December 29, 2006

Where Am I? And Who Are You?

Here's a strange little gadget: The Literature Map. (Poking around, the map seems to be part of some kind of website devoted to artificial intelligence.)

Type in an author's name and it generates a page of other writers of (I suppose) similar subject. According to the map, "the closer two writers are, the more likely someone will like both of them."

Whaaaaaall........

I have no earthly idea how the rankings and preferences are tabulated, but the project appears to be in its infancy. For one thing, there are an awful lot of misspelled names. For another, one doesn't seem to get the same results for the same author each time. For a third, looking at a map generated for Evelyn Waugh, I'm at a loss to explain why Eudora Welty and (especially) Garrison Keillor should appear closer to Mr. Wu than anybody else.

Fun to play with, tho'.

Posted by Robert at December 29, 2006 03:43 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I'm a science fiction fan, so I put in Isaac Asimov, and the closest name was Douglas Adams. I put in Arthur C. Clarke, and the closest name was Stephen King. I put in Harlan Ellison, and the second closest name was Groucho Marx! I think there's still a little too much "artificial" in their "intelligence."

Posted by: David Fischler at December 30, 2006 09:49 AM

I put in Charles Williams, and it came up with Tolkien, Lewis and Chesterton pretty close by, so sometimes it works well.

I'm still trying to get where Booth Tarkington fits in, though.

And it has Asimov nowhere close to Heinlein, which seems pretty odd to me.

Posted by: The Colossus at December 30, 2006 12:07 PM