Authors have written novels from the point of view of the opposite sex for eons but it is a rare male author that inhabits the very soul of a woman, as does novelist Alexander McCall Smith. Lavender, nicknamed La, is Smith’s latest heroine and the namesake of La’s Orchestra Saves the World. The novel is set in England during World War II, and the theme echoes the present day sentiment surrounding war and natural disasters. World War II and today’s crisis (Haiti, the unemployment rates, et al) are the condition bringing forth acts of human kindness and charity.
Each character that pours forth from Smith’s pen is singular in voice, style, appearance, background, and culture. La is so pitch perfect that the reader must remind her or himself that the author is a man who is not a detective, not an editor and not a scorned wife fleeing London for the countryside to escape the German bombs. Smith’s appropriated voices in his novels ring true not a phony note throughout the length of the book.
From the first page La gently lures the reader into her skin bringing with it the burbling, bubbling and ultimately boiling emotions and experiences as she creates a new life in the countryside After her marriage fails, the exact details are withheld here so as not to spoil the twists and turns, La retreats to her father-in-laws rambling house in Suffolk, a few hours outside of London. Leaving a busy city-life behind, La’s move brings her full circle to a rural town akin to where she grew up.
While recuperating and healing her broken heart, La meets the villagers and they help chart her new adventure. Mr. and Mrs. Agg, the farmers next door welcome her to town, their unusual son Lennie, who stirs the underbelly of the tiny hamlet. Patriotic and eager to assist in the war effort, La goes to work on Madder’s farm just a bicycle ride away. Henry, the farmer and his farmhand, Feliks, an injured Polish pilot, bring a parental figure and potential love interest into La’s life.
A propitious meeting with, Tim Honey, a Major posted nearby inspires La to form and conduct an orchestra comprised of villagers, nearby townspeople and military personnel. Together they enrich each others lives and bring music to a diverse audience of characters ensuring that no seat goes unfilled in this rich story.
La is the newest character in Smith’s roster of leading ladies, each and everyone unique and leaving an indelible spirit in the reader. La joins the elegantly written and distinctly wrought ranks of Precious Ramotswe, owner of a detective agency in Botswana in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and Isabel Dalhousie editor of the Review of Applied Ethics and an occasional detective in eponymous series.
Fans of Smith are satisfied annually if not more often with the arrival of new books in his series. Once in a while he pens a stand alone novel such as La’s Orchestra Saves the World giving readers a new leading lady who evokes laughter, sympathy and empathy set in varying parts of the world.
About the Author
Alexander McCall Smith, a resident of Scotland, is the author of four series including The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (also an HBO series), the Isabel Dalhousie series (of which the newest installment is The Lost Art of Gratitude), Portuguese Irregular Verbs and 44 Scotland Street. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh and has served on national and international organizations concerned with bioethics. Mr. McCall Smith, the author of 50 books to date, was born in Zimbabwe in 1948.
La’s Orchestra Saves the World
By Alexander McCall Smith
Pantheon 2009
ISBN 978-0-307-37838-5
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/mccallsmith/main.php
Author Photo: Christ Watt
Jacket Photo: Macduff Everton/Getty Images
Jacket Design: Carol Devine Carson
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