Anil Menon
Not often in the fiction genre does one find a novel that is challenging and entertaining. The fact that I did not buy this book (D did) is a coincidence that does seem very meta. I absolutely loved The Coincidence Plot – its explorations of philosophy, the layering of its plots and characters, and the fantastic conversations that they have with each other, and sometimes, themselves.
The book is a wandering of sorts, centred around coincidences and the kind of God that exists in such a world. If that smells like Spinoza, it’s not a coincidence. The plots, subplots, and characters are all built around this theme. Starting with Artur, a mathematician escaping Nazi Germany and working on Spinoza’s thesis after his work on the uncertainty of mathematical proofs remains unfinished, to two characters working on novels to bring to existence this mathematician’s life and thoughts – “ontological proof for the existence of God”. In case I made it out to be a mind-numbing philosophy grind, it isn’t. The characters and interesting, and well-written, and so are their relationships.
It’s definitely not the standard linear book. Each chapter has two characters from a finite set, but placed across different geographical settings and time periods. As we go along, the parallels are unmistakeable, and that is not a coincidence. Anil Menon seems to know a bunch of things about a bunch of things. It allows him to create layers and depths, and when you combine that with the twin powers of a fantastic sense of humour, and a poignant sensitivity and empathy towards grief and the human condition in general, it creates a marvel. Sometimes preposterous, sometimes profound, this has been one of my favourite fiction reads in a while!
This is in my Bibliofiles 2023 long list.
