Chance and Coincidence – the only constant in Marco’s life

Marco: - chance determines his life
- he got to know Kitty by chance
- pure chance saves him from missing the physical
- it’s a weird coincidence that he worked for his grandfather without knowing it
Effing: - doesn’t believe in coincidences
- finds out about his son by chance
- dies on the day he predicted
Solomon: - could have found out about Marco in 1959
- everything in his book “Kepler´s blood” happens by chance List of events having to do with chance, coincidence or miracles:
• p.7 l.6-8 “If not for a girl named Kitty Wu, I probably would have starved to death. I had met her by chance only a short time before”  Marco considers chance “as a form of readiness, a way of saving myself through the minds of others” (l.9-10)
• p.19 l.57-59 “When I counted them this afternoon, there were one Thousand four hundred and ninety-two volumes. A propitious number, I think, since it evokes the memory of Columbus`s discovery of America”
• p.25 l.57 “”If I were you,” he (the mortician) said to me,”I wouldn’t expect any miracles.””
• p.38 l.11 “As chance would have it, I took the last ones (books) up to Chandler on the same day the astronauts landed on the moon”
• p.42 l.3 onwards “You’re wearing the same shirt she is” (l.6) “It’s a weird coincidence” (l.11)  Marco is invited to have breakfast with the group of young people, meets Kitty for the first time
• p.56 l.24-26 “If I had any thought at all, it was to let chance determine what happened, to follow the path of impulse and arbitrary events.”
• p.57 l.46-53 “an improbable occurrence took place. I was standing in front of […] when I suddenly looked down and saw a ten-dollar bill lying at my feet” (l.46-49) “a religious event, an out-and-out miracle” (l.53)
• p.58 l. 38-39 “It turned out to be Around the world in 80 Days, the same movie I had seen with Uncle Victor back in Chicago eleven years before”  Marco