Fate, Determinism, or Mere Coincidence

When it happens again and again, as it does in a novel by Thomas Hardy or by Anthony Powell, it's probably none of the above but just a device of storytelling. And yet haven't we all had the experience that Powell describes in the following way:

Everyone knows the manner in which some specific name will recur several times in quick succession from different quarters; part of that inexplicable magic throughout life that makes us suddenly think of someone before turning a street corner and meeting him, or her, face to face. In the same way, you may be struck, reading a book, by some obscure passage or lines of verse, quoted again, quite unexpectedly, twenty-four hours later.

In truth, just this sort of thing seems constantly to be happening to Nicholas Jenkins in Dance to the Music of Time, and yet he always appears quite astonished by such coincidences. As he is also quite astonished to discover, again and again, that he seems to know everyone he meets in these novels. Take, for example, the following encounter early in At Lady Molly's:

There was something familiar about that red face, white moustache and muffled, uneasy manner. Then I realized that he was Tolland, that lonely, derelict character accustomed to frequent the annual Old Boy dinner of Le Bas's house. In fact, I myself once sat next to Tolland at one of those functions: an occasion when I had made up my mind never to attend another.

And, then, not a dozen pages later who should appear suddenly at this same casual gathering of strangers but yet another Old Boy from La Bas's house:

But when my eyes fell on the two of them, it was the man, not the woman, who held my attention. Life is full of internal dramas, instantaneous and sensational, played to an audience of one. This was just such a performance. The fiance was Widmerpool. Scarlet in the face, grinning agitatedly through the thick lenses of his spectacles, he advanced into the room, his hand on Mrs. Haycock's arm.

If I didn't enjoy the books so much I'd be inclined to parody. Perhaps it might go something like this:

The other evening, as I was returning to my apartment after an unusually difficult time with one of my less agreeable colleagues, I found myself thinking aimlessly, as one does, about something rather more diverting, when I glimpsed someone I thought I recognized sitting on the terrace reading a magazine and drinking what appeared to be a gin and tonic. While I was observing this woman, for I could now see her more clearly than at first, I saw that it was indeed my wife. And I thought, what an extraordinary coincidence, as I had just been thinking of her not five minutes earlier that same afternoon.

Those who have read the books can say whether or not I've overdone it just a bit.