I read humour after a long long time. I borrowed this book from the library because it is the second book of a very very famous series by Alexander McCall Smith. The series is called 44, Scotland Street and is based on the lives of the people living in different flats at that address. The other reason for me to start reading this book is because I have decided to read up books about and/or based in Scotland, and this one’s based in my very own Edinburgh.
There’s Pat, who lives in the same house as Bruce, she had a crush on him at one point. There’s the older and very sagacious Domenica, who tries to set Pat up. There’s Ramsey Dumbarton, who’s writing his memoirs and his wife. But my favourite of all is the family of Stuart, Irene, and their son Bertie! Irene is an unnatural mother with her own weird notions of what is right for her son. Stuart is strange absent and very present, instead, is the hilarious psychoanalyst, Dr Fairbairn, who comes up with all these wacko explanations of peoples normal behaviour.
The chapters are very short, mainly as the series was first written as a serial novella in The Scotsman. The stories are hilarious and so imaginative. All of the characters have such interesting and varied adventures! Of course, it is charming to read stories set in places that one knows, that one has walked down… I love familiarity that way. I highly recommend this book, and probably the entire series. It was a delightful experience!
Quote: “She had to tell somebody, and Matthew would do. He would not be particularly interested, she knew, but she would tell him anyway. She had to share her joy, as Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.”
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