An Isabel Dalhousie Novel (11) (Isabel Dalhousie Series)

Isabel Dalhousie is my least favourite AMS series, but my local library is pretty good at keeping its stock up to date, so I grit my teeth and slog through the latest. It's fun reading the other reviews on the store, so I can see I'm not the only one who finds Isabel elitist and boring. Lately I've been noticing a rather misogynistic bent to McCall Smith (the father of 2 daughters!) He has the bookend harpies of Olive and Irene in the Scotland Street series, and no short supply of nosey overbearing harridans in Isabel Dalhousie's universe ( the main character being a passive aggressive one herself). But when the author starts to hammer idiotic old tropes like "a man is never alone for long" home, you end up tossing the book across the room in frustration. For a start, Joan Rivers did that material far more entertainingly 30 years ago when it reflected the reality then. For a finish, how can McCall Smith expect us to buy this cadswallop when it is being discussed by two married women - one who implausibly married her niece's old flame, and the other who's been through a couple of marriages and men?! So a guy who is basically a pig in a suit finds someone 4 months after the death of his wife, but women are doomed to endless spinsterhood... laments the woman married to a man 14 years her junior, spitting out babies without any medical help in her forties. Bang, goes the book against the wall, as this person treks back to the library in hopes of finding the new Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency book...

“… it really was rude to allow oneself to daydream while somebody was talking to you. In a way, it was every bit as discourteous as taking a telephone call while engaged in conversation with another, or closing one’s eyes and drifting off to sleep in a concert in full view of a performer. And yet, how did you prevent thoughts coming into your mind? And once they were there, how did you stop yourself from entertaining them?”

A Distant View Of Everything is the eleventh novel in the Isabel Dalhousie series by popular British author, Alexander McCall Smith. Editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, Isabel Dalhousie is now an even busier woman: mother to three-month-old Magnus (whose four-year-old brother, Charlie is less than impressed by his existence), another edition of the journal waiting for input on her desk, and she finds herself yet again cajoled into helping a friend solve a dilemma.

Bea Shannon, an old friend from school whose matchmaking skills are legendary in Edinburgh, has misgivings about an introduction she has made: is plastic surgeon, Tony MacUpsaig actually more interested in relieving Connie Macdonald of her money than in a genuine relationship? Is he, as has been suggested, a serial gold-digger? As if this is not enough distraction, it seems Jamie has something important he’s not telling her.

This tenth instalment of Edinburgh’s favourite philosopher sees Isabel musing on population growth, moral proximity, the keeping of promises, the relationship of floor space to social position, the fate of statues of famous people fallen from grace, selfie protocols, social media mores, the privilege of being alive, and having a conscience: “The trouble with having a conscience, she said to herself, is that it never sleeps”

Isabel continues to appreciate her husband, but sometimes fears for her good fortune: “That was the problem with things that were exactly as you wished them to be; that was the problem if you found yourself in Eden – there was a snake in the garden”, even if she is sometimes mystified “… the key to understanding men, a friend had once said to her, is to remember that the boundaries between the man and the boy within were often blurred, and not every woman knew where they were”.

As always, McCall Smith includes plenty of gentle philosophy and an abundance of wisdom: “Anybody who coins an aphorism tends to regret it – because it gets quoted back at him ad infinitum and is inevitably misunderstood” and “… the judgement of others was often more about them than the ones they were judging” are examples. Isabel’s reflections often bring a smile to the face, and her banter with Jamie and her friends provide some laugh-out-loud moments. A delightful read, as always.

Oh this series. Slight books with slight plots, that annoy me but somehow I keep coming back to. And here we are in the 11th installment of philosopher Isabel Dalhousie's life when yet again, next to nothing happens.

(Side note: how OLD is Isabel exactly? AMS seems to be implying she is 44 which would mean that in a mere four years she has managed to spend a year pining for Jamie, has got together with Jamie, has spent 9 months being pregnant and now has a four year old. Hmm).

The "plot" this time concerns a man who may or may not be targeting rich women to solicit money. Isabel is approached by an former classmate who is concerned for a friend and is asked to investigate. There isn't much to the storyline - if you took out all the padding it would barely stretch to a short story. Everytime I read a book in this series I come close to banging my head against a wall in frustration at all the meandering and asides that get thrown in.

And yet. As I finished the book in bed this morning, I overheard a child outside howling as he was being walked to school. And I thought about how angry and upset he sounded. And about how it's okay for children to express themselves in that way but as adults how we have to bottle feelings up or find ways to manage them appropriately. And how maybe a good cathartic yell would be all that was needed. And it occurred to me that this is what I get from this series. For a while when I read these books, and for a time afterwards, I feel more aware and observant about things around me. I have a "distant view of everything" instead of getting quite so caught up in the here and now. I feel a bit lighter.

 This is the eleventh book in the Isabel Dalhousie series, which involves a lady who is both a philosopher and a solver of the nagging problems people can’t cope with. At their best, these books are a beautiful portrayal of small lives. McCall Smith balances the miniscule (and incidentally spices up the lack of serious excitement) with Isabel’s frequent flights of fancy, which take her into sometimes deep and often whimsical philosophical comment about the situation.

That’s at their best.
At McCall Smith’s potboiler worst, the personal problems wind down into the banal and the flights of fancy become mere distractions. In this story the plotline takes it even further, because every one of the tension-producing problems, external, marital, and internal, turn out in the end not to be problems. I suppose I should give this a spoiler alert, but I can’t see that anyone is going to care that much. The coincidental conclusion to Elizabeth’s own soul-scorching error of judgement is so fortuitous that I question whether the author is having a joke at our expense. Or maybe he is pushing the portrayal of reality one step further than most authors would dare.
Yes, these non-endings to people’s problems are realistic. But if I want to be bored by reality, I can sit and watch my own life. I read the book so that I could be entertained.
The only saving grace to the writing is that McCall Smith has not lost his fine touch for character revelation. His portrayal of the jealousy of the shop clerk, Eddie, is a work of art, a bright spot in a dull grey novel.
An author I usually enjoy, but not this time.

And they frustrate me just about every day. Always looking for some deep meaning to understand bad behavior but never confronting the behavior itself. A woman of independent means who doesn't work for her inherited wealth, chastising the homeless for not working. And more than one who lives completely inside his head while he falls into a hole in the sidewalk. Then contemplates the hole rather than actually fixing it.
Meanwhile, I'm still rooting for Bertie and his dad now that the mother has moved on. Enjoying several cups of Roobie Rue (Roselle or Red Zinger in the US) tea while reading the #1 Ladies! Isabel? I'm gonna walk right past the rest of this series.

I have read the “First Ladies” books, and found them delightful, and then I got hooked into this, the Isabel Dalhousie series. These are also—or can be—delightful, but the author seems to use them as a vehicle for the explication of his own philosophical musings (he has said, in an interview, that it is this character with whom he identifies most), and seems unable to write even a paragraph that has some action and plot without the main character—Isabel--going off into a lengthy contemplation of some topic that the unfolding story reminds her of. Her reflections take up far more time than the actual plot, and they are not particularly profound, although references to great philosophers and epistimologists abound; in fact, they are barely enough to cause the reader to think “oh, just what I’ve always thought myself,” while waiting to get back to the actual story. And they go on and on and ON, frequently crowding out the actual plot, not that there is much of one. I genuinely enjoy these books, but I end up leaving them for sometimes months at a time, simply because I become bored, even while appreciating the character and her life. I generally return to them, but this one has rather defeated me, and this morning I picked up a book by another favorite author who is capable of painting masterly and involving pictures of her settings while telling wonderful stories acted out by compelling characers, and I suddenly noted the difference between the two. AMS's characters tend to be fairly one-dimensional, and while that works with the "1st Ladies" series, where an entirely different culture is being evoked, in Botswana we pretty much have to accept what he offers us. In Edinbugh, a theoretically more cultured and educated city, I, at least, find myself less willing to accept what AMS is dishing out. Isabel is in theory a philosopher, but she doesn't use nearly enough three-syllable words, and although she throws around the names of many of the philosophical greats, she doesn't really seem to know much about them, although she does seem to have more than a working knowledge of Auden. She really just wants to be a wife and mother. She particularly wants to be the wife of Jamie, her much-younger (although we never really learn how much younger) husand and a musician, who she considers to be exquisitely beautiful and a perfect physical specimen. She doesn't seem to notice his intellect much, and we really don't learn a lot about him, other than a few details about his life as a musician. Grace is her housekeeper, and of course Isabel MUST have a housekeeper, since she is so wealthy, but really doesn't want to be (the causes she gives her extra money to mostly seem to be already wealthy causes: the opera society, the arts in general, etc.); one doesn't hear about her giving to an abused womens' shelter, for instance). Kat is a "bee with an itch," but in all honesty, I don't blame her, given her "sainted aunt" (an "in joke" that those who have read these books will recognize). Eddie is the closest character to one from the lower echelons of society, and Isabel is convinced that something terrible has happened to him, and so she patronizes him endlessly, but we never hear anything about this terrible past of his. The children are sweet. Her friends are nice, and also wealthy.

It occurs to me that I sound fairly critical of Isabel and her world, but honestly, sometimes I wonder if these characters are actually the author's joke, rather than real characters he uses to weave her negligible plots. I honestly usually enjoy the books, although this one kind of pushed me over the edge.

I recently read the interview with McCall Smith that I mention above, and learned that he writes with amazing rapidity and evidently churns out books by the dozen in very little time, for which top prices are charged. The thing is, he is NOT Dostoevsky, and I feel rather irritated that I have spent as much money as I have on his books, but that is what happens when one gets hooked on e-readers. My point: he’s just not that good, and I sometimes think that his lengthy musings on the inner lives of his characters serve as a foil for his somewhat ordinary writing ability. As for me, I learn more from a good story that evokes my own inner landscapes.

In The Novel Habits of Happiness, Isabel Dalhousie was such a prig; thankfully, Alexander McCall Smith has redeemed himself in A Distant View of Everything, and Isabel is back to her old understanding self. And just in time! I hadn’t realized just how much I had missed her.

An old schoolmate of Isabel’s, Bea Shandon, fancies herself quite the matchmaker; however, Bea has come across information that she may have introduced a very rich friend to a doctor with a history of loving — and leaving — wealthy women, although only after he’s tapped them for a hefty amount. Bea turns to Isabel to discover if the rumors are true — and, if so, to stave off any future grifting. I don’t want to give away too much, but readers can be sure that Isabel, the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics and a moral philosopher, will do her best to make sure that justice prevails.

Unlike with Precious Ramotswe, the pace of a novel featuring McCall Smith’s other series, Isabel Dalhousie, is slower but more profound; she isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But for those who appreciate Isabel’s cerebral and thoughtful approach to everyday living, she’s a breath of fresh air and a guide to living a holistic life. Too bad I’ll have to wait another year to spend more time with Isabel and her family

This is the 11th book in the series which features Isabel Dalhousie and her expanding circle of family and friends. This series, like all of Smith's work has a strong overall story arc, so much so that without reading at least some of the earlier novels understanding much of this one would be quite difficult.

Isabel and her husband Jamie have recently had a new baby, another son. Their older son, Charlie, is not too certain that this was a good idea, and repeatedly suggests that the baby live elsewhere. Grace, the family housekeeper, on the other hand, thinks little Magnus, is marvelous, so much so that she urges Isabel out of the house at every opportunity in order to maximize her time with the boys.

One of her afternoons out Isabel meets a friend from her school days, a woman who has become a local socialite and who now enjoys playing match maker at her gatherings. Recently though she has come to question the wisdom of one of her matches, fearing that perhaps she has introduced a woman to a man who might be a con artist, maybe even an actual danger to the woman. Isabel is not convinced that she has a moral obligation to interfere in the matter, perhaps her true obligation is to respect the privacy of these people.

These stories, like all of this author's works, are gentle tales, filled more with thought and internal struggles than physical actions. The true attraction to this series is not so much what Isabel and those around her do but rather her thoughts and the reasons behind the actions that she takes.

Smith tells his stories with a wry humor that makes the read smile rather than laugh out loud as they follow Isabel on her moral journeys.

Isabel and Jamie have a new baby, another boy, named Magnus. They and their housekeeper, Grace, are thrilled. Their older boy, Charlie, not so much. He's certain he can come up with good arguments for excluding Magnus from the family!

But that's just a normal parenting challenge, and they'll cope as most parents do. Bigger puzzles include Cat's new part-time shop-assistant, Peg, whom Cat seems unusually enthusiastic about. Where did Cat meet her? Why is she so vague about her background?

Isabel's own puzzle, brought to her by an old school friend, concerns a man whom she has introduced to a friend of hers, whom she now fears may be after the friend's money rather than true love. In fact, she has heard that he may be a man who routinely seduces women into parting with their money. This is, of course, not really Isabel's puzzle, but her school friend Bea's, but Isabel, despite Jamie's warning against getting involved where she doesn't need to, can't help taking it on when Bea brings it to her.

Meanwhile, Jamie has his own secret, that he finds difficult to share with Isabel. He's visited his doctor...

This latest entry in the series is, as always, a visit with old friends, including Brother Fox, and the further growth and working out of the relationships among Isabel, Jamie, and those closest to them. I found it, as always, altogether quietly enjoyable.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

As usual, Isabel is involved in another person's problem, this one from a friend who is a matchmaker. There is a concern that the man in this match takes advantage of women and gets money from them. Obviously Isabel must investigate!

Throughout this investigation, her thoughts are a hoot, thinking quotes from Auden and others (after all, she's a philosopher and editor/owner of the "Review of Applied Ethics), intermixed with thoughts of her two children and husband. As Isabel converses with someone, her thoughts are often about other things; and this is why she's such an endearing character.

Alexander McCall Smith is one of my favorite authors, and this book is another good one in the Isabel Dalhousie novels.

The eleventh installment in the series by Alexander McCall Smith featuring Isabel Dalhousie is titled, A Distant View of Everything. Things are not always, or perhaps often, as they appear to be. It takes perspective and context to interpret behavior and actions. Isabel refreshes herself and readers about the importance of perspective in this charming and engaging novel. Fans of the series are those readers most likely to enjoy reading the latest installment. New readers can start here or anywhere and be charmed by this interesting protagonist, her friends and extended family.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

This book was just boring. It started out with the birth of Isabel 's 2nd son and how her older son isn't happy about it She tries to impress her older son with her values of patience and understanding to help his accept the new baby. Isabel's old friend Bea is a matchmaker and she comes to Isabel with a problem and Isabel wants to help. Bea has matched a woman up with a man who may be a fortune hunter and Isabel goes to his former girlfriends to try and find out the truth. Lots of time is spent reading about Isabel's thoughts

This book was just boring. It started out with the birth of Isabel 's 2nd son and how her older son isn't happy about it She tries to impress her older son with her values of patience and understanding to help his accept the new baby. Isabel's old friend Bea is a matchmaker and she comes to Isabel with a problem and Isabel wants to help. Bea has matched a woman up with a man who may be a fortune hunter and Isabel goes to his former girlfriends to try and find out the truth. Lots of time is spent reading about Isabel's thoughts

While I eagerly await the publication of a regular paperback, I just have to comment on the irony of this title, "A Distant View of Everything" being available in only the large print paperback version.

I love this series - everyday life presented in a way that is interesting, with thought provoking insights at things and ideas we too often take for granted. Always look forward to new ones. Highly recommend.