Well Known Character Traits

Alexander McCall Smith delights us with his latest installment of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. (And by latest, I don't mean it's dead!)

Whether we have known Mma Ramotswe for ten books prior to this one, or are a newcomer to the series, these two selections can be enjoyed... not just for an insight into Mma Ramotswe's character, but for pure literary enjoyment...

Let's begin with the opening chapter of the book. Oddly enough, Mma Ramotswe doesn't even make a physical appearance in this chapter. And yet, she is present, even if just in the thoughts of her husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni...

He had very few criticisms to make of Precious Ramotswe, his wife and founder of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, but if one were to make a list of her faults--which would be a minuscule document, barely visible, indeed, to the naked eye--one would perhaps have to include a tendency (only a slight tendency, of course) to claim that things that she happened to believe were well known. This phrase gave these beliefs a sort of unassailable authority, the status that went with facts that all right-thinking people would readily acknowledge--such as the fact that the sun rose in the east, over the undulating canopy of acacia that stretched along Botswana's border, over the waters of the great Limpopo River itself that now, at the height of the rainy season, flowed deep and fast towards the ocean half a continent away... All these facts were indeed both incontestable and well known; whereas Mma Ramotswe's pronouncements, to which she attributed the special status of being well known, were often, rather, statements of opinion. There was a difference, thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, but it was not one he was planning to point out; there were some things, after all, that it was not helpful for a husband to say to his wife, and that, he thought, was probably one of them.

We get a demonstration of this later in Chapter 14. Not from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's point of view this time, but from that of Mma Makutsi.

[Mma Makutsi] also navigated--which was not an exacting task given that the road to Francistown, which marked the end of the first leg of the journey, ran straight and true from Gaborone northwards and neither meandered nor diverted. "You go straight here, Mma," said Mma Makutsi. "That sign over there says Francistown. That is the route to take." Mma Ramotswe nodded. "Yes," she said. "These are good signs, don't you think Mma? They make it quite clear which way you should go."

Mma Makutsi, interpreting this as veiled criticism of her navigating, searched for an objection to this remark. "But what if there is a blind person?" she challenged. "What use would they be then?

"But a blind person shouldn't be driving," said Mma Ramotswe. And added, as if the matter required further resolution, "That is well known, Mma."

There could be no answer to that, and the subject was closed.

Taken from:
McCall Smith, Alexander. The Double Comfort Safari Club (2010), pp. 3-4; 156.

How did I rate this book? Another satisfying read from The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency!