L’occhiolino degli dei. Fenomenologia letteraria delle coincidenze

This essay aims at expressing possible interpretations of how coincidences are represented in contemporary fiction and film. In particular, I will focus on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams, and on A Serious Man, a 2009 film written and directed by the Coen brothers. The formulation of coincidental patterns in these works is analyzed taking into account the famous studies on plot and case in the novel by Peter Brooks and Erich Köhler, and also giving examples from other relevant literary texts. The analysis shows that in some contemporary fiction coincidences play the role of “gods’ wink”, a sort of refuge for post-postmodern desire for the metaphysical or just fictional sacred in literature, a new pleasure in depicting chaotic order.
Status Quaestionis, No 4 (2013): Coincidenza & provvidenze