Blue Shoes and Happiness (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series #7)
Alexander McCall Smith, 2006
Knopf Doubleday
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400075713
Summary
Life is good for Mma Ramotswe as she sets out with her usual resolve to solve people’s problems, heal their misfortunes, and untangle the mysteries that make life interesting. And life is never dull on Tlokweng Road.
A new and rather too brusque advice columnist is appearing in the local paper. Then, a cobra is found in the offices of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Recently, the Mokolodi Game Preserve manager feels an infectious fear spreading among his workers, and a local doctor may be falsifying blood pressure readings. To further complicate matters, Grace Makutsi may have scared off her own fiancé.
Mma Ramotswe, however, is always up to the challenge. And Blue Shoes and Happiness will not fail to entertain Alexander McCall Smith’s oldest fans and newest converts with its great wit, charm, and great good will. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1948
• Where—Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
• Education—Christian Brothers College; Ph.D., University
Edinburgh
• Honors—Commandre of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE); Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE)
• Currently—lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Alexander (R.A.A.) "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a Rhodesian-born Scottish writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues. He has since become internationally known as a writer of fiction. He is most widely known as the creator of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.
Alexander McCall Smith was born in Bulawayo, in what was then Southern Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe. His father worked as a public prosecutor in what was then a British colony. He was educated at the Christian Brothers College before moving to Scotland to study law at the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Ph.D. in law.
He soon taught at Queen's University Belfast, and while teaching there he entered a literary competition: one a children's book and the other a novel for adults. He won in the children's category, and published thirty books in the 1980s and 1990s.
He returned to southern Africa in 1981 to help co-found and teach law at the University of Botswana. While there, he cowrote what remains the only book on the country's legal system, The Criminal Law of Botswana (1992).
He returned in 1984 to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he lives today with his wife, Elizabeth, a physician, and their two daughters Lucy and Emily. He was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh at one time and is now Emeritus Professor at its School of Law. He retains a further involvement with the University in relation to the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
He is the former chairman of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee (until 2002), the former vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom, and a former member of the International Bioethics Commission of UNESCO. After achieving success as a writer, he gave up these commitments.
He was appointed a CBE in the December 2006 New Year's Honours List for services to literature. In June 2007, he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws at a ceremony celebrating the tercentenary of the University of Edinburgh School of Law.
He is an amateur bassoonist, and co-founder of The Really Terrible Orchestra. He has helped to found Botswana's first centre for opera training, the Number 1 Ladies' Opera House, for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta.
In 2009, he donated the short story "Still Life" to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project—four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. McCall Smith's story was published in the Air collection. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Audio version.) It was a shrewd idea to get the veteran actress and audiobook prize winner Lecat to perform this version of Smith's latest mystery starring the unforgettable Botswana detective Precious Ramotswe. Lecat is a native South African who grew up hearing the authentic accents of women just like Ramotswe, and she gives the character the perfect notes of a real person rather than slipping into caricature. Indeed, Lecat has as good an ear for the ethnic turf covered as the author does. She is also adept at making other female characters, such as assistant detective Grace Makutsi, different but immediately believable. It's Grace who has the title's passion for fancy footwear-in spite of her being a secret feminist afraid of letting her boyfriend know about her politics. Smith does mix in small measures of danger and mystery, but the overall feeling is one of a pleasant dream, of gentle wonder that such people can exist in a conflicted world. And Lecat is the perfect choice to read the story.
Publishers Weekly
Fans of Botswana's No. 1 lady detectives Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi (In the Company of Cheerful Ladies) will be pleased to learn that the seventh novel in this series is just as entertaining as the previous six. Smith relates the ladies' latest adventures with his usual warmth, affection, and gentle humor. The ladies' problems this time range from the dramatic (a cobra in the office) to the romantic (a misunderstanding between Mma Makutsi and her fiance). The author digresses frequently on the charms of Botswana, as much a character as Mma Ramotswe herself. "If only more people knew, thought Mma Ramotswe. If only more people knew that there was more to Africa than all the problems they saw. They could love us too, as we love them." Highly recommended for all public libraries. —Leslie Patterson, Blanding P.L., Rehoboth, MA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) In this seventh installment in McCall Smith's delightful No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, "traditionally built" Botswana detective Precious Ramotswe faces one of her toughest challenges: losing weight. Luckily, there are plenty of dilemmas to keep her mind off her girth.... Scotsman McCall Smith renders brisk, seamless tales that are both wry and profound. Amidst the mayhem...are eloquent descriptions of the serene African country that holds a special place in his heart.
Booklist
A seventh bulging file of cases for Mma Precious Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, most of them offering no hope of profit except to lucky readers. Where to begin? Poppy Maope is certain that the senior cook at her college is stealing food for her husband, but when she confronts the thief, she's threatened with losing her job. Neil Whitson, manager of the Mokolodi Game Preserve, senses widespread fear among workers who refuse to name its cause. Boitelo Mampodi, a qualified nurse, is worried because Dr. Eustace Lubega doesn't want her to take his patients' blood pressure. Mma Ramotswe's assistant, Mma Grace Makutsi, may have scared off her fiance, Mr. Phuti Radiphuti, by identifying herself as a feminist. And Mr. Polopetsi, the newest employee in the garage owned by Mma Ramotswe's husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni (In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, 2005), is exhausted by bicycling everywhere but has been denied an auto loan by his rich uncle. In Smith's quietly penetrating manner, each of these problems leads to still further problems. Perhaps Mma Ramotswe should throw in the towel and consult the advice columnist Aunty Emang, who seems to be seriously poaching on her turf. The denouement, which brings Mma Ramotswe face to face with evil, is the perfect climax to a tale as refreshing as a month in the country—the country of Botswana.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. “We are all human beings, and human beings can’t really help themselves. Have you noticed that, Mma? We can’t really help ourselves from doing things that land us in all sorts of trouble” (p. 4). From this observation, spoken by Mma Ramotswe to Mma Makutsi, proceeds the plot of Blue Shoes and Happiness. How are the characters in this story responsible for creating their own problems?
2. Why does Mma Ramotswe rely so loyally upon the advice of Clovis Andersen’s The Principles of Private Detection? Consider this example: “Keep your mouth shut at all times, but at the same time encourage others to do precisely the opposite” (p. 12). What does Mma Ramotswe admire about such advice? How does she judge the quality of the advice given by Aunty Emang, the newspaper columnist? What do you think of Aunty Emang’s advice? What about Clovis Andersen’s?
3. Much of the satisfaction of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels lies in their precise observations of daily life as experienced by women: “That was part of being a woman, [Mma Ramotswe] thought; one never reached the end. Even if one could sit down and drink a cup of bush tea, or even two cups, one always knew that at the end of the tea somebody was waiting for something” (pp. 12-13). Is it at all surprising that the writer of these observations is a man? Why do you suppose that Alexander McCall Smith has so much empathy for his female characters?
4. Although the HIV/AIDS crisis is a major health problem facing Africa today Alexander McCall Smith addresses it in subtle and delicate ways in his series such as in the following exchange: “Ever since women allowed men to think that they did not need to get married, everything has gone wrong,” Mma Ramotswe tells a client. The client replies, “Look at the mess. Look at what all this unfaithfulness has done. People are dying because of that, aren’t they?” (pp. 35-36). How does the author address the crisis in this book, and if you’ve read the others, in the series? Why do you think he handles it in this fashion? How do you feel about his treatment of the crisis?
5. Charlie and the younger apprentice fail to trap a cobra that has invaded the office. Why might the chapter’s title, “Correct and Incorrect Ways of Dealing With a Snake,” also be “Correct and Incorrect Ways of Being a Man”? Why does Mma Ramotswe conclude about the incident, “Snakes were one of the tests which life sent for us, and there was no telling how we might respond until the moment arrived. Snakes and men. These were the things sent to try women, and the outcome was not always what we might want it to be” (p. 26)?
6. Grace Makutsi has several mental conversations with her shoes; see for instance pages 64-65 and 108. How do they convey a part of Mma Makutsi’s character? What do the blue shoes represent for her? How difficult is it for her to come to terms with the fact that they were not a practical purchase?
7. What is the mistake that Mma Makutsi makes when telling Phuti Radiphuti that she is feminist (pp. 54-55), and why doesn’t she see this problem in advance? What feelings does she evoke when she says to herself, “I am a girl from Bobonong, with glasses.” (p. 88)?
8. In Mokolodi a tourist asks Mma Ramotswe to take a photograph of her and a friend who, she says, is terminally ill (pp. 126-27). Discuss this incident, with regard to Mma Ramotswe’s actions and her feelings about the dying woman. Discuss also the passage on page 114, which describes Mma Ramotswe’s feelings about her father and about her baby who died. What do these scenes tell us about Mma Ramotswe’s spiritual qualities?
9. Mma Tsau, who has threatened Poppy with dismissal, turns out to be a woman who loves her philandering husband too much. How does Mma Ramotswe deal with the villains of the novel—Mma Tsau, Aunty Emang, and Dr. Lubega? What skills does she use in solving these cases? How does her attitude differ toward each of the women and why?
10. Mr. J. L. B. Maketoni’s two apprentices are representative, for Mma Ramotswe, of a larger problem with the future of Botswana: the young people are abandoning the culture’s traditional values. Regarding the promiscuity of girls and boys alike, she thinks, “One should just not do it, because that was not how the old Botswana morality worked. There was such a thing as shame…although there were many people who seemed to forget it” (p. 59). Does it seem that, according to Mma Ramotswe, relations between men and women are crucial to the structures upon which society rests?
11. The old Botswana morality is exemplified in the following passage: “So it was in Botswana, almost everywhere; ties of kinship, no matter how attenuated by distance or time, linked one person to another, weaving across the country a human blanket of love and community. And in the fibres of that blanket there were threads of obligation that meant that one could not ignore the claims of others. Nobody should starve; nobody should feel that they were outsiders; nobody should be alone in their sadness” (p. 68). Do these ethical principles of responsibility and caring still exist as a basic element of American culture? How are they reflected in this book? Do they seem as pervasive in Botswana as Mma Ramotswe believes?
12. Alexander McCall Smith has said that his novels “represent the range of things I would like to say about the world.” What are the most important ideas among the “range of things” represented by this book and others in the series?
13. Book reviewers and fans agree that the novels in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series give a great deal of reading pleasure. Does this pleasure mask their moral seriousness, or is their moral seriousness part of what makes them pleasurable?
14. A typographic design, repeating the word Africa, follows the novel’s final sentence. How does this affect your reading of the ending, and what emotion does it express?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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