zemblanity

The owner tubby is frequently plagued by zemblanity.

Serendipity and zemblanity: the twin poles of the axis around which we revolve."

A zemblanity is, effectively, an "unpleasant unsurprise".

Ergo: zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries by design.

Newton Scherl of Englewood, N.J., writes, "I have tried without success to find zemblanity in any of my dictionaries."

Everything goes wrong for the hero of Boyd's latest novel, an Englishman of Gypsy descent who discovers zemblanity (the opposite of serendipity) in today's multicultural London hustle.

Zemblanity Arms controllers know that the Russians have been setting off non-nuclear explosions at its nuclear test facility on the barren, frigid Arctic island of Nova Zembla, and thereby hangs a new word.

This novel's hero is a London insurance adjuster of Gypsy descent whose life is undone by an outbreak of zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, in the multicultural hubbub of Cool Britannia.

A Times Book Review note about the novel "Armadillo," by William Boyd, reads, "The novel's hero . . . is undone by an outbreak of zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, in the multicultural hubbub of Cool Britannia."

But if zemblanity could be personified, it would assume the shape of Torquil Helvoir-Jayne, an erstwhile colleague of Lorimer's who, when taken alongside the thuggish Hogg and the unprincipled Sir Simon, may convince you that the only thing wrong with England these days is the English.