[Julian] Treslove [after being mugged by a woman who may have whispered "You Ju" into his ear as she pushed him down] was not willing to accept that he had encountered a person with a screw loose, or that he had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time [leaving the home of Libor, a Jewish friend, after dinner late one night]. He'd been subject to enough accident. His whole life had been an accident. His birth was an accident—his parents had told him that, 'You weren't planned, Julian, but you were a nice surprise.' His own sons the same. Only he'd never told them they were a nice surprise. Doing a modular [General Studies] degree had been an accident; in another age he'd have read classics or theology. The BBC [radio, where he had been a producer of late-night arts-related shows,] was an accident. A malign accident. The women he'd loved were all accidents. If life didn't have a thread of meaning to it, why live it? Some men find God where they least expect to. Some discover their purpose in social action or self-sacrifice. Treslove had been in waiting for as long as he could remember. Very well then. My fate cries out, he thought.
    Two nights later he was dining with fellow Jews at Libor's place.
from Jacobson, Howard. The Finkler Question. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010. P. 109