Alexander McCall Smith
ISBN 0-349-11850-7
Abacus Fiction
First published in Great Britain by Abacus in 2004
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People read McCall Smith to be elegantly and not too taxingly entertained. They will not be disappointed by this volume. Three risible (and painfully tall) German professors of philology disport in all their pedantic and esoteric glory before us. The book’s being broken up into three easily-digestible and fully connected sections makes the read even more user-friendly. (The sections are ‘Portuguese Irregular Verbs’, ‘The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs’ and ‘At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances’, in case you were wondering.)
The narrative follows Professor von Iglefeld, through attempts to master tennis by reading a book on it, to researching Irish obscenities, attempting and failing in an imaginary romance, giving lectures in more inappropriate situations that you would think possible, fighting off a cruise-ship full of ladies of a certain age, and getting inexplicably entangled in South American political machinations. His two main companions and associates Professor Florianus Prinzel and Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer drift in and out of the narrative but maintain a constant presence within the Professor’s busy and off-track mind.
‘Fluffy’ (or as fluffy as philology can be) as the material is, like most entertaining and easy reading the writing is highly accomplished. As an example of third-person narrative that judges perfectly between authorial slant and superb ‘show-not-tell’ technique, it stands proud as any serious work of literature. Creating sympathy for a moderately obnoxious set of characters and maintaining humour and pace in a purposefully un-humorous setting is a feat of agility most could not hope to emulate. McCall Smith knows what he is doing, and it shows.
There is however a distinct tendency towards farce, particularly towards the end. The aim is obviously to culminate in a sizeable shebang, partly perhaps to give some structure to the book. Personally I found this one of the weaker aspects of the piece. While the reader (or at least this reader) remains enjoyably engaged whilst the action is at least plausible, however farcical, once incredulity reaches a certain peak attention is lost rather than retained. However, this is a minor point and I know many readers would have no trouble in swallowing the more bizarre happenings.
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