It seems it’s official: Francis Wheen’s pugnacious How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World has the index of the year. Samples of its uncompromising micronarrative style are easy to pick:
Aitken, Jonathan: admires risk-takers, 59; goes to jail, 60
Merton, Robert: says markets aren’t too volatile, 272, loses fortune because of market volatility, 273
tycoons 29; as heroes, 59,277-8; sexiness of, 40; superstitions of, 56; wearing socks in bed, 60
In fact in some respects the index is rather better than the slightly disorganised book itself (see, again, Philip Hensher on the index).
Now news comes that not only have Wheen’s American publishers renamed the book for the US market (it’s now “Idiot Proof”), they’ve redone the index, taking out the wit and screwing up the page numbers in the process. Proof, if needed, that nothing in this world is too delicate to be stamped all over by a publisher.
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