Earlier I said I hadn't a clue where to go next in this little series. This one is practically writing itself! Because right after I wrote my last blog, the one about crying, where I mentioned specifically crying in church, and then touched on my musings about how others might reacted?? Well Sunday afternoon I was reading this book and...
Wait a minute! Not so fast! Ha ha ha! Thought I was just gonna get right to it, without any intro, didn'tcha! Before I start, you know I'm going to need to write my usual explanations. So:
The first book I mentioned, The Little Prince, is full of pretty deep thoughts. I don't want you to think that I think that all worthwhile fiction has to be so deep and philosophical. Sometimes the truth you find in fiction is of a very deep and profound nature.
But sometimes it's not so much a DEEP THOUGHT, as it is a reminder of human nature. Or being re-inspired to do something worthwhile. Sometimes when a character is well-written, it is more that the book helps us to love and understand someone else. Like a book I really enjoyed written from the perspective of a teen who was autistic. Which gave me a fuller perspective myself! All this sort of thing is worthwhile, and I think it is also a way of hearing truth.
So I'm going to talk about a book series I love which is more along these lines. I'm sort of picky about my book series. I really like fantasy books, but I have a serious pet peeve that just about everybody and their dog thinks that they have to AT LEAST write a trilogy (as if they were Tolkien himself!) and sometimes they can't seem to find an end to the story after 10 books!! Sheeeeeeesh! One reason that bugs me (aside from the fact that the "to be continued" is usually a YEAR later, unlike TV where you just wait a week. Come on people, unless your writing really does rival Tolkien, I'm really NOT going to remember what I read a YEAR AGO!!) is that usually the writing and plot just gets sloppier and sloppier as the books go along. KNOW WHEN TO FINISH! (Ha ha! Some of you are saying "Look whose talking, Honey!")
Ok, that was all an aside. AHEM. As I was saying, I'm picky about series. I don't mind them as long as each book is complete in itself. If you can't wrap up the story in one book, I will grudgingly let you go as far as three books, but you better be just as good in the third as you were in the first!
This series is NOT fantasy and it IS complete, each book, in itself. There is a sort of progressive story line, but not the sort that if you miss a book, or start in the middle, you will be lost and confused. The series is the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith. Sounds like it might be a mystery series, and it is, SORT OF. Only one murder in the 12 books I have read, the mysteries involved are more about human nature than anything else. I love the books in the series because after you finish reading one, you feel GOOD. You feel like human beings are worth knowing and understanding. You feel like you want to go out and meet your next door neighbour. You know that the next time on the bus, you are going to stand up and give your seat to someone else. That sort of thing.
But it is all FUN to read, and it very gently pokes fun at human nature. I see myself in the pages, and I feel both amused, and sometimes humbled. I think that if I only ever read this sort of fiction, my mind would be a better place to live in. Ya know? All that while just enjoying yourself and being amused.
So, on Sunday I was reading the latest book in this series. Guess what the title of the first chapter was? "You Do Not Change People by Shouting At Them." (It contained an incident of really bad driving) How's that for truth in fiction!!
But that wasn't the really funny/strange thing. Hear is a direct quote from the book which I read on Sunday, the day after I wrote my last blog, and right after church:
"...this woman, moved by some private sorrow as much as by the words being spoken, cried almost silently, unobserved by others, apart from Mma Ramotswe, who stretched out her hand and laid it on her shoulder. Do not cry, Mma, she began to whisper, but changed her words even as she uttered them, and said quietly, Yes, you can cry, Mma. We should not tell people not to weep--we do it because of our sympathy for them--but we should really tell them that their tears are justified and entirely right."
Now what do you think of that? Precious Ramotswe is one of the main characters in the book (the story takes place in Africa, and Mma means sister and is the traditional way of addressing people, like "Ms.", only more friendly!) and she is sitting in church listening to the sermon when she sees this other lady crying. Isn't that a funny co-incidence, considering what I wrote the day before??
So, anyway, I confidently recommend this series to you. If you like stories about human nature, the sublime moments, the failures, and the humorous quirks, you gotta try these stories. If you like stories that warm your heart, make you smile, and maybe even inspire you, you'll like these books. They'll cheer you up. But more than that. You might also find some truth in there, in the form of simple, down to earth wisdom.
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