V-2nd - Chapter 16 - Events Seem To Be Ordered Into An Ominous Logic

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Really sorry!  I've completely fizzled in my hosting for this final chapter.  I've been preoccupied with a lot of personal stuff - much of it good.

Some thoughts, though, about the phrase.

Stencil's repetition of it, stressing various words, is a dry run for GR's Kenosha Kid sequence.

Why is Stencil so freaked by hearing Father Fairing's name in a second, but related context?  It's a very 20th century reaction.

>From my admittedly non-comprehensive knowledge of 19th century lit, it seems that coincidence is not only tolerated, but expected.  Jane Eyre happens to be taken in my some nice people who happen to be her cousins; The man who molested Raskolnikov's sister happens to be staying next door to the prostitute Sonya and happens to hear Raskolnikov's confession; etc. etc.

Coincidence is OK in the 19th century, because there's a benevolent God pulling the strings.  In the 20th century, there's no God, so coincidence means [well, to readers and movie-goers it means a stupid, contrived plot] to Stencil that there's an Ominous Logic controlled by whom? The British Foreign Office?  V. herself?  Some weird force of history that coughs up both coincidence and V?

In GR, this dread of formerly benevolent coincidence is personified as Them.  The military-industrial complex has taken over for God; death from above comes not from God, but from The Bomb.  All of that great stuff is born in Stencil's nightmares.

Laura