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Shelf LifeLooking at secular booksNO.1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY…et al I spoke to two friends this week about Alexander McCall Smith’s hugely successful series The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and discovered two completely opposing opinions. I think I agree with both of them. You quite possibly already know of these books, which are set in modern Botswana and feature the sensible, sympathetic Precious Ramotswe, and her quirky assistant Mma Makutse, amongst other gentle characters. But to the two opinions: Opinion number one (I’m sure I’m going to upset a lot of fans here) is this: these books are dull and whimsical. The Africa they present is too clean and the characters are close to being parodies. The repetition of phrases about Mma Ramotswe’s ‘traditional figure’, about the tea that is drunk, about Mma Makutse’s ‘97%’ and the incredibly courteous way of speaking, always in complete sentences, removes the action from reality and makes the humour wear thin. The plot and writing just don’t engage the reader. Why bother? Delightful and optimisticOpinion number two says that these books offer a delightful, optimistic picture of Africa. The characters display compassion and common sense, and the plots show a gentle justice at work. Readers are yearning for moral order and a traditional framework to society, and they certainly get it here in plot and dialogue! AIDS and poverty are not ignored, but neither are they painted in the lurid colours of charity ads. In a cynical, aggressive world, stories about people who act respectfully and speak carefully are a welcome relief. Isn’t this what Christians ought to be reading? So close yet...I do agree with both these opinions, but I want to add a final consideration. I think that maybe why these books are so close to being appealing, and yet so disappointing, is not just to do with writing style (though I think that style is a major weakness here), but more about the closed universe these characters live in. Mma Ramotswe has a faultless moral compass and, though she encounters plenty of problems, they are generally righted in the end, and so life trundles on. She doesn’t seem to need a revelation from someone or something else to help her solve the problems, and after the solution emerges, nothing significant changes. She has no need of rescue or transformation, which, even in a comedy, is required to bring life to a plot. Best and greatestAnd, without wanting to be too neat, I think this is a spiritual matter. The best stories mirror the greatest story; they need rescue and transformation and without these factors they become dull and unconvincing. Sarah Allen© Evangelicals Now - May 2008 |