A Club I'd Like to Join

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate: The Sunday Philosophy Club



Sue's Pre-Ramble

I ordered Friends, Lovers, Chocolate written by Alexander McCall Smith from Zooba, one of my online book clubs (all books are $9.95 and no s/h charge!) because of my addiction to all things cocoa. I picked up Friends, Lovers, Chocolate off of Mt. ToBeRead the other night when I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t have any prior knowledge of the story (But the title included the magic word – chocolate!) or the author and just started reading. It was smart, thought provoking and entertaining. It is the second book in a series – The Sunday Philosophy Club – and I was a little concerned that I’d miss something not having read the first, but it wasn’t an issue at all.


Author

Alexander McCall Smith, a law professor, has written: six novels in the “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, with a seventh due out in the spring of 2006; two in this Sunday Philosophy Club; and three in the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series. Although the picture on the back cover shows him with a tuba, he plays the bassoon in a group called The Really Terrible Orchestra with his wife, a flautist. Smith is originally from what is now called Zimbabwe and currently lives in Scotland. I hadn’t read any of his work before, but had seen him interviewed on several news and talk shows about his books and was very intrigued. I was glad to find Friends, Lovers, Chocolate entertaining, smart, and quick to read.


Characters

Isabel Dalhousie is a young middle-aged woman, independently wealthy, the editor for a periodical by the name of the “Review of Applied Ethics,” and though not friendless, is currently unattached. Her heart was broken disastrously by an unfaithful fiancé when she was college age and until now has maintained her independence. Isabel is quite thoughtful, enjoys orchestra concerts, is fond of the poet W.H. Auden (quoting him frequently), and is quite egalitarian in the way she treats each person with value. Her feeling on chocolate—“chocolate involves major philosophical problems…It shows us a lot about temptation and self-control,” becomes the turning point of many situations in the story.

Cat is Isabel’s niece. She is in her mid twenties and owns a delicatessen. She has left a string of broken-hearted lovers and doesn’t contemplate settling down anytime soon.

Jamie is one of Cat’s former beaux of whom Isabel has grown quite fond despite the difference in their ages. He, like the author Alexander McCall Smith, plays bassoon in The Really Terrible Orchestra (among other groups). He rounds out his meager income by teaching youngsters in private music lessons. He’s given his heart to Cat though his love is unrequited.

Ian is a psychologist married to a psychologist whom Isabel meets at the delicatessen. He’s had a heart transplant, has begun remembering things that have never happened to him, and is beginning a quest to understand what else the heart might control besides blood circulation.

Grace is Isabel’s housekeeper. She doesn’t spend her days contemplating Schopenhauer like her employer, but she has a useful mind and is quite spiritual to boot. She’s met an attractive widower at her Sunday afternoon lectures with a woman who claims to speak for those who’ve crossed over—particularly the dead wife of the widower on which both she and Grace have their eyes.


Setting

The story is set primarily in Edinburgh with side trips to the suburbs and countryside. Although the description is adequate, it isn’t overly so. I got a feel for the neighborhoods, businesses, and architecture and wet climate without getting a lecture. It seemed a lot like my home in Puget Sound—a bit grey with spots of bright color.


Story

Cat goes off to Italy to a wedding and leaves Isabel in charge of her delicatessen. In the interval, Isabel meets Ian having his sparse heart-healthy lunch and begins a friendship based on the scholarly pursuit of cellular memory and trying to find his donor’s family to settle his mind about memories and feelings he’s begun to experience.

Although Jamie used to be involved with Cat, Isabel wouldn’t mind getting closer to him and is suddenly jealous when confronted with the fact that he’s finally moved on from needlessly pursuing Cat and having an affair with a married woman, whom is close to her in both age and station in life.

When Cat returns, she bears the news that Tomasso, one of the Italian men she met at the wedding is driving up Europe and will be arriving soon for an extended visit and tour of Scotland. Despite his suave elegance and apparent wealth, Cat isn’t interested in him because he’s far too old for her, but she thinks he’d be just right for Isabel.


What I Like

I like that not all of the loose threads of the story get tied up with a neat little bow at the end of the story. I was left feeling like the characters are friends or neighbors and their lives will go on and I’ll learn more as we pass each other getting the newspaper or sipping coffee at the corner bistro. The language is intelligent and crisp without feeling too sparse or dry. The philosophical issues of love, life, temptation and self-control are genuine without sounding morose or pedantic. I expected a pleasant story and I came away with far more than that. I will be thinking about these issues far into the future.


What I Don’t Like

The only quarrel I have with the book is that Alexander McCall Smith provides only a very general physical description of the characters and I found myself inventing their looks in order to have some body to wear Smith’s finely crafted personalities. I knew their inner beauty and not their outer appearances.


Final Recommendation

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate is wonderful book to curl up with on a weekend in front of the fire. The plot and characters are interesting, the situations are believable, and there’s enough tension to keep things moving along without being dull or predictable. It would be of interest to anybody from young adults upward. Because of the adult relationships, I would hesitate to recommend it to anybody younger than fourteen years old. I’ll be “releasing this book out into the wild” using BookCrossing.com. You can see my bookshelf at www.bookcrossing.com/friend/bartonz.


Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
Alexander McCall Smith (see more at http://www.randomhouse.com/features/mccallsmith/index.html)
Pantheon Books, 2005
Hardcover with dust jacket, 261 pages
ISBN 0-375-42299-4