Book review: La's Orchestra Saves the World, by Alexander McCall Smith

Published on Friday 14 November 2008 16:10

Polygon, £14.99 Review: VANESSA CURTIS

McCALL Smith's new standalone novel is a bit of an oddity. Widowed La is recovering from the death of her philandering and unloving husband Richard and finds herself alone in an old Suffolk house belonging to his parents.

But it's 1939, so La has to build herself a new life of self-sufficiency in the country. She duly plants potatoes, befriends the locals and listens to the radio in the evenings, trying to keep a stiff upper lip and survive the war.

La turns out to have latent skills as a conductor, so she starts a small orchestra and carries the villagers through the war to victory while trying not to fall in love with Feliks, a frosty Polish flautist whom she suspects to be German.

McCall Smith's gentle snapshot of life for one woman during the war is charming but fails ultimately to move. There is hardly any description of the orchestra and a wonderful opportunity to portray a cast of eccentric musicians is missed, so that when La is told that her orchestra has "saved the world" it's very difficult for the reader to work out how or why or even whether they care.

If only the author had built more of a story around the cellist "whose asthma prevented him from joining anything more demanding than the Home Guard" or the local barber, a "thick-set man with a Cockney accent who had with him a battered trombone", but after one mention we never really hear of these intriguing characters again. The novel could also have benefited from further exploration of the theme of music with its power to heal and unite.

La herself is somewhat one-dimensional too – she's mildly insecure and pleasant at the beginning of the novel and much the same at the end.

The book offers an easy read and McCall Smith's portrayal of country life during the Second World War is believable, but the story lacks any great plot surprises, chugging along until it concludes without revelation. It's The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency watered down until there are only the thinnest bones of a story left in place and the characters aren't strong enough to compensate.

If you enjoy a meditative, amusing and predictable sort of novel then you'll pass an enjoyable couple of hours with La's Orchestra, but like La herself, the book sits alone and awkward, unsure of its rightful place.