Random Coinciday

Imaginary Playlist:

“Eight Days a Week”—The Beatles

“Never on Sunday”—The Chordettes

 Any Given Thursday—John Mayer

Featured Actress:  Tuesday Weld

Yes, I’ve made up a new category for the nonlinear week, but it’s a category of existence you have met here in my blog before as random coincidii, the coined fake Latin plural of weird stuff that happens in a juxtaposed kind of way that seems vaguely significant.  As in, my life.

Last night my book group met to discuss Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris.  We noticed the not-so-random coincidii of parallels to certain workplaces we’d experienced where people had been able to gossip, waste time, and do no work, and the striking contrast to workplaces like hospitals and schools, where there is always work to do, and it’s connected to life saving.

Or to workplaces where everyone kept getting laid off, and there was an atmosphere of fear. We noticed how this novel was set in the downturn just before 9/11, as was The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman, another book we’d read together, and how now we’re in another one.

We also noticed the “we” narrator of the Ferris book, though Pam noticed it “ramping up” as she got to the end, when she first realized it, and started flipping the pages back to see if it had been a “we” or community voice all along.  It had, except for one important interlude!

I think the only other community voice I’ve read before is in the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner.  Does anyone know of another whole novel written in community voice?

That’s it for Random Coinciday.  You’d think I’d have more.

You can add stuff.  More song titles with days of the week, for instance.