A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

Published by Penguin, U.K

Pages: 711

Country: Australia

This debut book by Steve Toltz (which was short listed for Booker Prize 2008) is about a dysfunctional family, it’s a father-son story set for the most part in Australia.

(This post will reveal nothing much about the plot)

The title is derived from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words – “ 'Tis fine for us to talk: we sit and muse, and are serene, and complete; but the moment we meet with anybody, each becomes a fraction.”

The novel is presented in first person by Jasper Dean (who is now in his early twenties) as he recounts his life journey, reminisces about his father Martin Dean. Martin’s life is in contrast with that of his brother Terry, an infamous criminal who is loved and remembered fondly by the country. Martin on the other hand is a skeptic, a philosopher who eventually ends up being the most hated man in Australia. Jasper’s worst fear is that he’d turn out to be like his father. There is a flashback in the flashback – the part where Jasper learns about his father’s childhood days and his young adult years in Paris. These are put across as narrated by Martin in first person. A portion of the book narrated through the perspective of both the protagonists Jasper and Martin made for an excellent read. (I enjoyed Martin’s narration the best)

This turned out to be one of those books that you enjoy all the while but just cannot pinpoint what exactly was fabulous about it! This maybe because apart from an unpredictable storyline, Toltz presents a lot of ideas through his characters and these points are sure to get you thinking.

This book’s got some unforgettable characters – Anouk, Caroline, Astrid, Eddie and this being a father-son story, it doesn’t dwell much into the character sketch of any one else, but I would’ve loved to read more about the strong female characters.

And now for the brickbats … I’ve got none really. I started out without expecting much, hoping that the level of obscurity that was hinted through the summary would be low. My fear was misplaced; I found the book thoroughly absorbing; the good parts of the book overshadow the so-so ones (which for me were when Martin rants about Death) Oh, just that the book could’ve been brief towards the very end (the parts in Thailand).

The author’s got an amazing sense of humor; the writing style is spontaneous, the everyday-ness of the protagonists’ is well thought out. “A Fraction of the Whole” is touching, witty, irreverent, refreshing ... I give it 5 stars!

You can read an extract at the book’s website.

Quotes

I had only a splinter of awareness back then that no matter what anybody says, choosing between available options is not the same as thinkig for yourself. The only true way of thinking for yourself is to create options of your own options that don’t exist.

Change is when new selves come into the foreground while others recede into forgotten landscapes. Maybe definition of having lived a full life is when every citizen in the hall of selves gets to take you for a spin, the commander the lover the coward the misanthrope the fighter the priest the moral guardian the immoral guardian the lover of life the hater of life the fool the judge the jury the executioner..

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Author: Haruki Murakami

Country: Japan

Genre: Memoir/Sport

Pages: 173

“No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act.”

And so the author sets out to share his thoughts on running, what it has meant and means to him. I was apprehensive initially when I looked at the genre “Sport”, but what the book offers isn’t really specific to runners.

It’s unstructured and is in parts a running journal where Murakami keeps track of his training log and reminisces about the places he runs in. His entries revolve around training for the New York City Marathon and later for a Triathlon in Murakami city. The book spans a little over a year but often shuttles in and out of memory lanes. It’s set in real time except for an article that the author wrote of his run in the course from Athens to Marathon and a journal entry of his ultra marathon.

Reading this book was very much like reading a set of blog posts. It was like going over thoughts that would be categorized into Personal, Introspection, Writing and so on – and so made for a relaxing read.

Quotes:

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

If something is worth doing, it’s worth giving it your best – or in some cases beyond your best.

The File on H

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 169

Country: Albania

I picked up “The File on H” by Ismail Kadare from the library last weekend. The librarian suggested it to me, and being excited about the OT challenge, I only had to glance at “About the author” on the first page to pick it up. And I’m glad I did.

The story is set in the 1930’s in Albania which is then under the rule of King Zok, in a small Albanian province N— which is not particularly famous for anything, where nothing interesting ever happens until the arrival of two Irish-American scholars.

Bill and Max are in N—to record epic poems sung by Albanian highlanders and for this purpose bring along the tape-recorder (which was only recently produced and so a device unknown in these parts). Their aim is to show how Homer’s epics might have been taken from epic poems sung by rhapsodes – Homerian singers. Their pursuit of the last existing rhapsodies in the world takes them to an old inn on the outskirts of N--, where rhapsodes were said to stop during their itineraries.

The Albanian Minister of Interior and the local governor however find the scholar’s motives ridiculous and believe them to be spies. Every movement of the foreigners is watched by informers. Bill and Max succeed in meeting rhapsodies, recording different epics, studying the variations between each version, variations between an epic sung by the same rhapsode at different times and with time believe they have uncovered enough to establish their theory of a connection between Albania and Homer.

In the midst of this, they encounter a Serbian monk who visits them at the inn and is enraged by the fact that though the epics are sung in two languages – Albanian and Serb-Croatian, the scholars chose Albania for their study thus indicating (according to him) that Albanian epic is the original and his own land’s songs are but an imitation. He instigates fear in a local hermit Frok about the contraption that captures epics. This works, Frok and his followers later destroy all of the tapes and the recorder.

The story ends with the scholars discovering an epivent (a recent event sung as an epic song) which had till then eluded them. I’ll leave the details and the exact ending for readers to discover.

The province is alive with its set of characters – the governor’s wife who fantasizes about the young scholars, Dull Baxheja the informer whose flowery reports the governor admires and envies. There is an ever prevailing play between the aural and ocular senses in the epics when the scholars debate about the blind poet, and in more than one aspect of the main storyline.

While I found the story and the writing style (the translation, of course) enjoyable, I’m glad I read this book more due to the fact that it got me interested in Albania, the Balkan conflict, the war for precedence; after I read the book, I spent considerable time looking up on the history of the country, etc. (This kind of made up for the disappointment as I had imagined up a witty, comic ending from the gist and the book cover!) And for this reason, I’ll pick up Kadare’s other books later on when I get a chance.

Will I recommend this book? Well, yes, and it’s a short and engaging read anyway, you’ll find out if you like it soon enough :)

I plan to link this for the Global Voices Book Challenge prematurely because this book has managed to sustain my interest in the country much after I’ve turned over the last page, made for an apt read!

The Homeric Question was the primary concern of Harvard scholars Albert B Lord and Milman Parry who had brought back material of their studies based in Yugoslavia. Albert Lord later completed the treatise titled “The Singer of Tales”.

The author Ismail Kadare met Albert Lord in a conference in Turkey in 1979 and from this conversation grew the idea for “A File on H”.

Three Cups of Tea

I finished reading “Three Cups of Tea” (Non-Fiction) by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin yesterday – this is my first book for the OT challenge hosted by Bethany.

The book is written by Relin, narrated in the third person recounting Mortenson’s story that spans over a decade. Mortenson fails to scale the K2 in 1993, loses his way twice on the way down and finds himself in the Balti village of Korphe. He is touched by the kindness of the villagers, observes firsthand the harsh conditions under which the Baltis live in. He asks the village chief to take him to the school so that he can contribute in a more lasting way than handing out supplies, medicines. On a cold morning after he shockingly watches eighty four children from the village kneeling down on the cold frost covered ground in the open air and drawing multiplication tables with sticks on the ground, he promises the chief that he will build a school for Korphe.

Little does he realize then that the promise will eventually lead him to his life’s calling and turn out to be a better tribute to his sister Christa than scaling the K2 would’ve been. The story starts from here, takes us through the hassles Mortenson faces to build the KorpheSchool . In his journey going forward, he enables vocational centers for women, conducts mountaineering camps for the porters from the villages near K2, and enables high school education especially for girls through scholarships.

Without it being planned at the start, the initiative grows into the Central Asia Institute that has built more than sixty schools in remote villages of Pakistan and Afganistan - thus fighting the root causes of terror by offering children who would otherwise be pulled into extremist schools a balanced education.

Reviewing this book and talking about what one thinks of Morenson’s accomplishments are two very different things.

Relin’s writing makes the book a very easy read and keeps you hooked onto it throughout -- unlike many other non-fictions that seek to preach and tend to dry out. I found reading the first half of the book spanning up to building the first school more enjoyable, especially the parts about Mortenson’s childhood, growing up days which makes him the person he is. (Any mountaineer could’ve stumbled upon remote villages near the K2 and chosen to thank his kind hosts and not to ever look back. We do see such people in the story help out monetarily to the CAI.) Certain dramatic parts, filled with metaphors could’ve been avoided, I fast-read these lines and skipped over to the real story. These are uncalled for in a non-fiction, especially one where the writer is not the protagonist. But these parts are rare and the story that’s being told more than makes up for it.

Going beyond the words in the book into the life of Mortenson …it is extra-ordinary for the fact that Mortenson was just an ordinary man. It’s really about believing in what you do and persevering to the end and more. To me, it's about getting out of your comfort zones, not bowing down to failures (the story starts with a failure) , or to step inward but to look out and make the best of what you do have.

I’d recommend the book to anyone who really yearns to make a difference. And it sure is a must read for anyone in whose view, terrorism is synonymous with Islam - for ignorance is the real enemy.

Quotes:

The first cup of tea you share with a Balti, you are a stranger, the second time you take tea, you are an honored guest, the third time you share a cup of tea you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die. .. you must make time to share three cups of tea.

If you educate a boy—you educated an individual, because he often leaves the community to find work, and may never return or send back money, but if you educate a girl—you educate a community, because when the girl becomes a mother, she will remain in the community and instill that value in her community.