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'.