Sleuthing as an antidote: a quiet backwater of constructive thoughts
The Novel Habits of Happiness Alexander McCall Smith
Little, Brown through her ideas on incarnation.
From her friend Sam she hears about Harry, a small boy who has been recounting vivid recollections of a past life: a house with a view of a lighthouse and islands off the coast of Scotland where he claims to have spent his former life with a family called Campbell.
When the boy’s mother asks Isabel to investigate his claims, Isabel feels obliged to help her learn the truth.
After some discreet enquiries from various friends, she gets a line on a likely lighthouse in Ardnamur- chan, Argyllshire, from her friend Peter Stevenson. Isabel and Jamie (her seriously wonderful bassoonist husband) travel there in the company of Peter’s friend Neil Starling, and there they find a completely different story to explain the “remembrances” of Harry.
In true Isabel Dalhousie fashion, the story is interwoven with musings about the potential arrival in Edinburgh of her two least favourite philosophers, Professors Christopher Dove and Robert Lettuce (love the names) as well as the discovery that her wayward niece, Cat, has found a new boyfriend who not only bears an uncanny resemblance to Jamie, but is also intelligent and sensitive and nice (and knows his painters – Isabel is a collector of Scottish watercolourists).
Some of the more memorable episodes include; Isabel’s impromptu tea with the wife of Prof Robert Lettuce and her reading of The Ethical World of My Mother, an essay professor Geoffrey Trembling has submitted to the journal that she not only edits but also owns, and The Review of Applied Ethics – an essay she had previously thought of rejecting and almost scoffed at.
These have nothing to do with the investigation that Isabel has embarked upon, but they provide a pretext for many of her ruminations.
This is definitely the least “sleuthy” of McCall Smith’s offerings in Isabel’s ten appearances to date, and the one that makes the most decided case for philosophical cogitations on the consequences of loss and grief as well as the pursuit of happiness, and contentment – which, of course, goes hand in hand with happiness when one stops to think about it.
A gentle read, this book is a quiet backwater of pleasantly constructive thoughts and general goodness. It is also an antidote to the usual slew of violence and nastiness that seems to pervade our lives through television news, movies and other sources.
Alexander McCall Smith has done us a favour – his books are well written, full of references to poetry, painting and good food and the simple things necessary to living a good life (in all senses of the word).