Source of book: Audiobook from the library
We have long enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith during our road trips. Because we wanted a shorter book for a shorter trip, I grabbed this one, part of his “Professor Dr von Igelfeld” series, which is apparently up to five books now.
The backstory on the book is pretty funny on its own. Apparently, it started out as a very private in-joke between the author and his friend, Reinhard Dr. Dr. Dr. Zimmermann, a distinguished German academic. It turned into this book (which is essentially a collection of eight short stories), and from there became a series. The book was published in England before McCall Smith had his big success with the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, so the book languished in relative obscurity. In fact, Dr. Zimmermann bought up most of the initial run (see, total in-joke), and continued to make a large purchase of subsequent books just to keep in the spirit of things.
The book pokes a lot of fun at academia, Germans, and a certain sort of feckless comic character embodied by people like Samuel Pickwick and various dundering Wodehouse sorts. The humor, as it always is in McCall Smith’s books, is gentle and affectionate. He isn’t there to humiliate von Igelfeld, just to watch him blunder through life in his own endearing way.
First, a word on the “Professor Dr.” thing. The German way of listing qualifications is to string the degrees along in a row, so the more you get, the longer the official title. Hence, as of when the first book came out, Zimmermann was three doctorates in a row. He now has more, apparently. In the book too, characters are often referred to by an absurd number of “Drs.” before their name, to comic effect.
In the book, von Igelfeld is first a doctoral student finishing his degree, then a distinguished professor, with his magnum opus, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, in very limited print, held in great esteem by academics in his field, but unknown outside of it. He wants respect for his work, and some love too, but he just can’t get none. He also tends to lose out in honors and affairs of the heart to his less distinguished colleague (and frenemy) Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. (And yes, the names are part of the joke.)
Throughout the book, von Igelfeld and his colleagues attend conferences, go on vacations, and otherwise do essentially boring and normal things. But…well, that is the fun of the book.
So, you get that moment when Igelfeld signs on to do his doctoral studies in Ireland, with an established academic. Unsurprisingly, this guy then proceeds to steal Igelfeld’s work, make him do all the dirty jobs, and eventually throws him under the bus altogether. The research project is on Old Irish, and involves (in part) interviewing this cantankerous old hermit, who refuses an interview, but who does hurl invective at them for hours, enabling a fairly good collection of language. Except, when translated, it all turns out to be, well, as the book calls it, “pornographic.” Which, when the translations are discovered by Igelfeld’s landlady…
Several of the stories involve, at least in part, lodgings. Igelfeld attends a conference in Italy, and inadvertently books a room in an inn run by a rude and xenophobic old woman. When Igelfeld hears her dismiss Germans as gluttons, he determines to eat next to nothing as long as he is there. Which is completely undermined when a colleague comes in and devours everything.
There is also a stay in Venice that involves a geiger counter and a mystified Polish family. And a trip to India where von Igelfeld has his future told by a guru, and the speeches are even more boring than usual. And that time that von Igelfeld, on the grounds that his other colleague Florianus Prinzel looks athletic, commits him to a duel. And that other time that Prinzel, Unterholzer, and von Igelfeld try to play tennis by reading the rule book, much to the amusement of the other hotel guests. Also, the episode in which he falls in love with his female dentist, only to find that she is using his book as a stepstool.
It is silly stuff, and stuffy silliness, and my kids found it pretty funny. Even the academic in-jokes, which probably says something about how grownup they are getting these days.
This series appears to be a bit different than McCall Smith’s other books, in that it is just fun for the sake of fun, without the deeper undercurrents of philosophy and ethics. (Our exploration of the Mma. Ramotswe books over the last 8 years has been an ethical education for the kids. Well, that and Terry Pratchett.) So, we had a good time with this book for different reasons than his others.
I should also give a callout to narrator Paul Hecht, who had to pronounce several languages fluently for this book, which he did without hesitation.
***
The list of Alexander McCall Smith posts:
#1 Ladies Detective Agency series
The Tears of the Giraffe (#2 in the series)
Morality for Beautiful Girls (#3)
The Kalahari Typing School For Men (#4)
The Full Cupboard of Life (#5)
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (#6)
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (#8)
Sunday Philosophy Club series
Other books:
La’s Orchestra Saves the World
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