Six Degrees of Separation - February 2018

This month's starting point for Six Degrees is George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo, which is on my never-ending TBR.  And while I haven't read it, I know that the author's starting point for this story came from Abraham Lincoln's visits to the cemetery where his young son was buried.



Degree #1 - Also based on a real cemetery is Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, a work of contemporary fiction set in and next door to London's Highgate cemetery.  The exotic, slightly creepy nature of this famous Victorian cemetery is a fabulous setting.

Degree #2 - The Victorians did love their cemeteries!  I usually think of the Victorians as rather dull: repressed, dutiful, pious.  But of course, not all of them were any of those things.  Including Richard and Isabel Burton, the subjects of A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton, by Mary S. Lovell.  They lived a life of adventure and their marriage - of two strong minded people - makes for fascinating reading.






Degree # 3 - How do you find your mate?  In The Marriage Bureau: The True Story of How Two Matchmakers Arranged Love in Wartime London, by Penrose Halson, gives us the (often quite amusing) story of the matchmaking business.




Degree # 4 - Set in London, this time in the aftermath of war - World War I - is The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters.  A tale of social change, social class, and murder, all based on a real event, this is a fine work of historical and literary fiction.








Degree # 5 -  Murder?!  Why that makes me think of one of my favorite novels: The Secret History, By Donna Tartt.  If you haven't read it, you're in for a treat.  Written in mesmerizing prose, it is the story of students at an elite and eccentric college.  You know who the victim and perpetrators are from the beginning; it's the unraveling of the why that is so fascinating.

Degree # 6 - Universities make a fine setting for novels, and Moo, by Jane Smiley, is no different.  After cemeteries, war, and murder, I leave you with this very amusing story of academic life at a Midwestern agricultural college.  Enjoy!






Six Degrees is courtesy of Books are My Favourite and Best