Monday, September 17, 2012

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

September’s Book Club pick! (So, if you’re a SociaLit, stop reading.)

I was a disappointed in Alexander McCall Smith’s The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Though I found the characters charming I find them to be slightly flat. With the exception of Precious, who surprised me twice, the people in the stories seem to be easily manipulated and lacking in any real bite (even the sinister ones). Precious and her relationship with Note really threw me. I did not expect that at all.

The real drawback for me were the plots. Perhaps I think too much while reading or perhaps this is not meant to be a hardcore whodunit – either way, I “solved” most of the mysteries within a paragraph or two. And the ones that were more about proving than solving, I found stretched my suspension of disbelief far too much. In real life, I think Precious would have been killed or silenced.


I know this is a light read and I should treat it as such. I just can’t find myself able to do so. Is Botswana really so idyllic? Or is McCall Smith merely infantilising a whole country? I can’t help but hear every post-colonial professor or text scream back at me as I read this book. It’s simplistic and smacks of being written the way one would write about the home one grew up in or a pet one once had. Smith’s Bulawayo reads like my childhood Dhaka: devoid of realism and humanity.


I realise the book is very popular – much more so than I realised when I began reading it – so I’m in the minority. I don’t care. I wouldn’t even recommend it as a beach read.

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