6 Degrees of Separation: From How to Be Both to A Christmas Carol – 6th April 2019

It’s the first Saturday of the month so it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.  Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is How To Be Both by Ali Smith. Click on the book titles to view the book description on Goodreads.

How To Be Both (a book I haven’t read) has an intriguing structure in that it can be read in two ways.  The note to readers explains: ‘In half of all printed editions of the novel the narrative EYES comes before CAMERA.  In the other half of printed editions the narrative CAMERA precedes EYES. The narratives are exactly the same in both versions, just in a different order’. It’s definitely on my wishlist after reading that!

Julie Cohen’s novel, Louis & Louise, has a similarly inventive structure (as did her previous book, Together, in which the narrative ran backwards in time).  Louis & Louise tells the stories of the same person born in two different lives – one as a male, one as a female.

Another book which takes the idea of a life lived more than once is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. In the book, Ursula Todd is born and dies repeatedly in a variety of ways. The sequel to the book, A God in Ruins, takes its title from a quotation by essayist and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, that ‘A man is a god in ruins’.  The argument of the title essay in Emerson’s collection, Self-Reliance and Other Essays, is summed up in  the quotation ‘Insist on yourself; never imitate’.

On the theme of imitation, the book Imitation of Life by Fannie Hurst concerns a white single mother and her African American maid, also a single mother, who rear their daughters together and become business partners in an era of racial discrimination.  The well-regarded 1959 film adaptation starred Lana Turner and Juanita Moore and was directed by Douglas Sirk.

Sirk also directed the 1954 film Magnificent Obsession, starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman.  Based on the novel of the same name by Lloyd C Douglas, it tells the story of a selfish playboy who is forced to re-evaluate his own life when his life is saved at the expense of that of an adored surgeon.

Probably the most famous, and best-loved, story of a man forced to re-evaluate his own life is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Today my Six Degrees chain has encompassed reversal, reincarnation, reinvention, race and redemption.  Where did your Six Degrees chain take you?