link to more on spooky stuff). What’s really thought-provoking to me is that before reading Netherland, I read The Secret Scripture, in which the denouement involves a large but enormously significant coincidence (or at least it seemed that way to me – I’m not able to elaborate because I’m trying not to give anything away, you understand).
This really jarred with me. I finished this beautiful and moving book feeling slightly let down. Why is it that coincidences just don’t work in fiction? In the real world, we almost welcome them. In fiction, they feel wrong.
My top-of-the-head answer is that maybe we consider spooky coincidences as coming from another world. Maybe we subconsciously think there’s a parallel universe that is a source of “leaks”which give rise to coincidence and supernatural events?
If that is the case, it seems obvious that authors, having already created one alternative world for us to visit, are simply not allowed to use a second – the world from which coincidence leaks into ours – as a source of plot devices.
When I was writing Entanglement it was a constant struggle to avoid using convenient coincidences as a way of resolving difficult situations. I’m kind of surprised The Secret Scripture did it, to be honest. Have you read it? Have I missed something?
Subscribe