In search of a stroke of genius

Mr Weiner goes hunting for a pattern... trying to understand why certain places during certain eras turn up a bumper crop of geniuses, and why the dream run eventually ends

THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS
Eric Weiner
Simon & Schuster
368 pages; Rs 419 (paperback)

Can genius be studied geographically?

What are cities if not centres of culture being primed for becoming the next hub of geniuses? Across countries - Japan, China, Brazil, India - everyone from venture capitalists to educators are making strenuous efforts to cultivate local talent and incubate new ideas, create a centre for innovation, a global hot spot. Today, there is an effort indeed to bring a bit of genius to our own preferred geography.

The starting question, however, is the wrong one. Rather, one should ask, as does Eric Weiner in his book, The Geography of Genius, if we really know what the word "genius" entails.

A word as freely used as a complimentary adjective as "excellent" and "brilliant", genius can be anyone who has hit the right chords in sports or fashion or politics. In fact, Mr Weiner would tell you it is one the most misused words in English language. Moreover, is "genius" a palpable, already-established quantification mark, which people strive to achieve, so that they can be called a genius? Or is it up to the society to decide who or what genius really is? Is genius in the genes, or is it in perception?

In The Geography of Genius, like in his previous book, The Geography of Bliss, Mr Weiner goes hunting for a pattern, this time trying to understand why certain places during certain eras turn up a bumper crop of geniuses, and why the dream run eventually ends. Mr Weiner asks a lot of intriguing questions. He rambles, muses, wanders, gathers up seemingly unrelated data - weather, walking patterns and even food habits, tries to cobble these together and crack each unique mystery.

But this is also a travelogue, through time and space. Mr Weiner travels through ancient Athens, Song dynasty Hangzhou, Renaissance Florence, Enlightenment Edinburgh, Bengal Renaissance Kolkata, both early modern and fin de siecle Vienna, and finally today's Silicon Valley. He talks to old connections from his time as correspondent of NPR radio. He stumbles upon local guides, and talks to them over coffee, wheedling out anecdotes and surprise revelations about how a particular golden age would have started.

What Mr Weiner attempts is nothing less than tracing the rise of human civilisation. Yet, what he makes clear is that the growth of humans hasn't been one smooth upward moving curve reaching to modernity. His search for "genius clusters" clearly spells out the fact that society moves forward in fits and starts. Each cluster of genius is marked by a unique breakthrough, something which acts both as the inspiration and the fruit of the golden era. Music in 18th century Vienna, literature in Calcutta (as Kolkata was called earlier), computers in Silicon Valley - places have been defined by great breakthroughs and a surge of projects seeking to repeat or better the first spark. Mr Weiner takes us to visit each of these breakthroughs, the encyclopedia, the hypodermic needle, the printing blocks, the sonatas, the poetry and the frescoes.

Mr Weiner recreates a symposium with Socrates, and tries hard to engage in an "adda" in Kolkata, which are sure to cause silent giggles if not guffaws. However, he does add more serious moments too: By identifying the different catalysts which spark each golden age, the author upholds the idea that no single set of circumstances can consistently give rise to geniuses across space and time. If it was the weather in Athens, it was the people's attitude in Scotland. Calcutta had suddenly metamorphosed into an enormous melting pot, from a small fishing village and port, and there was too much creative energy to not give birth to a golden era. The black plague had thinned the ranks of 14th century Florence, upended the old order and concentrated wealth in different hands.

It is fun to watch Mr Weiner as he marvels at all of these. But the book, sadly, never takes flight. The author's observations on genius are sprinkled freely throughout the narrative, often making it difficult for the reader to access the underlying themes. The author tends to digress into his own personal backgrounds, or anecdotes of individual geniuses like Mozart, which could have served as breezy interjections if they were not so frequent and did not take up the larger chunk of the narrative.

Mr Weiner's book is neither a usual travelogue nor the usual history. The topic and the tales both have a refreshing quality of having occurred to the author as a wayside musing - as if the book was an unexpected result of the journey and not the mission which caused Mr Weiner to travel. But despite the lightness of tone, there is also the sense of an impending closure: as the reader hurtles from one site of genius to another, it becomes evident, that the end of the present golden age (in Silicon Valley), like all its predecessors, is certain.