A Fraction of the Whole

Disappointment is a thing we set ourselves up for. I’m certainly guilty of it, particularly in regard to my reading. Often a book will come along and it will sparkle. Every facet of the novel – its plot, its characters, its cover – will mesmerise you, and you will want to plunge yourself into that particular world. Sadly, instances of satisfaction are rare. More likely the book will have been excellent but it won’t have lived up to your expectations.

Steve Toltz’s A Fraction of the Whole was one of those books. This was a book that came to me in tantalizing morsels. Before I had even read any sort of blurb or plot summary, I was drawn to the fact that its author was Australian, and that it had been nominated for the ever so prestigious Booker prize. Weeks later, I read:

“From the New South Wales bush to bohemian Paris, from the jungles of Thailand to a leaky boat in the Pacific – through strip clubs, labyrinths, the highs of first love and the lows of failed ambition – A Fraction of the Whole is an unforgettable, scathingly funny and finally very moving tale, announcing a major new voice in Australian writing.”

Oh good, I thought. I’m in for a real treat. My excitement (concerning a single book, that is) grew to unprecedented levels. But first I had to wait – in a flurry of nationalistic pride, dozens of other Australian citizens had reserved the local library’s copy. Why didn’t I just purchase my own copy? Sorry to be picky, but I detest hardcovers. And of course, there was just a slight 50% chance that I would detest it. So I waited. And waited. And waited. I read other book bloggers’ enthused reviews. Even the critical and the cynical were optimistically so. And for a while I completely forgot about the book. Then suddenly, it was in my hands.

Just as people had promised, it was huge, and as soon as I read the opening paragraph, I knew A Fraction of the Whole would be large in much more than size. This book is like Pinball; the plot and characters ricochet around leaving few stones unturned. He explores love, philosophy, death, insanity…Yet I was disappointed.

My reasons for disliking the book are completely irrational and unfair. Simply speaking, the book was much, much darker in tone than I had expected. For some reason (mostly from the cover) I assumed A Fraction of the Whole would be a rollicking, whimsical read; light in tone, and as stupid as it sounds, happy. I suppose it was rollicking and whimsical in many ways, but it was also undeniably dark. The humour was dark; the plot was dark, the themes explored were dark. I didn’t enjoy the book any less because of it It caught me by surprise, and my surprise was interminged with disappointment, and invariably dislike.

That in itself wasn’t enough to make me grumble. After all, I had waited a great deal for this book, and I had heard much about it. I don’t like to think of myself as a quitter (if at first you don’t succeed…) so I kept going. After all, I can’t pretend I wasn’t intrigued by the severely dysfunctional characters.

My real disappointment stemmed from its predictability. Let’s admit it: the book was formulaic to the extreme. I love to grumble against writers who go by some meticulous tick method, through which they attempt to set themselves apart. Was this a deliberate satire of postmodern writing? It ticked all the boxes, almost to the extent where it was parodying itself – unreliable narrator? Tick. Haphazhard structure and narration? Tick (I have to say, though, that the frequent deviations in perspective and form were far from jarring; I found it quite entertaining actually). Existentialist romp? Tick. Ambiguous conclusion? Tick.

What’s more is that the language was contrived and it did feel laboured. I wholeheartedly agree with all the existing criticisms out there. The mind didn’t have a moment’s rest. Every line of the novel had to contain some witty repartee in which Toltz strove to prove how clever he could be with his similes. There were some eloquent things in there that I did genuinely like:

Her mask was a weave of tattered shreds torn from all the beautiful parts of herself

But one would expect that from a book that had been nominated for the Man Booker prize. And if, in a book of that size and scale, Toltz could not manage to spew out at least one decent sentence, I would have cringed. Yet some of them were just awful; overdone and hard to comprehend. I mean what is this?

The interior of the Sydney casino looks as if Vegas had an illegitimate child with Liberaces’ underpants, and that child fell down a staircase and hit its head on the edge of a spade.

How can you possibly understand the writer’s vision when the narration is cluttered and completely obstructed with silly imagery like that?

The one time I got excited whilst reading the book was around page 578 (the last quarter or so), when the Deans escaped to Thailand. I felt for sure some light would be shed onto The Face, or at least on Astrid. I don’t like to digress, but that’s another thing – the face. I don’t think I truly understood the face. Can somebody very kindly explain what Toltz was trying to get at?

Oh, and then when Terry – need I put a spoiler alert? I find that they don’t affect me in the least; not when specific details are being discussed, because it’s hard to remember those things when you haven’t actually read the book. Well, anyway, for those who have read it, in that section of the book, I had an inkling that would happen, but I was still surprised when it did. That was the one time I got excited. The rest, I sped by in an attitude of total indfference.

I probably missed the deeper meaning.

To sum it all up, the major disappointment was that it didn’t meet my expectations. Clearly not a valid criticism. Secondly, though, for a book of its size, it failed to dazzle. The humour fell flat after the first hundred pages or so. And when every second sentence contains humour that falls flat, it isn’t easy to plough through a book. I suppose this is a criticism I throw at most contemporary writers, but A Fraction of the Whole just wasn’t as seamless as it could have been. Final verdict? An impressive book; hard to swallow at times (for all the wrong reasons), but a great page turner nonetheless. Worthy of the Man Booker prize? I don’t think so.

» This was my Alive book for the 9 Books for 2009 project. For this particular category, we were required to read a book by either a dead person, or an author whose work had been nominated for a literary award. I’m “cheating” because I have two Alive or Not books. My Dead book is Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

People of the Book

Geraldine, Geraldine. Oh, where do I start with this book? I’ll start by saying that I was never a fan of Year of Wonders, so I was [in my opinion, quite understandably] apprehensive about reading this one. I had, however, heard positive reviews so I decided to give it ago.

I have a sort of ‘three tick’ system (I don’t deliberately go through it when reading or choosing a book, but this is invariably what happens) – if the cover is good, it gets one tick. If it’s had good reviews and/OR I’m a fan of the author’s previous books, it gets another tick. If the book itself is good, it gets a third tick. Eighty percent of the books I read are two-tick books. And it’s quite surprising how many books deserve only one tick – and not because the book is fabulous with a hideous cover. Going through my tick system, I can see that I’m being overly critical – People of the Book is a two-tick book. Yes, it received good reviews and it had a good cover: the delicious cover saved it. The disconcerting part is that it missed out on the most important tick of all.

I’ve got nothing against the plot. It’s a fabulous plot; and I think for the size and scale of it, she structured it quite well. Yet there was something missing. There was something dry and artificial about the movement of the whole thing. Some books, with quite mundane plots, will flow fabulously – the characters will push the narrative along nicely. People of the Book had all the aspects of an excellent novel; Brooks could so easily have created a beautiful piece of writing pulsing with emotion and human nature and breathing characters from the story of the Haggadah – but something fell short here. It was like a production of Shakespeare with plastic mannequins. I felt that the plot and the actual writing told two different stories. It seemed that through the plot, Brooks was trying to say that once we are stripped of ethnicity, age, sex etc, we’re all equal. Despite the labels we have created for each other, we can oercome such barriers and be united (in this case, towards the presevation of the Haggadah). That’s all very good; it’s a good message. But the writing itself didn’t convey this so much.

Perhaps it was the awkwardness of protagonist, Hannah, that seeped into the atmosphere of the whole novel. She’s quite an odd character; eccentric and anti-social almost, but not at all likeable. Some characters can be queer, or even plain horrible, but still be likeable – say, for instance, Javert from Les Miserables. He’s clearly not a ‘nice guy’, but he’s fascinating as a character; I quite like him. There’s another thing I don’t understand. Hannah is quite clearly a MacGuffin; a plot device placed [awkwardly] into the novel, to tie all the historical events together. Why, Geraldine? Just like de Kretser (The Lost Dog), you have failed miserably.

Some might argue that it would have been impossible to cram so much history and life into one book, and that Brooks did the best that was possible for such a large plot, but I believe eloquence and good characterisation and capturing human nature/emotion is achievable, regardless of word limit. Brevity should not be an impediment to a writer (take Hemingway, for instance). I was left feeling somewhat bemused at the end of each historical segment – I would find myself reluctantly being wrenched away from those fascinating historical insights, back to Hannah Heath and her ghastly relationship with her mother.

Maybe it’s not a matter of something missing. Maybe Geraldine Brooks attempted too much? If she had focused on even one part of the Haggadah’s history, I reckon it would have been enough. For instance, I really loved the section detailing the the actual creation of the book – I think this section came last (it’s all sort of hazy in my mind because it was a while ago). The story of the woman who so lovingly illustrated the Haggadah; that story on its own would have been a remarkable book.

All in all, it was an enjoyable read, but I feel that it’s the type of book I’ll read once and forget about (that’s evident already – I even forgot to mention it on my blog). Geraldine Brooks is a great writer – she’s not bad by any means – it’s just that there’s no special oomph factor that separates her from the multitudes of other good writers. After I finish a three tick book, I’ll usually soak in its ambience for a while; I find myself thinking over parts of the plot, or mulling over certain characters. This? It didn’t leave much of an impression. Logically, I should have steered away from it. People were exuberant about Year of Wonders, and lavishly praised it, so if this one had only received ‘good’ reviews, I should have known I’d be disappointed.

The Memory Room

Let me start off by saying that The Memory Room by Christopher Koch was, by no means, boring or poorly written. I floated through it with a reasonable amount of enthusiasm, and once or twice I even became immersed it in. It does, however, lack credibility/consistency at many levels.

Yes, it’s about the intrinsic human obsession with secrecy, it’s about relationships. But it’s also a novel set at the end of the Cold War era, in a highly unstable world (politically, and otherwise) – and the three protagonists, who happen to work in Foreign Affairs at that time – hardly capture the fascinating world of secrecy and spies to which they are supposedly sworn.

I suspect this has something largely to do with the dysfunctional characters of Derek Bradley (who incidentally has two first names – the author just switches between them at his pleasure) and Erika Lange. One is too placid to be human, and the other is mentally unstable. Paranoia and insecurity is understandable in a girl who has been sexually assaulted, yet to this extreme? I don’t think so, Mr Koch.

The only character I half-liked was Vincent, and he was a bit off his rocker too. Another thing that I found slightly jarring was the clumsily handled present tense to past tense transitions. Really teeth-grindingly annoying. I really did want to enjoy this book; it has a beautiful cover, and I was delighted at its chunkiness. It was still a good read; far more enjoyable than that shoddy piece of pop-culture, Twilight, but it still failed to live up to expectations. I think that’s another book to tick off my 888 List.