Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Reading note: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Alexander McCall Smith, who as I write this is just across town in the lovely old Capri Cinema charming the pants off a no doubt full house, packed to the gunwales with his Adelaide fans, is wont to produce paragraphs like the following in all kinds of contexts. But tonight it has sunk its pointy little teeth in deep.

Somewhere in this country ... that day, somebody had been given news that would end their little world. Somebody, some unknown person somewhere, was being told that somebody else was not coming back. And all that stood between that poor person and oneself was chance, and luck, and forces that we would never master nor understand. What if it was she who would be the recipient of such news this night? No, she could not think about that, she would not.

5 comments:

fifi said...

My dear friend was the recipient of that very information yesterday.

Her daughter won't be back. She took her own life.
Such sorrows.
I am grateful for every day.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

I was mainly thinking of the fires, of course, but that is a terrible story. The poor things, both of them.

fifi said...

I'm sorry I wrote that, it wasn't very fair but I was thinking on it and there was that, synchronistically, and as per usual I do first and think later. Sorry.

Yes, poor things. And all those poor people in the fires. Unending. I have turned off the radio.

Mindy said...

Is Alexander McCall Smith going to one day be unmasked as a team of writers who can churn out really readable books at a remarkable rate? Has he done a deal with the debbil? How can one person get to the heart of things, and so easily? He's a witch!

Ampersand Duck said...

If he has made a deal with the debbil, it's a good one. I heard him charm his way through RN's Life Matters the other morning and he was delightful.

I love the way he believes in writing about profound things in light ways. As Pav has just demonstrated, it works.

I don't actively seek out AMS's books, but they always seem to cross my path at the right moments. I'm looking forward to the next chance.