A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

Toltz tells a fictional story about a truly remarkable but possibly mentally unstable family with a cast of interesting characters that keeps you wondering what they are really like. The book begins somewhat slow – a backwards look and review of some of the lives involved via retold stories and memories, diaries. However, the outlandish events that occur are really interesting – I suggest paying closer attention than I did in the beginning, because everything does come full-circle.

This is at its’ heart, a story about adventure, but it pretends to be a story about a father-son relationship. The adventures are unexpected throughout the book, but poignant and rich with meaning in the context of the book. The characters are too out-of-touch to provide any meaningful comparisons to most people’s lives, but readers can sympathize with the complexity of life, even if the book takes it to an absurd extreme.

It touches on some broad issues like the meaning of life and existential and philosophical end-runs, but more to point out that the point of existence is not to ponder existence. The two brothers in the story and the paths of their lives profoundly tell a tale of the dangers of under-thinking, or over-thinking one’s existence.

The most entertaining characters are the ones that revolve around the fictional narrator/author, rather than the narrator himself. The writing style switches often, from the narration to “discovered diaries” written from another character’s perspective. While I usually look down upon this technique, it is natural and works well in this story.

I don’t give books grades, but I’ll give it a word. “Fun”

I was recommended this book by a friend on Facebook and so when I got my new library card, I decided to check it out.

Lies My Teacher Told Me (James W. Loewen)

I love books and I tend to judge them by their ability to enjoy many times.

I’ll start by saying – I wouldn’t re-read the book. That doesn’t mean it was a bad book by any means – in fact, it is very informative and interesting. It brings to light parts of American History that are all to often overlooked in the interest of competing ideas – patriotism, hero worship, and the idea of “progress”.

Mr. Loewen does a great job of discussing the problems inherent in the way we teach history in schools, particularly high schools and elementary schools. I was, however, looking for a less academic review of history textbooks. Although the aim of the book was specifically to critique history textbooks, I felt that it did so in a way that felt repetitive – assess situation, compare to history textbooks.

I’ll be honest that I skipped parts that droned on about the specific failures of individual textbooks and instead thoroughly enjoyed a review of history from a non-revisionist perspective. I felt that the same points could be made in a more effective way by pointing out the very things Mr. Loewen does point out in his book – the failures in the way we teach history, without being so specifically critical of each textbook’s approach. Although this is a great critique of history textbooks, I think it misses the mark with the audience and could benefit from less of that and more of the clarity he brings to American History and the reasons “why” we look backwards in that way.

He clearly writes why we view history the way we do and how we view it differently at different points in time. He points out the “nadir” of race relations in America and how politics has been racially motivated up until present day. He points out the conquest of native americans and how the ways in which we refer to those cultures reflect our domination of them. (Until a certain time period, native americans were just “Americans”. Very much a different way than we view that term today.)

This is a great book to read, but don’t feel bad about skipping some parts about textbooks. The book itself doesn’t lay the blame entirely on books or the education system and could do well with a re-focused effort that doesn’t revolve around that central thesis.

Enjoy!