Ruaridh Nicoll, writing in the Observer, suggests, “The books can come across as portraits shielding reality.” ) It’s true that the problems explored in Mma Ramotswe’s Botswana Detective Agency do not include AIDS, poverty, inequality and widespread unemployment. Her assistant, Mma Makutsi, sensed another profound insight was imminent.
And it was in these very trivial problems that the only begetter of the No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency specialized. There were the difficult problems, such as why a wheel was round, and the trivial, such as where her husband, Mr. “At age there were some things you just knew.
John Crace’s digested read of “Blue Shoes and Happiness” captures the gist pretty well: Precious Ramotswe, the African Miss Marple, is rarely troubled by moral or existential woes. In contrast McCall Smith’s characters are sunny, cheerful, and just well really nice. Many books about Africa tend to be pretty dark think Coetzee’s Disgrace, Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, Foden’s The Last King of Scotland, Theroux’s Dark Star Safari. If you look at music, do we expect all composers to write dirges?” But I don’t think that all books need to have that particular focus. In a recent interview Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith suggested, “There is this assumption that literature has to be very gloomy and grim and miserable.” He went on to explain, “ Fiction is able to encompass books that are bleak and which dwell on the manifold and terrible problems of our times. P recious Ramotswe looks mildly concerned
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