Chasing Vermeer

A central theme in Chasing Vermeer is that connections exist everywhere. This concept first appears in Charles Fort’s odd book, Lo!  Fort has devoted his life to studying what other people might call coincidences. Instead, Fort sees these occurrences as interlocking puzzle pieces. He’s collected stories about rainstorms of living things, especially frogs, under the assumption that one such odd event is only a link in a larger, unseen chain. He writes:

Wise men have tried other ways. They have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin (42).

Not only does Fort posit the theory of connection, a copy of his book physically acts as a connection point to link together all of the major characters; Petra sees Mr. Watch drop Fort’s book into the giveaway box outside Powell’s. She takes it, reads it, and shares it with Calder. The two children form a bond over the book. When Petra later learns that the book’s original owner was Mrs. Sharpe, Calder goes to the old woman’s house to question her. While there, he finds a connection between his Geographer’s box and a Vermeer painting.