I first heard about Six Degrees of Separation on my favourite BBC podcast, The Infinite Monkey Cage.
The Concept
Presumably we are all connected to each other socially via no more than six links. The concept can be applied to all sorts of relations, perhaps the most well-known is the Kevin Bacon number for actors, which indicates how many links an actor is away from having been in a movie with Kevin Bacon. Turns out that most actors have a Kevin Bacon number around two.
Recently I learned about the concept applied to books in the form of a monthly meme hosted by Kate. The idea is to start with a specific book and connect via six links to another book. Given the flexibility of the meme, I suspect most books can be connected to each other with 1-2 links.
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From The Dry to Silence of the Lambs – and back again
This month’s starting book is The Dry by Jane Harper. The opening scene in The Dry is a funeral, which is the case for Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves as well.
Cold Earth takes place on a remote island as does Entry Island by Peter May.
In Entry Island we hear about Scottish people being forced to leave their homes and seek their fortune in a completely different part of the world. The protagonists in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams are also forced to leave home and venture out to remote destinations although their journey is by means of spaceship rather than boat.
Another space traveller is Mark Watney from The Martian by Andy Weir. Unfortunately Mark Watney’s space exploration leaves him stranded and he has to apply devious survival tactics to cope in the hostile environment.
Likewise Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe gets stranded and has to cope on his own. The challenges of the latter include cannibals.
My favourite fictional cannibal is of course Hannibal Lechter from Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.
FBI trainee Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs partly grew up in a farming community (hence the title). Federal agent Aaron Falk from The Dry also grew up in a farming community. And we are back to where we started.
Bonus Links
The Dry takes place on a remote ‘island’ (Australia) just like Entry Island and Robinson Crusoe.
Aaron Falk and his father are in The Dry forced away from home and have to seek their fortune elsewhere like the protagonists from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The Martian takes place in an extremely dry environment, even worse than the rural Australia featured in The Dry.
So it all links back to the starting point.
I found this book association exercise quite fun. For someone with a not so great memory it was also useful trying to remember what I have read through the years.
Where would your associations take you from The Dry?
I enjoyed your links. The Martian was a favourite read of mine. Thanks for sharing.
Shelleyrae @ Book’d Out- #6degrees
Thanks! I enjoyed The Martian as well, captivating and with a sense of humour.
Extra points for managing to turn your chain into a circle! 😀
🙂 Yeah, it came back to the starting point without too much effort. I like this meme – thanks for hosting.
Some excellent books on your chain! I loved The Dry and The Martian was a surprise hit with me – although it’s set on Mars I felt it read like a good old-fashioned adventure story. And as a big fan of Peter May, I thought Entry Island was one of his very best – I loved all the back story about the Highland Clearances.
Thanks! I definitely share your passion for crime fiction :-). I also enjoy the odd science fiction story, so the Martian wasn’t much of a stretch for me, but I agree it felt more like an old-fashioned adventure story. In Entry Island, I absolutely loved the back story about the Scottish ancestors, but to be fair I was less impressed with the present time part of the story.