The Entertainer: Alexander McCall Smith at Maleny

In the hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast lies Maleny, a small town with a big reputation. Artists, writers, craftspeople, woodworkers live and exhibit here. Tonight Alexander McCall Smith spoke in the Maleny primary school hall, a venue chosen for its capacity to hold numbers.

This Scotsman appeals to ladies on the bus as well as academics. International readers seek him out. Seeking respite from frenetic lives, people can enjoy the moment in his stories. He is like a warm comfortable intelligent cup of coffee.

Prompted by the success of his original novel, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, he gave up his career in medical law and ethics to become a full-time writer. His preoccupation with ethics and philosophy, however, live on in both his lady detective and the Isabel Dalhousie series.

Before writing he founded and taught law at the University of Botswana. He wrote the only book on the country’s legal system. His father had been a public prosecutor there when Alexander was a boy.

Because he grew up and was schooled in Botswana, his characters and places ring with truth. What’s in a name? Everything! A name satisfies the ear and the imagination. His books are peppered with place names that conjure up what we have in our head as African: Gaborone, Bobonong, Mochudi, Limpopo, Mokolodi, Molepolole, Tlokweng Road, Lobatse Road. Characters’ names convey lightness and colour, reinforcing the droll tone of the narrative: Mr Polopetsi, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, Motholeli, Puso, Violet Sephotho, Obed, Note Mokoti, Phuti Radiphuti, not to mention Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi.

The African stories revolve around Ramotswe and Makutsi’s discussions on small and large matters, a cup of redbush tea or the nature of human behaviour. They sit in cars, knock on doors, investigate, consult, confront. They agree or disagree but share basically the same values. The characters are three-dimensional. Mma Ramotswe covets Mma Potokwani’s fruitcake, the gentle Mr J.L.B. Matekoni goes to cooking school for men so he can be a better husband.

When asked if he will continue his lady detective series, McCall Smith replies: “I enjoy the company of my characters, so why end them?” Indeed, why stop writing? He would not be the only writer to whom writing is breathing.

Crimes range from a suspicious wife wanting her husband followed to tracking a missing child to an orphan enslaved by a bad woman, and a restaurant staffed with imposters. Fraud and scams proliferate.

Alexander McCall Smith holds up a glass to the world. And he drinks from it. Criticised for seeing through rose-tinted glasses, he replies, “I’m aware of the sadness and trials of this world—who could not be? But I’m aware of the various responses to them … and look for the possibility of happiness and delight, rather than just thinking the world is a totally dysfunctional place.”

A dismal view is not the only social reality. There is love, kindness, hard work, respect, and humour. Absurdity! He embodies this with his comments in Maleny primary school hall.

A packed house rises to applaud him again and again, almost hysterical with laughter. He joins the hysteria to the point of incoherence. He does not have to sell himself. He touches on generational times and stereotypes: the “pushy mothers” who enrol their three-year-olds in yoga classes. Bertie from the “44 Scotland Street” series just wants to be an ordinary boy. He longs for a train set for Christmas but his mother gives him a UN peace-keeping kit. McCall Smith mocks our pretensions and excesses. He punctures the popular idea that all writers agonise. He plays in the World’s Most Terrible Orchestra where one half ends up playing a different piece from the other. Although punctilious about manners, he would avoid being politically correct.

“Music, art, even science celebrate the positive. Why can’t writers?” asks this benign finger-wagging grandfather, whose voice ascends to a high-pitched giggle.

In more serious moments he finds nobility in love that lasts, “The shape of a long marriage”, as defined by poet the Rory Harris. His characters “happen” without his planning them. In his latest book, Close Encounters: Unexpected Love Stories, he imagines characters from unknown sepia photos. They will not be like the people in the photos but just as valid. “I could see a whole life in one of these photos … it [happened] that the stories I told were all about the role of love. For most people, that’s one of the main dramas of their lives.”

Critics have called him “lightweight”. In his African series he doesn’t pretend to be anything else. However, he is more than an entertainer. He is a social commentator, professional medical lawyer, traditional historian, traveller and raconteur. Despite a worldly knowledge of skulduggery, he endorses human values, hard work, compassion and shrewdness. His are tales of morality not unlike Aesop’s fables, but filled with a panoply of life’s detail. As only Alexander McCall Smith can colour it.