Here I go again, letting another book cut the queue of the books I’m supposed to be reading.  I had been interested in checking out Ben Mezrich’s (author of Bringing Down the House, the book that was made into 21) The Accidential Billionaires for ages — you know, the book that was masterfully adapted into one of the best films of last year, The Social Network — so I couldn’t help myself.

I got the e-book version in my little online shopping spree, thanks to the 30% off from the lovely but struggling folks at Borders.  I essentially started reading it yesterday morning as soon as I woke up (I keep the iPad beside the bed), and even though I was out the entire day, I somehow managed to finish the whole book before I got home.  Yes, it was a short book (with some very short chapters), but it was indeed a massive page-turner.  I can’t think of the last time I read an entire book in a day.

The Accidental Billionaires tells — in a dramatic, narrative style — the story of the founding of Facebook, from the dorms of Harvard into the biggest social networking phenomenon in the world.  I was surprised by how closely The Social Network mirrored the book in terms of plot and progression, and was even more surprised to see that Aaron Sorkin (the guy that adapted the book into the Academy Award winning screenplay) was one of the people that Mezrich thanked at the end of the book.

So if you’ve seen The Social Network, there won’t be much that in this book that you don’t already know — Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, the Winklevoss twins, Sean Parker — no wonder Mezrich thought it was a tale too extraordinary to pass up.  However, I still thoroughly enjoyed the story, even though I found myself constantly visualising scenes from the movie on just about every page.

The interesting thing about this book is that it does not read like traditional non-fiction.  Mezrich has made The Accidental Billionaires a work of ‘creative’ non-fiction using narrative techniques, including evocative descriptions and deft dramatisations.  As I read the book, I kept wondering just how much of it actually happened, because Mezrich’s primary source was Eduardo Saverin (the co-founder that was screwed over by Zuckerberg, who declined Mezrich’s attempts to contact him), who later refused to cooperate with Mezrich after his law suit against Zuckerberg was settled out of court.  Was Saverin telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or was his memory coloured by his anger towards Zuckerberg?  And honestly, did Facebook really get created because Zuckerberg and Saverin wanted to get laid?  Seriously?  Am I too old or is American college culture really that perverted?

On the other hand, Mezrich also had stacks of court transcripts at his disposal (from both the Saverin case and the ‘Winklevii’ case), as well as other eye-witness accounts and insider interviews.  But it still left a big question mark in my mind, especially because Mezrich admits to ‘re-creating dialogue’ based on the recollections of participants and the substance of their conversations.  Naturally, this meant certain conversations and correspondence may been compressed or may have never even happened.

However, thanks to Mezrich’s creative narrative techniques, The Accidental Billionaires is a crisp, enjoyable ride, albeit slightly one sided as most of it is from Saverin’s perspective.  It’s also somewhat unfortunate that Saverin stopped feeding Mezrich information after the settlement, because I think the book could have been even better.  The narrative started losing steam towards the end, probably because of the lack of information on what exactly happened, resulting in a fair bit of creative guesswork on Mezrich’s part.  Admirable effort, but it couldn’t completely disguise the problems.

3.75 out of 5

A word on the film

If there’s one thing I learned from The Accidential Billionaires, it’s that Aaron Sorkin is a screenwriting god.  In my humble opinion, The Social Network is one of those rare films that surpasses the book on which it is based.  I know David Fincher probably deserves a significant share of the credit, but Sorkin’s screenplay was phenomenal.  He managed to capture all the key scenes of the book (with little or almost no variation), which was great, but it’s the scenes he created that weren’t in the book that ended up being the most iconic scenes in The Social Network.  And the dialogue, most of which Sorkin must have just made up, kept the essence of the characters and simply elevated the story to a whole new dimension.  Mr Sorkin, I am in awe of your awesomeness.