The Joy and Light Bus Company REVIEW

 

The Joy and Light Bus Company by Alexander McCall Smith

Fans of the McCall Smith #1 Ladies Detective Agency series will not be disappointed in this addition to his long list of tales about the life and times of Mme Ramotswe, her husband Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni,  her bespectacled and opinionated associate—Mma Makutse, and their friend who runs an orphanage—Mma Potokane.

As usual there are a few side plots, but this outing concentrates on Mr. J.L.B.  Matekoni’s attendance at a business seminar where he touches base with an old school friend, T.K. Molefi, who has had major successes in life.  Mr. Matekoni has been feeling a bit of depression in his middle age and is enticed into a new business opportunity with his old friend. This new business is the title of the book—a bus service that will use Mr. Matekoni’s Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors as the major repair depot. The major stumbling block from his wife's point of view is that the Speedy Motors business and its building will have to serve as collateral for a major bank loan. If things do not work out, it would mean disaster for the repair business as well as Mma Ramotswe’s detective agency.    

That's the central problem and I don't give anything away by saying up front that all the threads are tied up happily at the end.  That does not mean that you cannot continue to savor the nuggets of advice and humor that are peppered throughout.   

Here are a few that I found worth mentioning.  In a discussion of the obligations of the rich there is, “If you drive a Mercedes Benz, you have a duty to do something to make up for it.”

In a conversation about the nature of men, the term “Past Tense Men” is coined. Although there are fewer of them now, they are the men who thought that women were placed on earth to take care of them.  In a similar vein the women discuss how hard it is for men to talk about or share their feelings. Women can pour out their hearts to their friends and have a good cry.  “Men do not like to cry on their friend’s shoulders" says Mma Ramotwe. 

 Bon mots from Mma Ramotswe’s “go to book” Clovis Andersen’s Principles of Detection are dropped in periodically. This funny and sage advice is a good example.  “Never try to reach a conclusion before you reach the conclusion.” Also from Andersen comes the concept of the “crooked timber of humanity.”  Human beings he says are like a piece of wood and they all have their individual grains, knots, and whorls. Observers must accept that and look carefully to find the best parts.

From Mma Makutsi comes a term from her secretarial school--“mitigation of damage.”  She defines it as the ability when you perceive a bad situation developing to immediately take steps to keep it from becoming worse. This advice is quite important in the resolution. Along the same line is an old agricultural axiom that “there is always more than one way to bring in the harvest.”

My eye was particularly caught by the way that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni  will simply not listen to rational arguments when his decision to trust T.K. Molefi is challenged. His faith overshadows all logic. He is impervious to any and all warnings. I'm not sure what McCall Smith was seeing here, but I saw here a contemporary dilemma that is current in today's political climate. Mr. Matekoni's problem is that he has a bit of Trumpism on his brain. Unexamined loyalty is preventing a clear eyed view of the dangers of his actions. 

No matter. Optimism wins. Mma Ramotswe’s sense that “most people are kind—if you give them a chance,” is only slightly tempered by Mma Potokwe’s observation that she wished that it were true. The final words are spoken as the happy-again couple sits on the veranda of their home while the evening falls and the fireflies light up the sky. Mma Ramotwse opines into the darkness "Do what you are doing not what other people think you should do. You should do what you do as well as you possibly can. . . . and you should do it with love.”