Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.
This month we’re starting with the last title in August’s chain which for me was Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, a comedy about a hapless thirtysomething woman and the two men courting her.
Although I’ve seen (and enjoyed) the film several times, I’ve not read Fielding’s bestseller but I did read her debut, Cause Celeb, set in a famine-hit fictional African country where a woman has been running a refugee camp.
Cause Celeb features a TV programme about the refugees’ plight as does Timor Vermes’ satire, The Hungry and the Fat, following a group of migrants journeying to Germany, accompanied by a reality TV star broadcasting live to the nation.
Set in Berlin, Jennifer Erpenbeck’s Go Went Gone is a more serious take on asylum seekers with whom a retired professor becomes involved.
Erpenbeck also wrote End of Days whose many different versions of a woman’s life reminded me of Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life which does the same for Ursula, on a mission to assassinate Hitler.
Not my favourite author but the name Ursula reminded me of D H Lawrence’s Women in Love which features a character of that name.
I can’t think of Women in Love without remembering Oliver Reed and the (in)famous wrestling scene in Ken Russell’s film version. Reed also starred in ‘The Devils’, Russell’s over-the-top adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudon based on accounts of demonic posession at a French convent school whose pupils become obsessed with a handsome and dissolute priest.
This month’s Six Degrees has taken me from a bestselling author’s debut about a young woman getting over a love affair by taking herself off to Africa to a book about an outbreak of sexual hysteria in seventeenth-century France. Part of the fun of this meme is comparing the very different routes other bloggers take from each month’s starting point. If you’re interested, you can follow it on Twitter with the hashtag #6Degrees, check out the links over at Kate’s blog or perhaps even join in.
An interesting chain, and Go, Went, Gone has gone straight on my list.
Thank you, Margaret. Hope you enjoy the Erpenbeck!
Well, it’s in the library, apparently.
Oh, that’s great. Easy win, then
I have a couple of your picks in my TBR stack, but have read Life After Life which I absolutely loved (in fact, I think it was my only five star book the year I read it).
I loved it, too. Not many writers could have made such a success of that structure but Atkinson’s so smart.
Great chain Susan! I adored Life After Life and almost pickes up Go Went Gone from the library last week!
Thanks, Cathy. I loved it, too. I know it’s not an entirely original concept by Atkinson carries it of brilliantly.
That debut novel by Fielding is so different to the book that made her name. I wonder what prompted the change of direction
I think it was the success of her Bridget Jones columns in The Independent, Karen. I enjoyed Cause Celeb, a nicely turned out piece of easy reading.
Lovely chain here. I’ve only read Erpenbeck’s Visitation and found it mesmerizing. I’d like to read these other books by her.
Thank you. I enjoyed Go Went Gone but Visitation and End of Days are my favourites.
Visitation is SUCH a powerful book, and so subtle at the same time. Amazing! I’ll look up End of Days. Thanks.
What an interesting chain! I loved Life After Life and am hoping to read Kate Atkinson’s new book soon.
Thank you. I read her new one on Netgalley. It’s a treat!
I love how Six Degrees can always take you on such diverse paths. Yours are very interesting! Well done!
Have a great September!
Elza Reads
Me, too, and thank you!
What fun these chains are, who’d imagine a link between Bridget Jones and Huxley, even if through various others! I remember reading Women in Love at one point and finding it rather boring indeed–not sure I ever finished. Life After Life sounds very interesting. I read an alternative history young adult book which had a plot to assassinate Hitler which had also turned out very good,
I certainly didn’t expect to end up where I did! I find Lawrence tedious, too. Life After Life is a very clever way of looking at alternative history, or rather several different alternatives.
I must look it up soon; it was only in the YA book that I found an alternate scenario for WWII explored for the first time; glad to see there are more.
Now you’ve put Oliver Reed and Alan Bates wrestling in the nude in my mind… According to imdb trivia, they each consumed a bottle of vodka before filming the scene. Plus Michael Caine was offered the part played by Oliver Reed. Hmm, Alan Bates and Michael Caine… the mind boggles.
I’m sorry I’ve saddled you with that, Cathy! I’d not heard about the vodka but it’s entirely believable. I’m left with another image of Oliver Reed from The Devils which I’m not going to describe…
Wow, I have read a book by all of the authors you mentioned in your chain. I don’t that ever happened. Also quite interesting that you mention two German authors, I have never seen another blogger who read Jenny Erpenbeck. Do you have a link to Germany?
My Six Degrees of Separation took me from The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett to The Island by Victoria Hislop.
I haven’t although I’ve had several holidays in Germany and I can’t resist books set in Berlin! Thanks for your link.
Such a very interesting chain. I’m not familiar with most of the authors, so I’m eager to research them a bit. I have read Life After Life, but that’s it.
This is my first time joining in and I’m having such a great time visiting everyone’s chains.
Terrie @ Bookshelf Journeys
https://www.bookshelfjourneys.com/post/6-degrees-of-separation-1
Thank you, Terrie, and delighted you’ve taken the Six Degrees plunge although, I’ll warn you, it’s addictive! Thanks also for the link. I’ll be sure to take a look.