Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller

Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier by Alexandra Fuller (Find this book in our catalog)

Alexandra Fuller, best known for her memoir of a childhood in Africa during the Chimurenga War in Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (Find this book in our catalog), returns to Africa after a sojourn of several years in Wyoming with her American husband and their children. While visiting her parents in Zambia, she meets K., a white former Rhodesian/Zimbabwean. K. is a seasoned soldier from what might have been one of the most brutal wars in modern history, the Mozambican Civil War, lasting from 1977 until 1992. K. is a damaged man, a brute haunted by his own brutality. When Fuller meets him, he is the owner of a banana plantation near her parents’ fish farm. Despite his new profession as a farmer, he is still very much dogged by the ghosts of his past crimes and mortal sins. Even his conversion to evangelical Christianity has not soothed his tortured soul. Perhaps God has forgiven him his sins, but K. has not done so for himself, and for good reason, since it might be difficult to forgive oneself for such great evils done in the past.

When Fuller suggests that K. travel back to Mozambique, with her as company, he hesitates for only a brief time. While he revisits the country where he had committed his greatest sins, the journey could serve as a way of releasing him from the lingering guilt that consumes him. For K.’s part, he sees the possibility of Fuller’s staying with him, since he suspects God has sent her to him as a life partner. Delusion abounds.

The journey to and within Mozambique takes them not only through a land of lush beauty but also through the memories of a tortured man. As Fuller and K. get farther into Mozambique, K. reveals more and more of his actions in the war, actions that make it hard to like him or even to have sympathy for him. Yet Fuller has far more compassion for her fellow human beings, seeing the victims of war to be not just civilians or those fighting for independence or for the integrity of their new country, but also those who fought the war on the other side.

The outcome of the journey is not surprising: no real resolution follows. What is surprising is what and who Fuller and K. meet on the way, and how despite great evil, a land can still provided breathtaking beauty and serenity, while a people can still find room for forgiveness, even if that forgiveness remains hard to find.

Submitted by D. L. Sebly, staff

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

For November the Abingdon Book Group read this charming novel about a lady detective living in Gaborone, Botswana. Unlike many other mysteries, Mma Ramotswe solves a number of small mysteries rather than focusing on one larger one. Except for the matter of a lost boy, the mysteries tend to be rather tame. This is not a blood & guts book, but rather a gentle delving into the lives of various chracters living in her area. McCall Smith's descriptions of Africa are wonderful & his love of the country shines through. Despite its gentle nature, the novel faces up to the hardships of workers in the diamond mines, the problems with droughts, & the abuse of women by their husbands. The Abingdon Group shared rooibos tea to get into the spirit of the book. This is Mma Ramotswe's favorite drink & seems to be common throughout Africa. If you want to try some, many supermarkets now sell it & it is available with added flavors such as vanilla. The tea comes from a rooibos or Red Bush plant grown in South Africa & has many claims to health giving properties. This site has more information. http://www.red-tea-rooibos.com/

If you like this novel, this is the first in a series and there are many others to try. See the author's website at http://www.alexandermccallsmith.co.uk/

Here are some Discussion Questions for other Book Groups & Readers.

1. Unlike in most other mysteries, in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Mma Ramotswe solves a number of small crimes, rather than a single major one. How does this affect the narrative pacing of the novel? What other unique features distinguish The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency from the conventional mystery novel?

2. What makes Precious Ramotswe such a charming protagonist? What kind of woman is she? How is she different from the usual detective? Why does she feel "called" to help her fellow Africans "solve the mysteries of their lives" [p. 4]?

3. What is surprising about the nature of the cases Mma Ramotswe is hired to solve? By what means does Alexander McCall Smith sustain the reader's interest, in the absence of the kind of tension, violence, and suspense that drive most mysteries?

4. Mma Ramotswe's first client, Happy Bapetsi, is worried that the man who claims to be her father is a fraud taking advantage of her generosity. "All he does," she says, "is sit in his chair outside the front door and tell me what to do for him next." To which Mma Ramotswe replies, "Many men are like that" [p. 10]. What is Mma Ramotswe's view of men generally? How do men behave in the novel?

5. Why does Mma Ramotswe feel it is so important to include her father's life story in the novel? What does Obed Ramotswe's life reveal about the history of Africa and of South Africa? What does it reveal about the nature and cost of working in the mines in South Africa? 6. Mma Ramotswe purchases a manual on how to be a detective. It advises one to pay attention to hunches. "Hunches are another form of knowledge" [p. 79]. How does intuition help Mma Ramotswe solve her cases?

7. When Mma Ramotswe decides to start a detective agency, a lawyer tells her "It's easy to lose money in business, especially when you don't know anything about what you're doing. . . . And anyway, can women be detectives?" To which Mma Ramotswe answers, "Women are the ones who know what's going on. They are the ones with eyes. Have you not read Agatha Christie?" [p. 61]. Is she right in suggesting women are more perceptive than men? Where in the novel do we see Mma Ramotswe's own extraordinary powers of observation? How does she comically undercut the lawyer's arrogance in this scene?

8. As Mma Ramotswe wonders if Mma Malatsi was somehow involved in her husband's death and whether wanting someone dead made one a murderer in God's eyes, she thinks to herself: "It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin" [p. 85]. What philosophy of life is Mma Ramotswe articulating here? Why do the ongoing daily events of life give her this sense of peace and stability?

9. Why does Mma Ramotswe marry Note? Why does this act seem so out of character for her? In what ways does her love for an attractive and physically abusive man make her a deeper and more complicated character? How does her marriage to Note change her?

10. Mma Ramotswe imagines retiring back in Mochudi, buying some land with her cousins, growing melons, and living life in such a way that "every morning she could sit in front of her house and sniff at the wood-smoke and look forward to spending the day talking with her friends. How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn't do any of this, and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eating grass? None, in her view; none at all" [p. 162]. Is Mma Ramotswe's critique of white people on the mark or is she stereotyping? What makes her sense of what is important, and what brings happiness, so refreshing? What other differences between black and white cultures does the novel make apparent?

11. Mma Ramotswe does not want Africa to change, to become thoroughly modern: "She did not want her people to become like everybody else, soulless, selfish, forgetful of what it means to be an African, or, worse still, ashamed of Africa" [p. 215]. But what aspects of traditional African culture trouble her? How does she regard the traditional African attitude toward women, marriage, family duty, and witchcraft? Is there a contradiction in her relationship to "old" Africa?

12. How surprising is Mme Ramotswe's response to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's marriage proposal? How appropriate is the ending of the novel?

13. Alexander McCall Smith has both taught and written about criminal law. In what ways does in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency draw upon this knowledge? How are lawyers and the police characterized in the novel?

14. Is in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency a feminist novel? Does the fact that its author is a man complicate such a reading? How well does Alexander McCall Smith represent a woman's character and consciousness in Mma Ramotswe?

15. Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe books have been praised for their combination of apparent simplicity with a high degree of sophistication. In what ways does in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency have the appeal of simple storytelling? In what ways is it sophisticated? What does it suggest about the larger issues of how to live one's life, how to behave in society, how to be happy?

Still Life with Elephant By Judy Reene Singer

Well the summer is upon us and many of us are going to the beach. So here is a light beach read from the author Judy Reene Singer. This is her second novel after Horseplay. Still Life with Elephant is by turns humorous & sad.
Here's what Publisher's Weekly said of it.

From Publishers Weekly
Divorce is the elephant in the room for Singer's second novel, following Horseplay. When social worker turned horse trainer Cornelia "Neelie" Sterling finds out her vet husband, Matt, is cheating on her, she throws him out, but can't bear to make it legal. Faced with losing her house and barn, Neelie jumps aboard Matt's mission to Zimbabwe to rescue two wounded elephants, thinking the transatlantic journey will convince him to recommit to the marriage. There, she finds behemoths in need of care—and the philanthropist who's funding the trip. The secondaries lack texture, but Neelie's misguided struggle rings true. (July)

This was the Abingdon book group selection for June. In general we found it entertaining. It was not as humorous as we had thought, but was quite poignant in places, with some reflections on the terrible treatment of elephants by poachers in Africa. The descriptions of Africa were very nicely done and helped the reader appreciate why Neelie would want to return there. The novel deals with her husband's infidelity, horse training, elephant rescue, and the impact of a past tragedy on Neelie's present life. The humor comes mainly from her inability to hear or comprehend a lot of what is said to her, causing many misunderstandings. Her husband tells her he is getting a collie to help with the lions - or so Neelie hears, but really he is getting a colleague to help with the clients. The colleague turns out to be the one who also helps him with his love life, and so the story begins.

See Ms. Singer's website for her biography & other content.
http://www.judyreenesinger.com/