The Sunday Philosophy Club

Alexander McCall Smith

Isabel shares some traits with Mma Ramotswe. She is a single woman of independent means who values...more

Isabel shares some traits with Mma Ramotswe. She is a single woman of independent means who values the cultural traditions that she sees being eroded all around her. "The Sunday Philosophy Club" is also like The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Today Show Book Club #8) in being an unusual type of mystery story. However, that's only the similarities. There are many differences. Unlike any of the Botswana stories, "The Sunday Philosophy Club" begins like a traditional detective story, with a accidental death. Isabel Dalhousie sees a young man fall to his death from the top level ("the gods") at the opera house in Edinborough and can't get it out of her mind. Isabel is in her early forties (not old these days) but has the affect of an older woman. Her best friend seems to be her full time housekeeper, and their favorite subject is how things are going to hell in handbasket. But beneath Isabel's slightly dotty, eccentric exterior boil some strong human feelings that would be foreign to Miss Marple or Mma Ramotswe. It's Isabel's inner life that keep this from being a genteel set piece. I also very much enjoyed seeing Edinburgh through the eyes of a lifelong resident. Based on what little I know about McCall Smith, this would seem to be his most personal series in the sense of his own habits and habitat. Although I still prefer the No. Ladies Detective Agency series, I will look for the sequels to "The Sunday Philosophy Club". As a strange, non-spoilerish footnote, the club never actually meets during the course of the book. We never even find out who the members are, only that Isabel is the organizer and that they have trouble getting together. Perhaps all will be revealed in the next instalment.    hide

I have never read one of Smith's "Ladies Detective" stories, so I won't be using those works as a...more

I have never read one of Smith's "Ladies Detective" stories, so I won't be using those works as a point of comparison. I got to know his writing through the very funny "Portuguese Irregular Verb" series, and the first two volumes of his serial fiction "44 Scotland Street." Smith creates likeable characters who live mostly ordinary lives in a mostly moral universe, but he uses them to satirize Edinburgh society and make the reader think about morality and life in general. This first installment in the Dalhousie series was a disappointment. It wasn't the characters who were the problem, or the Edinburgh ambience. It was the lack of focus on the central plot, and the very weak conclusion that let me down. Smith can't seem to decide if he's writing a whodunit, or a love story about the main character, her niece, and the men in their lives. Long stretches of the book leave the mystery behind, and when the truth behind the murder is finally revealed, there's not much for the reader to do but shrug. The murdered man was pushed, we believe, from the balcony of a concert hall. Are we to believe that that man and his killer were the only people left in the balcony? And don't you think that the police's main line of inquiry would be to determine who held the tickets near the murdered man? Smith seems to ignore this obvious fact. Smith is, for me, an enjoyable writer who can entertain in a "PG-rated" style. His little digs at culture (Stockhausen, for instance), his knoweldge of painting, love of Scotland, and inclusion of bits of his own life (he's a member of the Really Terrible Orchestra, which features in the plot), give his books a certain charm. But I hope the rest of the books in this series do a better job of sticking to a true mystery plot and providing a satisfactory conclusion.    hide

More serious than the Ladies Dectective Agency series, and the writing is a little more laboured....more

More serious than the Ladies Dectective Agency series, and the writing is a little more laboured. If you enjoy the Madame Ramotswe's rose-tinted view of Africa and old fashioned morality where everything ends happily then you should know that this book is written is a very different setting and style and may not be as enjoyable. It follows an older single woman living in Edinburgh.   hide

I heard an interview with Alexander McCall Smith in which he said that a psychiatrist told him he...more

I heard an interview with Alexander McCall Smith in which he said that a psychiatrist told him he prescribes his books for his patients with depression. I am not surprised. His books are well-written, humourous, and carefully observant of life. Most of what can be called "literary" fiction tends to be terribly depressing. Without completely ignoring the ugly side of life, Alexander McCall Smith manages to write non-depressing literary fiction. In this series as well as in his Number One Ladies Detective Agency Series, he talks a lot about the nature of morality. That is, he discusses not the typical Judeo-Christian notions of morality but what it means to be individually moral in your day to day dealings with other people, not necessarily just in the big things like not killing people and such. Conclusion: Read it. Now. Go.    hide

Well, I don't much like philosophy, so it was probably kind of silly of me to buy this book. But I...more

Well, I don't much like philosophy, so it was probably kind of silly of me to buy this book. But I do love Alexander McCall Smith. In the end, it all worked out okay. I tired a little of Isabel's constant references to this or that philosophy, but I enjoyed that the character would think like that. I love the small off-hand conversations that he included. Usually, in most books, these would add up to something to do with the mystery, like her conversation with a man of many piercings. But they didn't. Who knows, maybe they have a bearing on future books. And what's up with Cat's assistant? But overall, it was enjoyable, and the ending conundrum is certainly a big issue to consider.    hide