The Unbearable Lightness of Scones 44 Scotland Street Series (5)

by McCall Smith, Alexander

• ISBN13: 9780307454706
• ISBN10: 0307454703
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-12
• Publisher: Anchor

Summary

The witty and utterly delightful new novel in the national bestselling 44 Scotland Street series.

Featuring all the quirky characters we have come to know and love, The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, finds Bertie, the precocious six year old, still troubled by his rather overbearing mother, Irene, but seeking his escape in the Cub Scouts. Matthew is rising to the challenge of married life with newfound strength and resolve, while Domenica epitomizes the loneliness of the long-distance intellectual. Cyril, the gold-toothed star of the whole show, succumbs to the kind of romantic temptation that no dog can resist and creates a small problem, or rather six of them, for his friend and owner Angus Lordie.

With his customary deftness, Alexander McCall Smith once again brings us an absorbing and entertaining tale of some of Scotland's most quirky and beloved characters all set in the beautiful, stoic city of Edinburgh.

"Delightful Sweet Graceful Wonderful Alexander McCall Smith writes faster than most people read, which is good news for his legions of fans who rarely have to go more than a few months without a new fix of his gentle but powerfully addicting fiction."-Entertainment Weekly

"Just about perfect Contains a healthy helping of McCall Smith's patented charm." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Delightfully charming McCall Smith's plots offer wit, charm and intrigue in equal doses."-Richmond Times Dispatch

"Entertaining and witty A sly send-up of society in Edinburgh."-Orlando Sentinel

"Mr. McCall Smith, a fine writer, paints his hometown of Edinburgh as indelibly as he captures the sunniness of Africa. We can almost feel the mists as we tread the cobblestones."-The Dallas Morning News

"Alexander McCall Smith is the most genial of writers and the most gentle of satirists The characters are great fun and McCall Smith treats all of them with affection." -Rocky Mountain News

Author Biography

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie Series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics.

Excerpts

1. Love, Marriage and Other Surprises

The wedding took place underneath the Castle, beneath that towering, formidable rock, in a quiet church that was reached from King’s Stables Road. Matthew and Elspeth Harmony had made their way there together, in a marked departure from the normal routine in which the groom arrives first, to be followed by the bride, but only after a carefully timed delay, enough to make the more anxious members of her family look furtively at their watches – and wonder.

    Customs exist to be departed from, declared Matthew. He had pointedly declined to have a stag party with his friends but had nonetheless asked to be included in the hen party that had been organised for Elspeth.

    “Stag parties are dreadful,” he pronounced. “Everybody has too much to drink and the groom is subjected to all sorts of insults. Left without his trousers by the side of the canal and so on. I’ve seen it.”

    “Not always,” said Elspeth. “But it’s up to you, Matthew.”

    She was pleased that he was revealing himself not to be the type to enjoy a raucous male-only party. But this did not mean that Matthew should be allowed to come to her hen party, which was to consist of a dinner at Howie’s restaurant in Bruntsfield, a sober do by comparison with the Bacchanalian scenes which some groups of young women seemed to go in for.

    No, new men might be new men, but they were still men, trapped in that role by simple biology. “I’m sorry, Matthew,” she said. “I don’t think that it’s a good idea at all. The whole point about a hen party is that it’s just for women. If a man were there it would change everything. The conversation would be different, for a start.”

    Matthew wondered what it was that women talked about on such occasions. “Different in what way?” He did not intend to sound peevish, but he did.

    “Just different,” said Elspeth airily. She looked at him with curiosity. “You do realise, Matthew, that men and women talk about rather different things? You do realise that, don’t you?”

    Matthew thought of the conversations he had with his male friends. “I don’t know if there’s all that much difference,” he said. “I talk about the same things with my male and female friends. I don’t make a distinction.”

    “Well, I’m sorry,” said Elspeth. “But the presence of a man would somehow interrupt the current. It’s hard to say why, but it would.”

    So the subject had been left there and Elspeth in due course enjoyed her hen party with seven of her close female friends, while Matthew went off by himself to the Cumberland Bar. There he met Angus Lordie sitting alone with his dog, Cyril.

    “I suppose that this is a sort of stag party for me,” Matthew remarked to Angus.

    Underneath the table, Cyril, who had long wrestled with temptation to bite Matthew’s ankles, suddenly leaned forward and licked them instead.

    “There, you see,” said Angus. “When a dog licks you, it confers a benediction. Cyril understands, you know. That’s his way of saying that he’s going to be sorry to lose you.”

    “But he’s not going to lose me,” protested Matthew. “One doesn’t completely disappear when one gets married.”

    Angus looked at Matthew with his slightly rheumy eyes. “Really? Well, we won’t be seeing much of you here after the event.”

  

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Excerpted from The Unbearable Lightness of Scones by Alexander McCall Smith
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