A review of FROM A FAR AND LOVELY COUNTRY by Andrew McCall Smith

 

Andrew McCall Smith is up to his old tricks again with this, his twenty fourth, No 1 Ladies Detective Agency novel.  All of the familiar characters are present from Mma Ramotswe to Grace Makutsi, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and Mma Potokwane. The arch villain Violet Sephotho does not appear, but still has a prominent function in the plot. With a deftness that comes from long experience, McCall Smith sets up a series of life’s problems and then ties them together in a satisfying conclusion that once again bespeaks the need of human beings for love and forgiveness.

The first problem is that several important people seem to have forgotten Mma Ramotwse’s birthday.  A more serious one emerges when the daughter of one of Mme Potokwane’s house mothers is victimized at a local singles club. A third complication and the title reference comes in the form of an American woman who arrives in Botswana to find, in Alex Haley fashion, her lost uncle’s African roots.

Along the way McCall Smith continues to sprinkle nuggets of wisdom like cherries on an ice cream sundae. I loved the humor when J.L.B. Matekoni went on an extended metaphor linking types of chocolate to the varying viscosities of motor oil. On a more serious note comes an observation about the nature of home. “We all have somewhere that we think of as our place-and that place stays with you, I think, all the way through your life.  We all have history in our veins.”  When things get really serious, Mma Ramotswe puts things back into balance by observing that lamenting and blaming wastes the time that might be better used to find solutions or at least minimize the damage. “There are always going to be problems”, she says.  “They are a natural background to human affairs.” 

Nearing the end, Mma Makutsi laments that there are just too many “extra low-grade people in the world” and McCall Smith has Mma Ramotswe agree that there are “many people indifferent to the feelings and interests of others, who behave with nastiness and selfishness, and who simply do not care about the effect of their actions.” She goes on to admit that these people are often “. . . conspicuously successful. They even get into high office, sometimes even the highest of all offices, and while they were there continued to lie and cheat in the way that they had always lied and cheated.”  I don’t normally think of McCall Smith as a political writer, but it’s hard not to see a contemporary politician who might fit to a tee that description.

The ending remains as usual, upbeat. There can be no life without trust and without trust no real friendships. When you have found your special friends, you have indeed found your home.

    afrika

          africa  africa           

     africa  africa  africa

                                                                      africa  Africa

                                                                            africa

               I give this a solid 4.5 of 5