Book review: The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

The first book I finished reading in 2015 is The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith. The fifth installment in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, it continues the story of Precious Ramotswe, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Makutsi in Botswana.  Much like in Jan Karon's Mitford books, there is very little action in the Mma Ramotswe series; you don't read for events and excitement but out of enjoyment of the characters.

I have a few quibbles with the series.  One is Smith's cavalier attitude toward continuity.  In an earlier book in the series, Mma Makutsi finally works up the nerve to tell her employer that she prefers regular tea to the bush tea she brews for Mma Ramotswe and from then on she makes both kinds of tea so they can drink tea together, each enjoying her favored beverage.  In the books since then, however, Mma Makutsi always and explicitly drinks bush tea.  It's as if, having given Mma Makutsi differing tastes, Smith decided that it's just too much trouble to keep track of.

Another issue is his penchant for inserting the Social Issue of the Week into the story, whether it fits or not.  In this book, it's anti-immigration sentiment he wants to denounce so he puts a random musing into the mind of Mma Ramotswe about how Botswana ought to welcome immigrants from less fortunate countries because all people are brothers and sisters, this despite her repeated worries about how Botswana is losing touch with its traditions and explicit blanket judgments about Zulus and other African peoples in the rest of the series.  He wants Mma Ramotswe both to be endearingly and engagingly provincial and to espouse the politically-correct opinions of western Europe.

My final concern is one that bothered me when reading The Help, as well.  Precious Ramotswe is an entirely African character, and the greatest draw of the series is immersing oneself in her worldview and seeing the world through the eyes of someone with a life and outlook very different than American life.  And yet, what the reader is really imbibing is not a thirty-something traditionally-built Motswana woman's perspective, but what a fifty-something white Scottish man thinks an African woman's perspective is (or should be).  Yes, he grew up in Rhodesia and spent four years teaching in Botswana, but just as with The Help, I'm uncomfortable on some level with a privileged and well-educated white writer presuming to speak on behalf of a less-privileged group.  The gender gap in the case of Smith only exacerbates that feeling.