I only packed a handful of books to come with me here; to
last me until our packages arrived from Helsinki (which we are still awaiting –
our residence permits were only, and finally, issued on Friday). As Parade’s End is far too stocky for me to
carry around, my on the road book has been Arthur C. Clarke’s Imperial Earth.
It had a passage in the Acknowledgements
and notes:
“Some readers may feel
that the coincidences – or ‘correspondences’ – that play a key part in this
story are too unlikely to be plausible. But they were, in fact, suggested by
far more preposterous events in my own life; and anyone who doubts that this
sort of thing can happen is referred to Arthur Koestler’s The Roots of
Coincidence. I read this fascinating book
only after completing Imperial Earth,
though that fact itself now seems somewhat improbable to me.”
which is followed by this passage (that you will notice
happens to be full of geographical coincidence for me, having just visited Unawatuna, and also now somewhat familiar with Cinnamon Gardens in Colombo):
“The curious acoustic
behavior of the Spiny Sea Urchin, Diadema Setosum, was observed by me on Unawatuna Reef, off the south coast of Sri
Lanka.
…
Arthur C. Clarke
Cinnamon Gardens,
Colombo
January 1974—January
1975”
