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Nov 09, 2010

Amanda rated it:

Holy... just holy, holy, holy. A Fraction of the Whole starts good, stays good for five hundred pages and three continents, is laugh-out-loud funny throughout, at certain points made my jaw drop in astonishment/horror, contains so many beautiful passages (you know the kind where you go yes! that's so true! like one about how it takes a couple hours to feel the sun on city streets in the morning, and one about the sounds of swimming pools), and gives us a couple of unforgettable characters, who e More...

5 comments like (28 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2010

oriana rated it:

Well, I'm sorry, but I really didn't like this book. I feel a bit guilty for this, first because it came recommended by people whose tastes I totally trust (sorry Amanda! sorry Kira!), and second because, due to my really shamefully busy life, it took me a ludicrously long time to read this (sorry Steve Toltz). So yeah, I mean, it was my fault—not Steve's—that this book has been hanging menacingly over my head for freaking ages. But let's face it, Steve, it's your fault that your book just wasn' More...

6 comments like (25 people liked it)

Aug 29, 2008

jordan rated it:

Wow, the New York Times reviewer couldn't have gotten this one mroe wrong.

One comes up a bit short trying to describe "A Fraction of the Whole." True, the book deals with the relationship of an eccentric father and son, but it is about that only in the way the "Confederacy of Dunces" is about a large rather odd man living in New Orleans. Indeed, it is Toole's classic "Dunces" which most often comes to mind when reading Toltz's "Whole," both hig More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2009

Lolly LKH rated it:

I am shocked to see anyone complain about this book being too long. I spent the majority of my time laughing like a madwoman when I read A Fraction of the Whole. Just this part alone made me think of all my cynical Hungarian elders, because man do they think like this "The younger passengers let out cries of joy. The older passengers knew that the key to happiness lay in keeping your expectations low. They booed." There was not one sentence that I would be happy seeing taken away. WH More...

1 comment like (14 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2008

Saba rated it:

To be fair I didn't finish this, so maybe the last half contained some redemption. It was amusing enough, but there was wasn't a single character I cared about.

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2009

Brendan rated it:

LOOK, i dont mind quirky, even wacky, but zany i cant take and this book is zany as hell and seemingly grounded in nothing. toltz is funny, punchy and wicked so why on earth would he write such a long book? (732pgs) surely a long book has something to say that demands its long-bookedness. tolstoy, go for it, write a long book - you deserve it, you go to the depths of us but not this fellow (despite the booker shortlist). modern film seems to be doing this too. 'i dont know how to make a great mo More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2008

Nancy rated it:

I am simply blown away by the fact that this is Steve Toltz's first novel. This is one book where size doesn't matter: the 500 + pages literally flew in no time. I just started this the day before yesterday, and if silly things like sleep and family (not to mention preparing for a tropical storm) didn't get in the way, I'm sure I would have finished it yesterday.

I cannot, absolutely cannot do this book justice so I won't go into plot details, etc, but suffice it to say that this is More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2010

David rated it:

Funny. Brilliant. Dense.

The protagonist Martin Dean on Europe:
"Paris-perfect city to be lonely & miserable in.
O London! You grisly town! You cold gray cloud! You low-lying layer of mist & fog. You dense moan.
And Rome? Full of sexual predators who live with their mothers.
Spain? Streets smell like socks fried in urine-too many catholics baptized in piss".
On regrets... "To this day the memory of that look still visits me like a Jehovah's More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2008

Kevin rated it:

The term The Great American Novel is often bandied about. But what about The Great Australian Novel ? How come a country so full of fascinating characters has produced so few stories about them? Well this is it. The Great Australian Novel. The fun loving, rebellious, heroic & egalitarian nature of the Australian character is displayed on virtually every page. Every page contains insanely brilliant and incredibly hilarious observations of modern day Australian society. All aspects are covered. More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 01, 2009

Philip rated it:

I read this sprawling story for my in-person book discussion group. A Fraction of the Whole is long, engrossing, scary-funny, sad, horrifying, profane, profound, provocative in all the best ways. A convoluted plot with vividly strange characters whose lives I actually cared about even when I could barely stand to visualize their actions.

I can see why reviewers are reminded of John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tom Robbins; further comparisons I've seen to Twain, Dickens, Garcia Marque More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2009

Banafsheh rated it:

Short Listed for the Man Booker prize in 2008, 'A Fraction of the Whole' was originally rejected by agents and publishers in Australia. It was only through a chance contact that the book was brought to the attention of Random House America and like a real-life fairytale went on to receive worldwide release and a nod from the most prestigeous literary prize.

Set in Australia, the book follows the Deans Family as retold by Martin Dean.
'The fact is, the whole of Australia despises More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 24, 2008

Arif rated it:

What a waste of my life. I left the last couple of pages unread just to make a statement of sorts.

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 21, 2008

kira rated it:

The most memorable novel I've read in at least five years.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

I scanned the reviews in Goodreads to see how anyone could possibly describe this book and found that everyone else was struggling too so I don't feel so bad. This book was a surprise from beginning to end - the plot was all over the place, the situations were outlandish (not a word I use often but they really were - they lived in the center of a labyrinth for example) and the characters were oddballs, philosophers, pathetic, hysterical, and inspiring all at the same time. Somehow I had never More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 31, 2010

Aaron rated it:

Fantastic first novel and a really great read. I found this based on a recommendation and that recommendation turned out to be spot on (thanks, Chris).

"A Fraction of the Whole" benefits from being wildly unrestrained -- Toltz is enviably imaginative in the way he constructs his characters and the only-slightly-unbelievable events that shape them. It's ruminative, but it never takes a breath to really ruminate. In fact, the whole novel skips along at a whiplash pace from on More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 01, 2009

Melody rated it:

This is my favorite book this year. In fact, I'd place it as one of my all-time favorites, ever.

I like it for the same reason I like some of Neal Stephenson's books: it's chock-full of quirky characters, striking juxtapositions, and ideas that will give your brain a tickle. Like Stephenson, Toltz is a generous writer who never takes the easy path of moving a plot along by means of a plain, unadorned sentence. Instead, he packs it full of what one reviewer called "verbal dynamite More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2008

Travis rated it:

the story follows a neurotic, distanced intellectual who in his youth lived through a strange set of circumstances, lost himself in literature and philosophy, and subsequently thought himself into a corner. somewhere in there, on an adventure in pursuit of life, he had a kid. the story is told largely from his son's perspective, as he's coming to terms with his life with the maladjustment of his father.

Toltz's first novel was a huge surprise, not only that it managed to evade clich More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 13, 2008

Alden rated it:

With simultaneous publication in the U.S., Australia and the U.K., Steve Toltz's first novel, A Fraction of the Whole, is about to make a big splash. And why not? A Fraction of the Whole is a big book (530 pages) with big ambitions—it covers 40 years in an often laugh-out-loud, insightful, sprawling, impossible-to-summarize tale of the larger-than-life mishaps and adventures of an Australian father and son and the various miscreants and reprobates who surround them.

"It began as More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2009

Emily rated it:

I just could not finish this book. Usually I have to finish reading a book because I really want to see where they go with it, even if some of the book wasn't that great. This one just kept getting worse and more depressing and yucky. I don't really care what happens to these characters. Some of their problems were not their own fault but some of them were and I just found myself getting too frustrated with the choices they kept making. It is a very quirky and creative story. Even after th More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2008

Joe rated it:

This is the best thing I have read in quite a while. It's a first novel that portends great things to come from Steve Toltz. It's brilliant, demented, hilarious and very inventive. It definitely claims a high place in my top ten list. It's the story of a man and his father, and their dispeptic relationship. Toltz has an amazing way with words, and the situations he finds his characters in are at times wonderfully bizarre, and their bent view of the world is the result. The author has no fear of More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2009

Diane rated it:

This is one of those books that people will have a definite opinion on. I liked it, and would recommend it to those who liked The Corrections or The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The novel deals with Jasper and his relationship to his unique father, Martin. Molded by an early childhood illness, an infamous brother, and odd parents, Martin raises a child that is the recipient of of his unusual beliefs, self doubts and perhaps insanity. Told from the perspective of both Jasper and Marti More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 16, 2009

Ian rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Jan 11, 2009

Jan rated it:

It's been months since I've had the pleasure of reading a novel like this one, in no small part due to Steve Toltz's sheer energy. Every page drips with zany metaphors that never seem out of place, and the velocity of the plot itself kept me glued to the book, often putting me in mind of a tragic and philosophical episode of South Park.

Why do I only give it four stars? I would say that "Fraction of the Whole" suffers from being occasionally over-wordy, and the prose is of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Meg rated it:

This weighty tome is a cracker of a debut novel and I hope Steve hasn't run himself out of energy and ideas so that he can go on to write more. I don't know how long it took him to write this, but it certainly took me a while to read this (mind you, I was only reading it in snippets at the tired end of every day - probably not the best way for this book to be read), however, there is a good 711 pages of writing and he has done a fine job on every page.

An enthralling tale More...

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Jan 09, 2012

Simon rated it:

This just didn't work for me. Toltz is a gifted writer with an eye for off-the-wall detail and an ear for witty, throwaway dialogue. But this is a 700 page shaggy dog story and I lost interest after about 200 because I didn't care about the protagonist or any of the other main characters, mainly, I suppose, because they're not (and probably aren't intended to be) wholly believable. They all strike me as emotionally vapid, one-dimensional, cartoonish and, in some cases, plain uninteresting, while More...

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Nov 28, 2011

Elaine rated it:

Here I was, floundering in a quest to find an absorbing novel. Not one written in the rat-a-tat sentences of someone saving or being saved from or by evil secret operatives of incredibly corrupt governments. Nor one about a too chubby woman hitting 30 with no marriageable male in sight. Not only were plots stale, but the language they were told in was boring.

Hallelujah! I found Toltz's Fraction of the Whole. Meet Martin Dean! Really meet Martin Dean, his amazing observations about the More...

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Jun 22, 2011

Jeremy rated it:

How good is this book? Very good. Vonnegut good. (Vonne-good?) This novel reminds me of Vonnegut's best work in all but style: the mindset, politics, humour, irreverence, obvious and championed atheism, and message/moral all make a Vonnegut fan proud. What Vonnegut does in half a page (largely through Kilgore Trout), veer off into some other reality another book another idea, Toltz acvutally makes part of the story, makes happen to the characters in their own reality, and so more writing is need More...

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May 31, 2011

Jason rated it:

At times interesting, at times filled with vivid description and at times a page-turner, this book is none of those things at all times.

The things that makes this novel a 2-star review are these: I had no problem putting this book down for the night and not coming back to it for weeks at a time. I can't identify why that is the case -- primarily I think it's because I wasn't invested in what happens to these characters, and when you're halfway through a book you ought to be -- but in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 13, 2011

David rated it:

It's difficult to sum up in any neat way how I felt about this book because my opinion of it, indeed my whole relationship with it (and it felt like a fairly long relationship after 700 pages) fluctuated so much during the reading; but I have to say that I was ultimately disappointed.

Yet I would not want to put anyone off reading the novel because it is occasionally brilliant, insightful and witty. No, more than occasional - there must be hundreds of lines that enlightened, made me smi More...

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Feb 14, 2011

aimee rated it:

Ah, yes. This book. I absolutely adored it.

It's not an easy book to get into, nor is it, at over 700 pages, a quick read.

I'd still quite happily and vociferously recommend giving it a bash, though.

The story centres around a few generations of a particularly mad, Australian family. The occasional narrator of the book, Martin Dean, is consistently tying himself into knots philosophically: a habit clearly passed on to him by his demented dad. Other main ch More...

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