You may remember that I queried all of you in March about these books ... wanted to know if they were suitable for my airplane trips back and forth to Wisconsin. I ordered the first two books from the library, took them along but did not pay any attention to them. Just last week I finally made myself open the first one and start reading.
About now you're expecting me to say that I loved them. Unfortunately, you would be wrong ... I disliked them. I say "them" because I made myself read both books. They are indeed charming, they paint a doting picture of Africa in general and Botswana in detail. It's clear that the author loves Africa. My problem is that the characters are over-simplified and stereotyped. The cadence of the dialogue is charming but the content is repetitive. The plots are ... oh, I want to say charming again ... not all that interesting and the solutions have no surprises.
Maybe my problem is expectations: I expect a British or American mystery story with sophisticated characters and twisty plots but that's not what these books are. One thing that surprised me when I tried to explain them to some one else is that the tone of the books is judgmental ... there are many, many should and should-nots woven into so many of the conversations.
Here's what you said in March:
Bethie: I loved the Ladies No 1 Detective series on HBO, but I did not read the books.
Brenda: I enjoy the Ladies series and "read" them by listening to an audio version ... the reader-- Lisette Lecat -- is just wonderful ... this is a result of turning my Mother into a Book-on-Tape addict ... she would soon outstrip the GNE's 1,000+ audio library and started buying her own books ... one day I came home and was told to write down ALL my credit card numbers as it appeared that these audio-books companies would prefer that form of payment ... I too enjoyed the HBO series even though the gay hairdresser neighbor is not in the books ... I can lend you the audio books but the first titles are in cassette format, but the later ones are on CD
Susan: Haven’t read the Ladies No. 1 Detective series but I have read a couple of his 44 Scotland Street series, which are immensely charming but not mysteries. I am pretty sure Brenda HAS read the No. 1 Detective series, so I’ll leave it for her to chime in.
ARRRGGGGHHHH. Again, a long post (beautifully written—of course, I can say that with impunity since…) the entire damn thing disappeared once I hit “Preview”. I’d forgotten the lesson we all learned to draft responses in Word and then copy it into Blogger once it’s been successfully saved and can’t just vaporize into thin air.
ReplyDeleteAs I said so beautifully in my original post (yes, again, I can pretend all I want, since you’ll never see it), I’m just glad to know that there’s a series out there that I don’t have to tackle. I have put the BBC miniseries on my Netflix queue and will try it out that way. Since my tastes in TV are notoriously low-brow, I imagine I’ll love it in that venue.
OFF-TOPIC for the rest of the post. However, it may be a great success in contrast to the 120 episodes of In Treatment I’m slogging through. If anyone did watch it (which I doubt….it’s made me terminally morose), this is an HBO remake of an Israeli series about a shrink, played by Gabriel Bryne with an inexplicable Irish accent (and no mention is made about why a man ostensibly meant to be American suddenly is yakking away like William Butler Yeats) and the most depressing set of weekly patients imaginable.
It does make me realize that the generally cheery greeting I have received from the several shrinks that have moved into and out of my life probably has less to do with my charming personality and more to do with the unlikelihood that I will:
• Physically attack them
• Exhibit unremitting hostility
• Try to kill myself in the office bathroom
• Have a miscarriage on the psychiatric couch
• Die right after finishing treatment
• Reveal (as they all do) that they were sexually abused as children
• Storm off in mid-session
• Google them and then inform them with great glee that 1) their wife is sleeping around, 2) their daughter has taken up with druggies, 3) the patient that they think they’re only lusting after secretly has begun sleeping with other of your patients and they’re ALL discussing you 24/7.
In other book-related news, the enlightened denizens of P-Town voted down a $75/year tax this week and it now looks like the local library will have to be closed.
And the local book group made a gallant attempt to enjoy my favorite mystery of all time, Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time, and failed to grasp its great charm. Of the 16 of us, only 4 thought it was worth reading—I will say that the 3 other anti-haters were the two librarians and one enlightened civilian with good taste. So now I’m wondering if any of you have read it—and trying to press it on y’all, to see if I’m just a bad judge of “classics” or it was just an unfortunately blasé audience. In case you’re so inclined, here are a couple of suggestions that may help:
Don’t worry too much about keeping track of all the possible murderers by name. Just let the history wash over you and pay much more attention to the Scotland Yard detective laying in traction in a London hospital so bored out of his gourd that he decides to investigate murders that took place 500 years ago. The cast of characters who drift in and out of his hospital room acting as deputized amateur historical detectives are charming and the fact that maybe Richard III didn’t in fact off his 2 young nephews is just the proverbial cherry on top. And definitely ignore the genealogical chart at the front of the book—it just makes matters worse. Possibly the most useless family tree ever produced.
Now--it appears that Blogger thought I was too wordy so refused to post my comment, which I will circumvent by doing 2 posts. Read on below! Take that, Blogger Nazis! Or not, since now it seems to have gotten all friendly and tolerant. We'll see. If there's not a second post, consider me blessed.