From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

A Fraction of the Whole

Steve Toltz

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Oct 26, 2015 Zadignose added it

Shelves: 21st-century

This book is original, observant, and humorous, and the author possesses a unique, cynical wit. I would also say it's uneven at times, and the humor doesn't work all the way through, though it never fully lets us down either. It's just difficult to sustain a farce for so long without developing a kind of over-familiar schtick. Not that it's entirely farcical. One might discover, about five-hundred pages in, this sentence about a "revolution" which, if you substitute the word "novel," it becomes This book is original, observant, and humorous, and the author possesses a unique, cynical wit. I would also say it's uneven at times, and the humor doesn't work all the way through, though it never fully lets us down either. It's just difficult to sustain a farce for so long without developing a kind of over-familiar schtick. Not that it's entirely farcical. One might discover, about five-hundred pages in, this sentence about a "revolution" which, if you substitute the word "novel," it becomes a kind of mission statement for the work:

"OK, I admit my revolution was a farce, but it was a deadly serious farce. If people laughed or went along with my ideas just to see what would happen, perhaps it was because underneath their chuckling, they saw a grain of truth."

Another way to summarize this book is to say that it does (or attempts to do) for philosophy what Don Quixote does for knight errantry. That is, while it sympathizes with philosophy and philosophers, it also makes a philosopher out to be such a pathetic fool that we alternate between laughing at him and then rending our clothing and tearing our faces for grief and outrage at his bitter (ridiculous) plight.

There are several plot convolutions and contrivances that I wasn't overly fond of, but then I've only just finished reading it so I can't say I've quite digested it yet. And basically I'm just forced to accept them for what they are, because after it's all played out I can't imagine the plot going in any other way.

The author's especial talent is for expressing the minds and thoughts of mad-geniuses, guides, would-be teacher/father figures, advisors, busybodies, buttinskies, and nuts... oh yeah, and confused philosophers. He has a knack for concocting long lists of aphorisms and quips, which may seem rather wise at times, and at others they just sound wrong-headed and crazy. He does so rather entertainingly.

What is this book? It's paranoid realism... yeah, that's the ticket. I already hate the term I coined (has someone already coined it?), and I think genre classification is always wrong, etc. But, heck, why not call it that. It's in no way "realist," but the plot proceeds in such a way that it takes paranoid ravings and fantasies and treats them as though real. What could the world contrive to make a paranoid's delusions come thoroughly true? Well, that's what will guide the development of the story.

But it's actually the characters that compel, rather than the outlandish events and adventures that befall them. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review