SWG Freelance Dec 2014 / Jan 2015
I’m in Love with Alexander McCall Smith By Kay Parley
T
here are dozens of reasons for loving Alexander McCall Smith and certainly I am not the only reader to profess fondness for the man. His wit alone gives him pride of place, not to mention his marvelous grasp of cultural idiosyncrasies and of character. There’s his originality. His writing is effervescent and I can’t image saying that about any other author I have ever read.
18
But I have a specific reason for making such a claim today. I had just finished reading a very second-rate mystery by a very second-rate author. Someone had obviously convinced that writer that it is crucial to appeal to the reader’s senses. We get involved, get into the scene, if we can what is to be seen, feel what’s tangible, smell the odors, and hear the bells. True enough, but let’s not take it too far. After reading half a dozen pages of the above-mentioned mystery, I was yet to know anything about a character, but I was thoroughly acquainted with the setting. I knew about the paneling on the walls, the colours scheme, the rugs, the age and style of furnishings, the paintings, the artifacts on the mantelshelf. Oh, and the windows were important, and the view from those. Not content with detailed descriptions of setting, the writer went on to dress the characters for me. I knew the style and condition of clothing, the colours… I was expecting to meet the designer labels. By the third chapter, I was so weighed down by all this sensory input I pitched the book. This is when I decided to re-read one of Smith’s Botswana books, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies. I learned that the wind blowing through the eucalyptus trees near the café made the sound of the sea. Good! I’ve got it. Don’t waste time telling me any more about the café, because that sound is what Mma Ramotswe has noticed, so I’ve got her. She’s in the setting and it’s real, with just one sentence. My senses are satisfied and I am not bored to death. A few pages later, Mma Ramotswe is in the Anglican cathedral for a service. Smith doesn’t bother to tell us the size of the cathedral or what images are depicted in the stained glass. He doesn’t even mention candles. Heck, a church is a church and most of us have been in one. Once she was seated and busy thinking, as she always is, “Mma Ramotswe looked up to the ceiling of the cathedral, watching the blades of the great white fans as they cut slowly at the air.” And that’s that. In the very next sentence I’m back in Mma’s head, thinking of the mystery she is
Kay Parley. Photo courtesy Kay Parley. trying to solve. And that is exactly where the reader should be. Is it any wonder I’m in love with such as writer? One brief sentence and I’m there. I see it all, sense it all. I’m poised to get on with the plot and the characters, and it hasn’t taken tedious stage setting to get me there. Now comes a scene when Mma gets a bit careless and runs her “small white van” (no endless description there, either) into a man on a bicycle. She drives him home and, just at the exact moment when I was beginning to get curious about him, “She looked sideways at the man. He looked as if he was in his late forties. He had a good face, she thought, an intelligent face, the face of a teacher, perhaps, or of a senior clerk. And he spoke well too, enunciating each word clearly, as if he meant it.” The man was probably black. So many in his Botswana books are, but Smith doesn’t bore me with a detail like that. Unless a reader has some room for imagination on his own, reading will never be worthwhile. I find nothing about the shape of the man’s cheekbones, the circumference of his waistline, or the length or condition of his hair. I don’t even know what he’s wearing. After reading descriptions in which the width of the cuffs has to be detailed, along with the age and colour of fabric and style of shoes, I really don’t feel in the least deprived. As Mma Ramotswe glances at the man, I take in what she sees. I see that intelligent face and hear those well-spoken