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Another chance to see Meet The Author, with Alexander McCall Smith. | :00:00. | :00:08. | |
Alexander McCall Smith is as popular as he is prolific. | :00:09. | :00:11. | |
When Mma Ramotswe first appeared as the proprietrix of the No. | :00:12. | :00:13. | |
1 Ladies Detectives Agency of Botswana, solving every day | :00:14. | :00:16. | |
problems with an unruffled determination that never flags, | :00:17. | :00:18. | |
she became an instant friend to readers around the world. | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
Precious and Grace is the 17th book in the series, alongside | :00:23. | :00:26. | |
there are the 11 volumes and the 44 Scotland Street books, | :00:27. | :00:29. | |
written as a newspaper serial, and the Isabel Dalhousie stories, | :00:30. | :00:33. | |
where the author can indulge through Isabel his love of WH Auden. | :00:34. | :00:39. | |
He is one of our most popular writers. | :00:40. | :00:42. | |
Why do you think Mma Ramotswe became such a close and intimate friend | :00:43. | :01:03. | |
I think it is something to do with her character. | :01:04. | :01:09. | |
She's a very gentle, understanding woman and I think that | :01:10. | :01:13. | |
readers like to be in the company of somebody whom they like, somebody | :01:14. | :01:18. | |
they feel they would like to sit down in real life with and enjoy | :01:19. | :01:21. | |
Well, you illustrate there one of the qualities that people | :01:22. | :01:29. | |
A sort of placid kind of life, which is the kind of life | :01:30. | :01:35. | |
Now, it's not devoid of excitement, it is not devoid of drama. | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
They are somehow domestic dramas, aren't they? | :01:40. | :01:40. | |
I think people respond quite well to that, in that, most of us lead | :01:41. | :01:46. | |
Most of us lead lives in which nothing really | :01:47. | :01:52. | |
spectacular happens, there are not constant explosions | :01:53. | :01:54. | |
So, we rather like to spend time, in the fictional sense, | :01:55. | :02:01. | |
I think that you can, in very gentle fiction, | :02:02. | :02:07. | |
you can make big points about the world. | :02:08. | :02:10. | |
You can say things about some of the profound issues that we face. | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
But do it in a rather gentle way, and in a sense you make more | :02:15. | :02:17. | |
of a point with people if you do that. | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
If, for example, you use humour to make a point, you are more likely | :02:23. | :02:25. | |
It is a country of which you have become fond - | :02:26. | :02:32. | |
And the reason why I wrote these books is because it | :02:33. | :02:39. | |
I was so impressed with it and found that I liked and admired it. | :02:40. | :02:43. | |
And I stood in admiration of a country which has been | :02:44. | :02:46. | |
in rather difficult circumstances, in that it was | :02:47. | :02:48. | |
But it managed to maintain its integrity. | :02:49. | :02:54. | |
It approached life in a quiet and organised way and I was just | :02:55. | :02:57. | |
very taken by the politeness, the courtesy of the people, | :02:58. | :02:59. | |
I felt this was an island of peace, tranquillity and wisdom, in a sense. | :03:00. | :03:11. | |
You describe there very clearly your own style. | :03:12. | :03:14. | |
And if you take, for example, the 44 Scotland Street stories, | :03:15. | :03:17. | |
set in a tenement block in Edinburgh, your own city, | :03:18. | :03:23. | |
where the doings of the various people who live on different floors | :03:24. | :03:25. | |
It is a particular kind of fiction that you enjoy, | :03:26. | :03:32. | |
the sort of parting the lace curtains and having a peak. | :03:33. | :03:35. | |
Yes, I suppose you could call it social comedy. | :03:36. | :03:38. | |
Social fiction, looking at the lives of people, | :03:39. | :03:40. | |
looking their quirks, their little ways and having fun | :03:41. | :03:43. | |
with them, and I enjoy that very much indeed. | :03:44. | :03:49. | |
Because we are all absurd to a greater or lesser | :03:50. | :03:51. | |
We can make terrific mountains out of molehills | :03:52. | :03:55. | |
You made a big mountain out of all these molehills. | :03:56. | :03:59. | |
The Scotland Street series has been running and running. | :04:00. | :04:06. | |
1 Ladies Detective Agency is now in its 17th volume. | :04:07. | :04:10. | |
You also have the Isabel Dalhousie novels. | :04:11. | :04:13. | |
Now, she's very interesting because I always think there's a lot | :04:14. | :04:15. | |
of you in there because she is mad about Auden, as you are. | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
I find it extraordinary, but I agree with Isabel Dalhousie | :04:21. | :04:23. | |
Of course you don't have to scratch very hard to see | :04:24. | :04:34. | |
Well, your enthusiasm for Auden is well known to people | :04:35. | :04:38. | |
What is it about Auden that's always moved you? | :04:39. | :04:45. | |
Well, Auden, I think, is just such a wonderful humane voice. | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
I remember when I first started reading Auden's | :04:51. | :04:52. | |
poetry many years ago, I was so rested by it. | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
I was struck by the stength of the ideas, the complexity | :04:58. | :05:00. | |
of the ideas and the beauty of the language. | :05:01. | :05:03. | |
So he's a poet who manages to say the most profound things | :05:04. | :05:06. | |
about life in a very, very beautiful way. | :05:07. | :05:10. | |
That is an enormous breadth, as you say. | :05:11. | :05:15. | |
And you are a polymath in many ways because you're an academic | :05:16. | :05:26. | |
in the medical law field and then you suddenly discovered that | :05:27. | :05:28. | |
writing was more or less taking over your life. | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
You were producing three, four, five books a year. | :05:32. | :05:33. | |
How do you manage to organise your life to do that? | :05:34. | :05:36. | |
Well, you have to be quite careful about organisation if you are doing | :05:37. | :05:40. | |
I have a season for each of the series. | :05:41. | :05:44. | |
There'll be a period of a few months where I know I have to write | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
You know that is the time when this will be done | :05:49. | :05:54. | |
The one thing that I think you can't do, as an author, | :05:55. | :06:02. | |
is wait for inspiration to strike you. | :06:03. | :06:04. | |
You can't wait for the news to appear. | :06:05. | :06:06. | |
She may appear once you've sat down and once you're working, | :06:07. | :06:13. | |
you play suddenly realise that the muse has | :06:14. | :06:15. | |
Looking at the type of books you read yourself and admire, | :06:16. | :06:24. | |
I know that an author whom you particularly admire, | :06:25. | :06:26. | |
who perhaps hasn't had the attention that many people think she deserves | :06:27. | :06:29. | |
What is it about Barbara Pym's books you like? | :06:30. | :06:32. | |
Perhaps it ties in with something you said earlier on about | :06:33. | :06:35. | |
Barbara Pym is concerned with very small matters. | :06:36. | :06:38. | |
The calm exploration of small matters. | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
She really was the 20th century Jane Austen. | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
Capable of saying very big things about people | :06:47. | :06:48. | |
So she would have a character, for example, saying, | :06:49. | :06:53. | |
as happens in one of her books, a character saying, "I never thought | :06:54. | :06:56. | |
I was the sort of person who would deserve my own bathroom." | :06:57. | :07:04. | |
Poignancy is something that I think you've got | :07:05. | :07:08. | |
a very strong feeling for, the sadness of things that | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
happen in every day life, the lack of fulfilment in some small | :07:14. | :07:16. | |
way that adds up to, you know, disappointment, | :07:17. | :07:18. | |
I find myself very moved by certain things. | :07:19. | :07:36. | |
1 Ladies Detectives Agency series, Mma Mukutsi, who has had | :07:37. | :07:39. | |
a very poor background, has a beautiful little lace | :07:40. | :07:41. | |
handkerchief and that represents everything she would like to have | :07:42. | :07:44. | |
So I find myself very moved by that sort of thing. | :07:45. | :07:54. | |
Almost as many, getting on that way, in 44 Scotland Street. | :07:55. | :08:02. | |
Can you see yours carrying on forever? | :08:03. | :08:04. | |
I remember you telling me a story about being on a plane and sitting | :08:05. | :08:13. | |
opposite somebody on a transatlantic flight who was finishing one | :08:14. | :08:15. | |
of your books and saying, "Oh, dear, oh dear." | :08:16. | :08:22. | |
Not realising you were there and you leaned over | :08:23. | :08:24. | |
and as you were getting off and said, "Don't worry. | :08:25. | :08:27. | |
There'll be another one along in a minute." | :08:28. | :08:29. | |
I was, as it happens, on that flight I was writing | :08:30. | :08:31. | |
the next one in that series as this person was reading the previous one. | :08:32. | :08:35. | |
You could have sent her an e-mail with the thing. | :08:36. | :08:37. | |
Alexander McCall Smith, thank you very much. | :08:38. | :08:39. |