44 Scotland Street, Again

The Peppermint Tea Chronicles     Alexander McCall Smith     (2019)

I’m an admitted partisan of Alexander McCall Smith’s mellow, good-humored novels. The prolific writer churns out several new books every year, and I’ve reviewed many of them on this blog.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series (with the most titles) recounts the mild adventures of Precious Ramotswe in Botswana, where McCall Smith lived for many years.

The Isabel Dalhousie Series follows the life of a professional philosopher who is also an amateur detective, living in Edinburgh.

My absolute favorite, also set in Edinburgh, is The 44 Scotland Street Series, with its wacky ensemble cast of characters.

The latest, and thirteenth, in the 44 Scotland Street Series is The Peppermint Tea Chronicles. It does not disappoint. As I’ve done with other novels in this series, I called my husband to listen to me read paragraphs that are laugh-aloud funny. The character I love most is young Bertie Pollock, who has transitioned very, very slowly from age five to age seven as the novels have appeared. Young Bertie is so sweet and sincere that you can’t help but root for him when he gets into a pickle, as he often does. To me, he represents all that is good in the world, trying to survive in the face of callousness and exploitation.

As usual, McCall Smith dispenses plenty of nuggets of simple wisdom, like this one: “Older people told long stories that younger people found dull. Everybody knew that, except for older people.” (143)

And he displays his support for feminism, both in his portrayal of female characters and in their dialogue and musings. Here is Elspeth, the mother of triplet toddlers: “Why should masculinity be thoughtless or indifferent to the feelings of others? There were plenty of men, she felt, who did not want to be hard-hearted or unfeeling; there were plenty of men who felt the pain of others, who wanted to do something about it, who wanted to comfort those in need of comfort. Yet there were rather more, she suspected, who did not.” (186)

When the political headlines of the day are getting you down, steer right toward your local library for a McCall Smith book (filed under “M,” not “S”). The 44 Scotland Street Series is best read in the order that the books were written, but McCall Smith’s other series can be read more as stand-alone novels, since he always fills in character background briefly.

British Chick Lit

My Not So Perfect Life     Sophie Kinsella     (2017)

The British writer Sophie Kinsella is a phenomenon in the chick lit genre. Her nine novels in the Shopaholic series (starting with Confessions of a Shopaholic, 2001) have sold in the millions and have been translated into 30 languages. She’s also written eight standalone novels under the Sophie Kinsella pen name. Writing under her actual name, Madeleine Wickham, she has another eight titles. I decided to find out for myself why this author is so popular around the world.

My Not So Perfect Life is one of the standalone novels, so Kinsella has to set up and then wrap up her story in one volume. In some ways it’s a straightforward romantic tale: struggling young working class woman falls for fabulously wealthy guy. But then added in to the mix is a small-scale workplace mystery, plus the British obsession with social class, accent, and county of birth.

Katie Brenner, age 28, is a low-level employee at a London branding firm that creates images and advertising campaigns for consumer products. She’s from rural Somerset, in the southwest of England, but her dream has been to live in London. Katie is barely surviving, sharing a miserable flat with two odd characters, enduring a lengthy commute, and navigating complex office politics. But she posts idyllic photos of London scenes on Instagram to lead her followers to believe that she’s happy. Her boss, Demeter Farlowe, seems to have a perfect life—perfect job, perfect family, perfect clothes, perfect makeup. Katie wants to be Demeter, and she’s taken steps in that direction, preparing a portfolio of branding designs and ideas, with hopes of rising in her profession. She’s worked to eliminate her Somerset accent and has styled herself as “Cat” instead of “Katie.” She’s also met and fallen for one of the executives of the firm.

A crisis comes when Katie gets fired. She has no choice but to return to Somerset, though she tells her family that she’s on “sabbatical” from her job. This is handy, since her father and stepmother are launching a glamping business, turning their farm into a glamorous high-end campground. Katie does a terrific job of setting up and promoting the business. Then who should appear for a week of elegant camping in Somerset but Demeter and her family. Comedy and romance ensue.

I found some of Kinsella’s plot elements contrived and tedious. For example, Demeter, who doesn’t recognize the Somerset version of Katie, agrees to undergo a fake Druid ritual that’s deeply humiliating. However, Kinsella makes Katie a pretty convincing character through first-person narrative. Readers may come to cheer Katie on as she resolves the rural/urban conflict and figures out her career and relationship options. She even becomes more honest in her Instagram posts. Here’s one of Katie’s conclusions:

“I think I’ve finally worked out how to feel good about life. Every time you see someone’s bright-and-shiny, remember: They have their own crappy truths too. Of course they do. And every time you see your own crappy truths and feel despair and think, Is this my life, remember: It’s not. Everyone’s got a bright-and-shiny, even if it’s hard to find sometimes.” (417)

A Lighthearted Side of Scotland

The Bertie Project     Alexander McCall Smith     (2016)

The universe of readers of novels in English divides into those who can’t stand Alexander McCall Smith and those who can’t wait for the next installment from him. I’m in the latter camp.

The Bertie Project is the eleventh book in McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street Series (see list below). Interestingly, the chapters of all the 44 Scotland Street books have first appeared in serialized form in the Scottish newspaper The Scotsman. This publishing approach constrains McCall Smith’s chapter length and requires that each chapter have a cliffhanger, although the cliff is usually more like a small berm in your backyard.

Scotland Street is a real thoroughfare in Edinburgh, but #44 is fictional. In this multi-family building of flats, which are kind of like American condos, McCall Smith follows the lives of the inhabitants. Some of them are ordinary citizens, like Pat MacGregor (a young art student who goes to work in a gallery) and Stuart Pollock (a statistician with the Scottish government) and Domenica MacDonald (a wise anthropologist). Others are caricatures so inflated that the reader marvels that they don’t simply burst. These include Bruce Anderson (a twenty-something narcissist obsessed with personal care products), Irene Pollock (a domineering mother obsessed with the writings of Melanie Klein), and the identical triplet sons of Matthew and Elspeth Duncan.

Even when some of these denizens of 44 Scotland Street move to other residences, McCall Smith keeps an eye on their activities. And over the course of the series, Cyril, a beer-swilling dog with a gold tooth, moves into 44 Scotland Street. McCall Smith skewers affectation wherever he finds it.

The star of the entire 44 Scotland Street Series is undoubtedly Bertie Pollock, who starts out as a precocious five year old and ages very slowly toward seven. I seldom laugh out loud when I’m reading a novel, but pronouncements from young Bertie can be so hilarious that I have to stop reading to wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes. Bertie is forced by his shrew of a mother, Irene, to take lessons in Italian and saxophone and yoga. He’s dressed by her in pink overalls that embarrass him. He’s hauled off to psychotherapy sessions even though his mental health is excellent. I keep hoping that someone will rescue poor, sweet Bertie. McCall Smith dangles that possibility in front of his readers repeatedly throughout the series, notably in The Bertie Project.

Here’s one of McCall Smith’s descriptions from The Bertie Project:  “Why could Bertie not be left alone to grow up in the way that suited him? He was, after all, a particularly appealing little boy, free from any discernible character defects, obliging, gentle, and, most remarkably, utterly without guile . . . He described the world exactly as he saw it; he expressed in a completely open way the thoughts that went through his mind; if asked what he was doing or thinking he answered in a way that concealed nothing, held nothing back.” (168)

I can’t tell you too much more about The Bertie Project without spoilers. Bertie and his family are prominent. Bruce the Narcissist acquires a new girlfriend, an Australian. Matthew and Elspeth have nanny troubles.

As if a many-stranded plot with a large cast of characters isn’t enough for the 44 Scotland Street novels, McCall Smith adds complaints about the grim Scottish weather, encomiums to his beloved city of Edinburgh, digs about Glasgow, analyses of Scottish visual arts, criticisms of bad grammar, digressions on the history of Scotland, and opinions on the tensions between Scotland and England, both medieval and modern. I find most of these tangential peregrinations amusing, the one exception being the story line about Scottish nudist societies . . .  In any case, as you embark on each chapter, you never know where you’ll end up.

Maybe the unpredictability is why some people hate McCall Smith’s novels, or maybe some readers dislike his sense of Scottish superiority. My Scottish heritage probably biases me toward the books, because I also enjoy the other McCall Smith series set in Edinburgh: the thirteen Isabel Dalhousie novels. Isabel is a philosopher who edits a journal on applied ethics and solves local mysteries. She’s also an unintentional cougar. Watch for my blog post on this series in the future.

McCall Smith’s best known novels are The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series, seventeen charming books set in Botswana and starring detective Precious Ramotswe. Two other McCall Smith series are Corduroy Mansions and Portuguese Irregular Verbs; these are less successful, I think, but worth reading if you’re a true fan.

Check out Alexander McCall Smith to determine if you're a fan or a detractor! Here are all the books in the 44 Scotland Street Series: 44 Scotland Street (2004), Espresso Tales (2005), Love Over Scotland (2006), The World According to Bertie (2007), The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (2008), The Importance of Being Seven (2010), Bertie Plays the Blues (2011), Sunshine on Scotland Street (2012), Bertie’s Guide to Life and Mothers (2013), The Revolving Door of Life (2015), The Bertie Project (2016).