Separation
I annoyed the author Scarlett Thomas here a while back by referring to her as an “unknown” when I meant she was unknown to me. I’ve since found that she has published many popular books, the most recent being Going Out.
She has also written a review of the book Six Degrees of Separation, arising out of the deeply frustrating Kevin Bacon Game (which I’ll assume everyone understands). I once put in the name of Aage Hertel, a Witch Judge from the 1922 Icelandic horror movie Haxan, expecting it to have a large Bacon Number. But no, only 3, which is no better than my friend the NY poet and part-time actor Todd Colby in films 70 years younger. Thomas tells us that four is average. Hell.
The book under review looks at more than this. It “applies network theory to the problems of disease epidemics, the ‘madness of crowds’, the spread of ideas and the breakdown and recovery of network systems. Why did so many people go crazy buying tulips in Holland in the 17th century, even selling their houses to do so? Why did seemingly rational people get carried along by the 1990s dot-com hysteria? It seems that we, in our network(s) are wired up in such a way that we are both resistant and vulnerable to ‘infection’ from diseases and ideas; system failure and so on. And one rule holds true: you are more likely to get a disease or buy a particular book if everyone else has it too.”
This would explain why people read the appalling Jeffrey Archer (see Will Self’s wonderful review of his new book). And from the Amazon Customer comments, its seems everyone else has read Going Out. But one says the other reviews make it “sound like she’s just got her friends to review it for her…!” It’s certainly not true, but the trouble is, if you live and work in London and its satellites, you’re bound to know most other people in the “business”, at one remove at least. Despite this, very few feel part of the “literary elite” that is always been accused of suppressing talent (whatever that is). It is perhaps the need to feel part of that scene that itself does the suppressing, and leads to successful careers.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Writer’s Dues
- Proof, if proof be need be In England, �Irish� …
- A new refutation of hope
- Using MySpace To Promote Your Book
- How Nietzsche Found Jesus
