After reading this, my first No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Novel, it occurs to me that Alexander McCall Smith is rather like the late artist Thomas Kinkade. Kinkade, "The Painter of Light", was famous for his bucolic and idealistic scenes, portraying the gentlest images of America and suffusing them with golden highlights and pastel colours. He may well be the best selling artist of all time -- millions and millions of people have bought and proudly displayed his prints -- but they don't work for me. Now, just because I don't like his art doesn't mean that I think I'm smarter or more sophisticated or worldly than those who do: It all comes down to personal taste and I can respect the opinions of those with whom I disagree on such matters.
In The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, and, so far as I can tell from my googling, in the other books in this series, McCall Smith portrays the gentlest images of life in Botswana, telling his stories from the perspective of Precious Ramotswe, a wise and loving "traditionally built" woman who uses her wits and intuition to help others with their "matters" ("problems" being a potentially off-putting word). Just as Kinkade didn't paint ghetto shootings or police chases, McCall Smith doesn't write about AIDS or poverty or war, preferring to work at the "positive end of the literary spectrum". As McCall Smith is a fabulously successful author -- over twenty million books in print -- he is obviously writing books that appeal to a great many people, but this one didn't work for me. And just because I didn't like it, that doesn't mean that I think I'm smarter or more sophisticated or worldly than those who did.
I didn't like the plot, I didn't like the writing, I didn't like the one-dimensional characters and I didn't like the whole vibe I got from reading about black Africans written by the white descendant of British imperialists -- as much as McCall Smith's love of Botswana and its people does shine through, his whole shtick here is a small step up from Al Jolson in blackface with added notes of paternalistic condescension.
I have read that McCall Smith writes between 2000 and 4000 words a day and requires basically no editing before these words go to the printer. That seems to me to be the literary equivalent of the mass production methods for which Thomas Kinkade's paintings were criticised, but in both cases, I understand that there are audiences looking for light-suffused portrayals of the world -- and to those readers I would say that I understand the appeal; reality can be dark enough without immersing ourselves in bleak fiction.
That's my goodreads review, and yes, I was too cowardly to be 100% honest about how much I didn't like this book. The thing about goodreads is that people self-select the books they want to read, so there are always going to be inflated ratings for things like Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey -- most people don't sit down to read books they're not interested in to begin with. And I was really reluctant to offend the readers who find this book to be beautiful escapism -- which many of the other reviewers state. I see that I'm the first 2 star review for this book and that's incredible to me because it really is the literary equivalent of a Thomas Kinkade painting (in my opinion) with the added bonus of the offense I take at an old white man -- who was obviously driven out of Zimbabwe with the rest of the imperialists, a topic he refuses to discuss -- speaking in the voice of a simple-minded black African woman. Here's how the goodreads ratings break down:
| rating | frequency | % | # |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 46% | 52 | |
| 4 | 38% | 43 | |
| 3 | 15% | 18 | |
| 2 | 0% | 0 | |
| 1 | 0% | 0 |
100% of people liked it
| All editions: | average rating, ratings, 221 reviews, added by 3217 people, to-reads |
| This edition: | 4.10 average rating, 749 ratings, 209 reviews, added by 3009 people |
100% of people liked it! Imagine 100% of people liking anything. To explain how I came to read this dreck:
In my newspaper, they have started a kind of virtual book club, and a few weeks in, I decided to join up and put my name in to hopefully be one of the 25 lucky recipients of a book, and on my first try, I was selected and this is the book I got. I had to answer some questions by email, and here they are:
The Minor
Adjustment Beauty Salon
Rate this book: 65
I read The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon in: 3 sittings.
Sum up this book in a Tweet: Where modern ways and traditional
paths are in conflict, it's most important to be kind, count blessings, and
nurture relationships.
What was better: The beginning.
If you like this book, you’ll like: Baking Cakes in
Kigali. Along a similar theme, this book features a wise African
businesswoman who dispenses advice along with cups of tea, but it is unafraid
to include the darker side of life in an African nation -- including AIDS,
child soldiers and genocide.
If you’ve read Alexander McCall Smith before, what’s your
favourite of his books? -----
What’s a question you have for Alexander McCall Smith? I understand you
don't like to address political matters but I wonder if with the passing of
Nelson Mandela you have any thoughts on the future stability of South Africa?
Does it have a hope of becoming another Botswana?
I'm sure I'll be back to update this entry when this book is the subject of the Afterwords Reading Society. I am fascinated to see how it went over with other random readers such as myself.
Update: December 30/2014
With the holidays, the National Post only just updated the Afterword page to include this book. My name appeared in the feature 4 times and Dave embarrassed me a few times by digging the paper out of the blue box to show people how I was "in the paper". (Is it ironic that I blushed to have family members look at the article while I freely post the link here for strangers?) My favourite part was the Q & A with the author, and I'll include two here (starting with my own, natch.)
Krista asks I understand you don’t like to address political matters but I wonder if with the passing of Nelson Mandela you have any thoughts on the future stability of South Africa? Does it have a hope of becoming another Botswana?
Alexander McCall Smith answers I am cautiously optimistic about South Africa’s prospects. It is true that they face serious problems — particularly those of a very high crime rate, corruption and recalcitrant youth unemployment, but it is such an extraordinarily energetic and talented country that they are well-placed to make great progress in tackling these. I think, on balance, South Africa will be reasonably stable, but will struggle to be another Botswana — it’s just too big and diverse a society to be quite the same as its neighbour.
And a second question that demonstrates why I think McCall Smith is a bit of a poseur:
Jane asks I notice that you have not placed internet technology or even cell phones in the hands of Precious Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi in the course of their detective work. Is the lack of this indicative of modern Botswana? Or is it an intentional omission you made when writing the series? If so, why?
Alexander McCall Smith answers There are plenty of cell phones in Botswana, and plenty of computers — as there are just about everywhere. Your question prompts an admission on my part: When writing my books, I simply ignore the things I don’t want to see or of which I disapprove. The psychologists call this denial!
Doesn't that speak volumes to the readers who think this book series is an unbiased and factual representation of life in Botswana?
Update: December 30/2014
With the holidays, the National Post only just updated the Afterword page to include this book. My name appeared in the feature 4 times and Dave embarrassed me a few times by digging the paper out of the blue box to show people how I was "in the paper". (Is it ironic that I blushed to have family members look at the article while I freely post the link here for strangers?) My favourite part was the Q & A with the author, and I'll include two here (starting with my own, natch.)
Krista asks I understand you don’t like to address political matters but I wonder if with the passing of Nelson Mandela you have any thoughts on the future stability of South Africa? Does it have a hope of becoming another Botswana?
Alexander McCall Smith answers I am cautiously optimistic about South Africa’s prospects. It is true that they face serious problems — particularly those of a very high crime rate, corruption and recalcitrant youth unemployment, but it is such an extraordinarily energetic and talented country that they are well-placed to make great progress in tackling these. I think, on balance, South Africa will be reasonably stable, but will struggle to be another Botswana — it’s just too big and diverse a society to be quite the same as its neighbour.
And a second question that demonstrates why I think McCall Smith is a bit of a poseur:
Jane asks I notice that you have not placed internet technology or even cell phones in the hands of Precious Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi in the course of their detective work. Is the lack of this indicative of modern Botswana? Or is it an intentional omission you made when writing the series? If so, why?
Alexander McCall Smith answers There are plenty of cell phones in Botswana, and plenty of computers — as there are just about everywhere. Your question prompts an admission on my part: When writing my books, I simply ignore the things I don’t want to see or of which I disapprove. The psychologists call this denial!
Doesn't that speak volumes to the readers who think this book series is an unbiased and factual representation of life in Botswana?
