These books are numbers 10 and 11 in the 44 Scotland Street series, all of which were first published in daily serialised form in the newspaper ‘The Scotsman.’ I cannot imagine the deadline headache that must be involved in providing copy on a daily basis. What pressure, and how far ahead was the author writing I wonder.
These books continue the story of the life of Bertie Pollock, the delightful but totally beleaguered little boy whose ghastly mother Irene insists on micro managing every hour of his day. Bertie’s father Stuart would like Bertie’s life to be different but is upsettingly impotent when it comes to dealing with his wife.
As with all the previous books Alexander McCall Smith has produced, the reader is presented with a myriad of moral conundrums. This is done in a slightly humorous way but it is obvious we are expected to do some mental grappling and consider each ethical problem.
I became really emotionally involved with ‘The Bertie Project’ as Stuart, without any intention or prior planning, embarks on an affair with a seriously ‘nice’ young lady. The reader is presented with a happy, confident character in Stuart for the first time in very many books. I was wondering what was going to happen and whether the author was going to make large changes to Bertie’s family. Would love and happiness be allowed to prevail or would decency and ‘doing the right thing’ be unassailable? Life can be so complicated.
The Times calls these books ‘perfect escapist fiction.’ They are absolutely right but that phrase does not remotely tell the whole story. The author manages to produce novels that are light and wryly humorous whilst also posing challenging questions about the way we decide to lead our everyday lives.
I really enjoyed these 2 books but will leave them now, just for a while.