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Book Review - Kind and generous voice fills rich Edinburgh streets
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Published: November 15, 2009
THE LOST ART OF GRATITUDE. By Alexander McCall Smith. Pantheon. 272 pages. $23.95.
In his sixth Isabel Dalhousie novel, Alexander McCall Smith continues to enchant us with his savory blend of story and character. He illuminates quirks and traces of human relationships and individuality that are both distinctive and familiar.
McCall Smith's skill to engage readers is affirmed readily as he opens this installment with Isabel's musings on individual differences in sleep. The Lost Art of Gratitude unfolds as gently as those best, most delightful mornings when our own sleep is allowed to gently lift and make room for awareness and readiness to join the day.
As in all of McCall Smith's novels, he subtly introduces us to his characters. He weaves together plot and message with masterful charm that keeps us enchanted during each visit with his distinctive sets of characters and locales.
Isabel Dalhousie is a lifelong resident of Edinburgh, Scotland. She is the editor of The Review of Applied Ethics. She has a handsome lover, Jamie, who is the father of her infant son, Charlie. The return of Minty Auchterlonie, a woman as jarring as her name, gives us our first glimpse of intrigue in The Lost Art of Gratitude.
Minty's well-crafted appeal enlists Isabel's aid in dealing with blackmail, arson and other suspicious events. We also encounter wedding engagements made (two) and broken (one), accusations of plagiarism in the Review, forged letters, minor surgery in the kitchen and the tantalizing possibility of a long-lost portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Isabel's musings on choice give depth to this novel, "(for) that is where philosophy really did count; it set out the major choices behind all those practical day-to-day questions of charity and understanding and simple decency; it was the weather, the backdrop against which those practical matters were debated." Readers familiar with Precious Ramotswe's thoughts and occasional lectures to clients in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series will appreciate Isabel's likewise kind and generous voice.
Like Mma Ramotswe, Isabel Dalhousie is immersed in and alert to the rich context her locale provides. She shows us Edinburgh through the eyes of a generations-deep resident. "The towpath afforded an unusual view of the city -- the backs of tenement buildings with their rough stone walls making for a crazy-paving effect, pinched back greens on which drying washing was pegged on laundry lines…. The corners of a city, she thought, are where the sense of place was strongest."
McCall Smith is adept at integrating the taste of food and the ritual of its preparation to reveal and advance the plot. In The Lost Art of Gratitude, Jamie's preparation of potatoes dauphinois provides an apt metaphor for Isabel's visit to her neighbor Peter Stevenson. An unexpected midday encounter with Minty quickly quells any thoughts Isabel has about lunch. On another day, in a very different restaurant, Isabel turns the tables on her nemesis, Professor Lettuce, with a well-balanced carrot and stick.
Alexander McCall Smith's voice is lyrical and his subtle metaphors are delightful. We can always trust this author to develop plot and character without jangling our nerves. He weaves together plot and message with masterful charm, yet the startling turns and shifts keep us engaged and looking for more. The Lost Art of Gratitude does not disappoint fans and will provide a delightful introduction to first-time readers of this author or this series.
Phyllis Sutphin is a reviewer who lives in Winston-Salem.
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