PenguinReaders' Group
 

Previous Readers' Group Reviews

The BS Readers

The BS Readers from Bristol review A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz.

This book is like a labyrinth in itself. A cat’s cradle of narrative, coincidence, conundrum and characterisation. It is more like a series of linked short stories and we particularly liked:

Martin's story
The suggestion box
The Terry Dean story
Paris
Harry (the best character of all!)
The fire from the Observatory
The treatment of the teacher & son’s suicide

It reminded us, in places, of Dickens (Harry, the convict), a million little pieces, Heart of Darkness (the older brother Terry), the young Peter Carey novels, DBC Pierre & Cloud Street. The main theme is about a constant search for identity with many grandiose ideas . The characterisation of women was believable from an Australian perspective certain women are loved by martin and Jasper in the novel – Caroline and Anouk and The Towering Inferno. There are numerous coincidences and sense of fate – many could be attributed to Martin’s initiative.

We loved the use of humour and sense of anarchy, although we felt that at times that they go on too long. Was the handbook of crime and metaphor for the novel anyway? The radical, almost two dimensional characters are extremes of their genre. We also liked that all loose ends are eventually tied up.

We are a female middle class reading group and although we enjoyed the novel, we thought it might particularly appeal to young male readers.