Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith

Who is he I hear you say. He is a former Scottish academic who is a prolific writer. To a slight extent his books use his academic knowhow in ethics and law but essentially his writing is “feel-good” books in a variety of settings.

I went to see him at the “Warwick Words” literary festival. I first went to an event there several years ago- it was a poetry slam organised by Spoz Esposito. A slam is a light hearted contest in which contestants declaim their poems for no more than 3 minutes. Judges then select those felt to be best through to second round and so on until a winner is reached. The first slam I attended I was chosen as one of the judges. I thought the contributions were excellent and judging was extremely hard.. The funniest poem of the evening was read by Spoz himself while the results were tabulated. I don’t usually enjoy vulgar work but his poem was both vulgar and hilariously funny ( it concerned a driver on the motorway who urgently wants to go to the toilet ) Obviously the success or otherwise depends on the contestants and subsequent events didn’t reach the same high standard.

Born in present day Zimbabwe McCall Smith has had his biggest success with  “The No 1 ladies detective agency” series set in Botswana. The books have a great sense of place as Botswana is a country he knows well quite apart from his youth in a nearby country. In fact he founded several institutions while in Botswana on secondment to the University. The detective agency is only loosely about detective stories being mainly about the principals and their various lives. As in all his work the books are full of humorous commentary.

McCall Smith is astonishingly prolific and much of his work is in series which are extremely varied. He first achieved success with a series about German academics when he mocks their pretentiousness. A university teacher with a doctorate would be known as Herr Professor Doctor…. He has also had a series set in London about the affairs of the occupants of Corduroy Mansions. A rather similar series is set in Edinburgh in Scotland Street. This series is notable for its short chapters interweaving the lives of the flat dwellers. The structure can be most readily understood as it is written as columns in the “Scotsman” newspaper which are then collected into books.

In my opinion the star character in Scotland Street is a small boy, Bertie. Bertie longs to be a small boy like any other but his mother is determined to be achingly politically correct and despises anything gender specific. Thus he is dressed in a crushed strawberry colour corduroy bib suit when he longs to be dressed in jeans like other boys. He yearns for a Swiss Army type penknife which of course is not approved by his mother. McCall Smith has huge fun at the expense of Irene, Bertie’s mother, who seems to have just about every “right-on” opinion ever heard of.

In his talk McCall Smith mentions how Irene reacts to anything she considers detrimental. At nursery school she insists he learns to write. Thus when Bertie in a small rebellion writes on the toilet wall he is instantly identified because he is the only pupil who can write. Irene is mortified.

Totally different is the “Sunday Philosophy club” series featuring Isabel Dalhousie. Isabel is the editor of a philosophical publication on modern ethics. Although only part time and combined with being mother to a small child she takes this very seriously.  The stories, set in Edinburgh, give McCall Smith the chance to muse on various issues. The stories are fairly light hearted revolving around various puzzles in everyday life.

All of the work has one unifying feature which is that whatever the intervening incidents all works out well and culminates in a happy ending. The Warwick event was in the form of a question and answer session and he proved an affable and amusing speaker