Mathias Énard: Compass - Network Analysis of Connection in the Novel

Well, I did something 'atrocious' with Compass by Mathias Énard. As soon as I started reading this book, I began to wonder how his demonstration of 'everything is connected' will look like in a visualization. The picture you see is the so called network analysis of the connections made in this book.

Few pointers:

1. All the items which are used in the book are broken in to 11 categories: Character, Concept, Entity, Event, Language, Literature, Music, Painting, People, Person. A person is a historical figure, a character is a character out of fictional writing, Event is for example a battle and so on.

2. Each class of item above are color coded.

3. Relations or connections you see in the picture are limited to the connections made in the book, that is to say, no connections are made from out of the book. In other words, we could find more relations than those that are made here external to the book from historical sources, but those are not used.

4. Size of a circle (called Nodes) represents the magnitude of its relation (called degree), or how much it is connected to other nodes.

Notes

1. Tools used - Gephi, YED, and good old N++
2. Potential imporovements abound in this representation, as for instance: (a) labelling the edges giving some clue to what actually connects two nodes, (b) bisecting the nodes in two broad super classes representing Orient and Occident, (c) assigning geospatial coordinates to the nodes based on the location and then overlaying this diagram on a map and so on.

Link to higher resolution drawing: Link

Read more

Villa of the Mysteries

I am chased by headings of possible write ups. At the most unexpected of moments, they rise before my eyes, take form, and present in all vividity. Then the almost terrible phase of hunting begins, the titles following me day in and day out, persistent,unyielding. Headings in all forms one can conjure up. For instance there is this "Symposium, Immortality, and Homosexuality: Foetal Ruminations". But when I begin to examine them closely, they tend to become slippery, my eyes get clouded. I struggle to chase them to their roots, following the trails. I walk behind them, speeds up, starts running. Then in some dimly lit alleys the trails vanish, leaving only the title behind. In the middle of the night I wake up with a start. I have this feeling that they at last is beginning to compromise. But they vanish again, to the realms where universe end. Where there is not even darkness.

Read more