J's Pages

My wife was recently talking about a trope, Innocent Eye point of view, where the story is written from the viewpoint of an innocent. The naive protagonist/narrator describes the action without truly understanding what is going on. The more sophisticated reader, one hopes, will pick up on the true situation. When done well, a passage written in the Innocent Eye can be amusing and wise at the same time, exposing the foolish side of many conventional situations and institutions. As my wife described this trope, I almost immediately thought of this series.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors is the ninth volume of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. It follows the pattern. Almost all of the characters are innocents. I suppose it might be a tad insulting to the main characters, adults all, but they also exhibit the typical goodness of an innocent character. They're not perfect. But their vices are minor--common, familiar even--and outweighed by their compassion and integrity. I would welcome a Mma Ramotswe or a Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni into my life.

Which is a long winded way of saying that the delight of this book is the characters. The plot itself isn't all that exciting. At times it gets somewhat predictable. But there are worse ways to bide one's time.

Waiting room material
LibraryThing link

Labels: AlexanderMcCallSmith, No1LadiesDetectiveAgency, WaitingRoomMaterial