My Weekly Book

44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith

That I should choose to read this now was a nice example of serendipity at work. After finishing Blue Shoes and Happiness, the latest instalment in the adventures of Mma Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of Botswana’s No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, I was moved to dig out various other editions of novels by the author that I hadn’t yet read. These included The Two and a Half Pillars of Wisdom, The Sunday Philosophy Club and 44 Scotland Street. Perhaps it’s because we’ll be visiting Edinburgh pretty soon, perhaps it was just the lure of a lovely edition. But something made me take hold of this last title and read the introduction – which explained how 44 Scotland Street is a serial novel, first published in instalments in The Scotsman newspaper, and inspired by a conversation at a party with Armistead Maupin.

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In January I had read Tales of the City and, thanks to an extremely kind Bookcrosser, More Tales of the City has just dropped through the letterbox. It was very instructive to read this story so soon after getting hold of the one that had inspired it. Many of the characters – the ingénue Pat MacGregor (Mary Ann Singleton), the insufferably self-obsessed Bruce Anderson (Brian Hawkins) and the witty and wise Domenica MacDonald (Anna Madrigal), appear to have pretty exact equivalents in that book. Like its predecessor, it follows the journey of a young girl who has recently moved out of the parental home and is trying to make her way in the world. Said ingénue lives at the eponymous Edinburgh address, so this tale is also based around the occupants of a house.

Having said that there are also plenty enough differences to keep things fresh and original. I’ll hazard a guess that not too many people have tried to draw a comparison between Edinburgh and San Francisco before. Several living people put in an appearance and I’ll guess that if you’re familiar with the city, as I am not, there is plenty to raise a smile. Also there are several key characters missing – no Michael or Mona yet, for example, (although it’s just possible we can glimpse Michael on the horizon) and several people figure in this book who have no equivalent in the original narrative – there’s a family living at 44 Scotland Street, for example, and their story makes up a substantial part of the book. It’s bang up to date, whereas I was a small child when Tales of the City was first published.

I am intrigued by the idea of the revival of the serial novel and both the books under discussion here end at a point when the narrative still feels in full flow. By which I mean that you feel sure the characters’ lives continue apace even though you’re not there to read about them. It was great to see both the serial novel tradition of Dickens and the more recent one of Armistead Maupin being revived and I only wish that I had lived within The Scotsman’s circulation area so I could have followed this project as it unravelled. This is a fresh, funny and absorbing story with characters whose fate you do actually care about and is a recommended read whether or not you are familiar with Maupin’s or McCall Smith’s work already.

Some links:

• The Scotsman newspaper
• Scotsman article about the project with subscription information
• The novel’s website
• The author’s website: details of further instalments
• Wikipedia article
• The first two chapters online

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 10:26 pm and is filed under 2007 reading challenge, Reads I recommend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.