Pandemics
A character in the story has written a novel titled Marienbad that is about a pandemic. The novel itself was written and published during the Covid-19 pandemic. Partway through the novel, life ironically imitates art imitating life when the writer of Marienbad and other characters become victimized themselves by the arrival of a viral pandemic.
"We knew it was coming"
The most popular line from the fictional novel-within-the-story is "We knew it was coming." It becomes so popular in the wake of the arrival of the actual pandemic that the author meets several people who have followed the lead of one of her characters and gotten the line tattooed on their skin. It actually more than a line; it is a mantra repeated several times in connection with knowing the pandemic was coming but still not doing enough to properly prepare. The irony is, of course, underlined by our own real life pandemic experience.
"So what?"
The narrator comes to a conclusion about one of the main themes explored within the narrative: the simulation hypothesis. The simulation hypothesis has to do with technology advancing to such a degree of sophistication that we reach a point where we cannot definitively disprove the theory that all reality is merely a simulation. This is one of those mind-bending concepts around which entire movies and novels revolve. Thus, it is ironic that the conclusion the narrator arrives in the event that definitive proof is offered that all reality is merely a simulation can be summed up in two words: "So what?" A simulated life is still a life, after all.
To Tell the Truth
The story begins in the early part of the 20th century with Edwin St. John St. Andrew aboard a ship crossing the Atlantic. The eighteen-year-old can trace his family line back to William the Conqueror and was born into a life British aristocratic privilege and yet he on a steamship headed to America in disgrace. And what was the cause of his disgrace? Gambling debts, a fling with Oscar Wilde, or perhaps a good old-fashioned attempt at fratricide in a failed attempt to overcome the chains of primogeniture placed upon a third-born son? It turns out that Edwin has ironically been sent into exile due to a single unguarded moment of conversational recklessness in which he dared to suggest that the evidence strongly suggested the natives of India found British rule considerably more oppressive than the climate of the sub-continent.
It's Virtually Ironic
What the phrase above actually means, when you take the time to break it down, is that "it" isn't ironic at all. Somehow, however, the term virtual has come to signify the opposite of its intended meaning. This is one of the fun things about the English language and the enjoyment is not limited to "virtually" by any means:
"...here's an epidemiological question: if you're talking about outbreaks of infectious disease, isn't fairly well contained essentially the same thing as not contained at all?"
