Book review: The Perfect Passion Company, by Alexander McCall Smith
The Perfect Passion Company – a dreadful title for a marriage bureau and not perhaps a good one for a novel – is, at almost 400 pages, longer than McCall Smith’s books usually are, and the first 50 or so pages are indeed rather slow. You may indeed wonder if anyone seeking a partner might be deterred by the promise of “perfect passion”, not something often likely to be on offer outside the pages of Mills & Boon novels. Nevertheless, McCall Smith’s countless experienced readers will not be deterred, will indeed be delighted by the promise of a longer than usual novel, while others new to his work, of which there may still be a few, will soon join the ranks of the captivated.
The outline is simple. Katie has returned to Edinburgh in the wake of an unsatisfactory relationship. Her aunt Ness has invited her to take over the PP company while she takes a sabbatical in Canada. We learn intermittently of her life there, but the story is really about Katie and her friendship with William, a young Australian who designs and knits beautiful jerseys, scarves and other items, and who occupies the next door office. Meanwhile we follow the fortunes of various clients seeking the perfect, if not necessarily passionate, partner. These cases are interesting, sometimes needing an imaginative response – how, for instance, to find a suitable partner for a woman who can’t stop talking.
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Hide AdThe developing relationship between Katie and William is at the heart of the novel. It is soon clear that she is falling in love with him. She won’t admit this to herself because he has a fiancée, Alice, a medical student in Australia, and Katie has honourable principles. We are in Jane Austen territory here. What will happen when Alice comes to visit him in Edinburgh?
McCall Smith is the most engaging of writers. His prose flows so smoothly that it is easy to think he is merely entertaining. He is certainly that, but the word “merely” is very wrong. He is unusual among novelists today in being a moralist, even a stern one. Of course he is not only that. He tells a good story. His evocation of Edinburgh is as ever charming. Individual scenes – an untimely Borns Supper, for instance – are agreeably amusing, sometimes dramatic. There is, as ever in his work, abundant delight. You can read him with purring pleasure.
He is concerned with how people behave and how they should behave. He believes in kindness and honesty, neither of which are common in fiction today. His range may seem limited, but there is nothing wrong with that. I mentioned Janes Austen, whose novels have one central problem: who should the heroine marry? And why? And why not? It is, after all, a very serious question, one with which many of the greatest novelists have been concerned. I think of Balzac, who broke away from a discussion about politics by turning, as he said, to a serious question: “who should Eugenie Grandet marry?”, she being the heroine of the novel he was then writing.
How should people behave? How can we be honest with others? And with ourselves? When is it right to suppress our feelings or opinions? Should we always tell the truth or sometimes remain silent? What is the proper relationship between manners and honesty? Such questions are important, not addressed as often perhaps as they should be in novels today. McCall Smith’s willingness, determination indeed, to examine such matters makes him unusual.
McCall Smith’s manner is so easy, his fecundity so astonishing, his charm so evident that it is easy to regard him as a lightweight, a mere entertainer. This is understandable, but a novelist who concerns himself with questions of thought, speech and conduct is not a “mere” anything. In his concern for right thought and conduct he is one of the most considerable and satisfying, as well as delightful, novelists working today.
The Perfect Passion Company, by Alexander McCall Smith, Polygon, £18