Literary Coincidence

[marcusmarcusrc]

Yesterday I went to see a marvelous production of King Lear featuring amazing performances from the foolish but oddly wise justom, the evil, nasty, scheming aerynne, the loyal and trustworthy hannka, and others whose lj names I do not know. In a weird coincidence, that afternoon before leaving I picked up a book at random and opened it to read a page or two (I have a lot of books lying around, I often reread a scene here and there when I have a couple minutes to kill. Sure, I could use that time to clean up my room or read a Foreign Affairs article or whatever, and sometimes I do, but other times a familiar book is just what I want). In any case, before I digresss much further, I picked up Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul and found myself reading the chapter where Kate visits the Woodshead asylum, and not a page later Kate is quoting Lear, Act Two, Scene Four "I will do such things - what they are yet, I know not - but they shall be the terror [sic] of the Earth".

Interesting coincidence, say I to myself.

Well, given that I decided not to go back to work after dinner this evening, I decided to pick up another book. This time it was Fforde's Lost in a Good Book. As I picked it up, I thought back to yesterday's coincidence, and said to myself "Fforde is chock full of literary allusions. But I don't remember any King Lear ones, more's the pity, or I could randomly open the book to a King Lear quote again!"

"Chapter 22. Travels with My Father. The first time I went traveling with my father was when I was much younger. We attended the opening night of King Lear at the Globe in 1602."

Um. If I believed in the supernatural, I'd be grabbing my handy entroposcope (a jar full of rice and lentils. Shake it. If the rice and lentils don't end up randomly distributed, but rather form ordered patterns, you can take it as probable that you are entering a regime of un, sub, or supernatural forces where the laws of probability do not hold. But if we postulate, and we just have, that within un, sub, or supernatural forces the probability is that the law of probability will not operate as a factor, then we must accept that the probability of the first part will not operate as a factor, in which case the law of probability will operate as a factor within un-, sub- or supernatural forces after all; in all probability, that is. Which is a great relief to me personally. Er. End parenthetical statement).

But as it is, I think I shall just call it an early night so I can these vigorously tomorrow. If the first article I pick up in the morning is a hurricane analysis quoting "blow winds, and crack your cheeks" then I think it will be a sign to leave work immediately to buy some lottery tickets. And perhaps flee to the hills.

Comments

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

I knew that sounded very familiar.