Customer Reviews

La's Orchestra Saves the World

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Alexander McCall Smith has built a following based on his serial novels -- the Mma Ramotswe mysteries set in Botswana as well as the two series of more general fiction set in his home town of Edinburgh. In those, each chapter is essentially a self-contained story, each of which builds on the events in previous chapters and creates a narrative arc leading toward the book's conclusion. In "La's Orchestra Saves the World", the author has taken a much more conventional structure, although his main character, La herself, is anything but a traditional heroine, although in her own way she is just as quirky as any Botswanan sleuth or 40-something Edinburgh bluestock philosopher.

La, the eponymous heroine, after a series of events, is living in the English countryside, somewhat rootless and aimless, when World War 2 breaks out. Her need -- never strongly felt -- to seek a place for herself gives way to a quest to make herself useful. She cares for a local farmer's hens, creates a garden -- and, to her own astonishment, creates a ramshackle kind of orchestra made up in part of the airmen from a local RAF base.

This is not a war novel in any sense; the conflict itself is distant from the day to day lives of La and her neighbors, even as they must cope with everything from the deaths of those they know to the vicissitudes of rationing. The style, plot and character development are as old-fashioned in feeling as La's proper name -- Lavender. But there is a hint of mystery and even tension when La comes on the scene. A Polish airman -- or is he? -- he plays the flute in La's orchestra, and helps out on the farm. But not everyone is as drawn to Felix as is La, and even she realizes there are some unanswered questions about his background...

Ultimately all is revealed, but this is not a conventional love story, either. While this book will probably appeal to those who enjoy reading the musings of Isabel Dalhousie in Alexander McCall Smith's Sunday Philosophy Club series, fans of the Ladies No. 1 Detective Club stories will find it much less vibrant and forceful, either in tone or characterization. The plot meanders gently to what some may find a disappointing conclusion, albeit one that makes sense of what has gone before.

It's an oddly passive story, albeit one that deals in a quiet way with all the major themes of life: love, war and a quest for identity and purpose. Those with the patience to keep reading will find much that is rewarding in a gentle kind of way, particularly in La's quest to create sense of meaning from what often seems to her to be a life that too detached.

As a fan of Alexander McCall Smith, I rather eagerly picked up "La's Orchestra Saves the World", which is a one-off novel and not part of any of his regular series (No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Scotland Street).

However, I was disappointed with the novel. It's not McCall Smith's finest by any means.

The book opens well, 2 brothers return to the village where La used to live and the ensuing conversation with the locals tantalises us with hints about La, without revealing much. You read on feeling that an interesting story is about to unfold. However, the story of La's life is characterised by being largely uninteresting. La drifts along, mostly taking the path of least resistance until other people or external events force her to take a new direction. Some phases of La's life are dealt with in incredible detail and various future directions in the storyline seem to be introduced but they are never progressed. Then towards the end of the book I felt that some publisher's deadline must have been pressing and La's life is suddenly compressed into a quick sequence of events and then the book finishes.

As I turned the last page, I was unclear in what way La's Orchestra had saved the world? Indeed, the story of the orchestra is a relatively small part of the book. La lived a small life that briefly raised morale in a small way in a time of war. She had a long-term love affair that seemed to rely on chance rather than any effort by her to develop the relationship.

I fully believe it is possible to write an interesting story of an ordinary life (and the author does so in many of his novels). But this story didn't seem to achieve it. I am curious if the novel was inspired by a real person known to the author and this book was intended as some kind of homage.

It hasn't turned me off Alexander McCall Smith. I'm prepared to let an author experiment with a new style, but I think it was a failed experiment in this case.

In his new stand-alone novel La's Orchestra Saves the World, Alexander McCall Smith tells the story of La (Lavendar) Stone, a Cambridge graduate who marries her sweetheart because it's the thing to do and subsequently finds herself falling in love with him. But her life doesn't unravel quite as she might have expected. World War II intervenes, for one thing, and La finds herself living in a small village in Suffolk, tending hens as part of the war effort and conducting an amateur orchestra by way of keeping up morale in the village and on the nearby RAF base.

I had every intention while reading the book to express surprise in my review that the author should have tacked onto his story such an unnecessary and uninteresting first chapter: it's set probably in the present day, or close enough, and introduces La as someone already dead, her orchestra a distant memory. Her life story, then, is a reminiscence. I dislike having a story framed in this way as it distances one from the main narrative. And I suppose it's an unwelcome reminder of the ephemerality of a single life. It tells you the end of the story--she's dead; it's all finished now one way or the other--before it even begins. That said, when you get to the last pages of the book, the first chapter suddenly makes sense, so it is not just an unnecessary appendage after all. I still don't like it, though, and I don't like the last chapter, either. It would be a slightly different book--but quite possibly a better one--if the first and last chapters were simply cut from it and the rest left as it stands. The last sentence of the book's penultimate chapter would even serve very nicely as this revised story's conclusion. Still, La's Orchestra, a quiet book about momentous times, is yet another worthy addition to McCall Smith's extensive oeuvre.

-- Debra Hamel

This is a sweetly old fashioned story set in Suffolk during the Second World War. The heroine, La (it's short for Lavender), moves to the country after her marriage ends. Initially she's very lonely, but gradually she builds relationships and then she has the idea of forming an orchestra for members of the nearby air base as well as for the local villagers. At the same time, the book is about her relationship with a Polish worker (Feliks), for whom she has an unrequited love while also harboring doubts about his background.

The book starts slowly, spending a lot of time on La's back story. The orchestra is only formed at the half way mark. I found the central part (during the war) very involving, but then it slows right down again after the war ends. McCall Smith does a good job of building suspense about Feliks, but then he lets it dissipate so that when we do eventually find out the truth, we're past caring. There is also one chapter towards the end when the narrative switches to La's point of view and which pre-empts any tension about what might happen when she meets up with her Pole in the next chapter. I felt that there should have been a better way to integrate La's thoughts into the book.

La is a curiously bland and passive character - neither as engaging nor as pro-active as Precious Ramotswe or Isabel Dalhousie. In fact, none of the characters ever came alive for me, although I did really enjoy the way that it captured life in the English countryside at that time. It's an enjoyable story, but it needed to be tightened and it badly needed a better structure. It pains me to be critical because I do love Alexander McCall Smith's writing, but this one felt like it was rushed out rather than going back for another re-write.

Gentle, But Profound

By Charles Jacobs, author of "The Writer Within You", a Best-Books-of-the-Year selection

Alexander McCall Smith has woven a delightful tapestry of gentility and passion that reveals the pain suffered by the "average Joes" of England during the early days of Hitler's ravaging attacks across the Channel. This gentle tale transports the reader through the many joys and disappointments of Lavender (better known as La) Stone's young life.

Deserted by the husband she has come to love deeply, she abandons London society for the solitude of a tiny, rural village in Suffolk. Her planned solitude is soon upended by the pressing need for support of the war effort. In response, La joins the Womens' Land Army, immerses herself in the local farming community to help meet the food shortages caused by the war and is intrigued by the transition she experiences from the world of London gentry to the simplicity of peasant life.

This most unusual woman finds a way to marry both traditions by mining the latent interest in music that she discovers among the residents of Suffolk and the airmen of the nearby RAF base. The rag-tag orchestra she creates imbues the area with a new sense of stability and hope as the tide of war seems to threaten the future of grand old England.

The story takes on a bit of intrigue with the appearance of an alleged displaced pilot from the Polish airforce that has been destroyed by the Nazi invaders. His arrival adds still another dimension to the remarkable life of the book's heroine.

This is a story of hope, kindness, determination and love among a very disparate group of characters played out against the backdrop of war-ravaged England.

Alexander McCall Smith has a magical way with heroines and his new stand-alone novel is no exception. I'm sorry some reviewers here seem to think otherwise. I'm guessing their disappointments result from comparisons to the author's fiercely independent 21st century heroines Mma Ramotswe and Isabel Dalhousie. Which is understandable, but perhaps unfair.

This novel is set in the gray and worried world of World War II England, a whole 'nother time to be a woman. La (short for Lavender) Stone is a faithfully rendered woman of her time and, within that context, an unusually independent and admirable one. I dunno, maybe you have to be over-the-hill to recognize and appreciate the bravery of La's "you go, girl" moments and hard won triumphs over loneliness and longing. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with her and the novel's depiction of a place and people now gone. And I can't help but imagine what a delightful black and white movie it might make.

I was at a book fair last year where McCall Smith was asked which was his favorite character. "Bertie," said he. But from the kindly way he treats her--particularly considering that he gave her an orchestra (he has one of his own, you know)--I'm guessing he loves La nearly as much. So do I. And I wish the same to you.

La's Orchestra Saves the World is the wistful if not benign story of La Stone, a jilted widower who retreats to the British countryside shortly before the UK's involvement in WWII to grieve her misfortune and perhaps begin the healing process. Alexander McCall Smith, an author with whom I was unfamiliar prior to reading this novel, is apparently especially prolific, and there are enough seams here to keep La's Orchestra a good but not great read, perhaps on account of it feeling harried.

Part One, in particular, is rushed and uneven, as it details La's courtship with Richard, a suitor on whom she's not especially keen until he begins to grow on her, for lack of a better term. We're not sure why Richard is so enamored with La, why she's initially indifferent to him, and why, after acquiescing to his persistent marriage proposals, she is suddenly madly in love with him. This, of course, sets the stage for a crushing abandonment for La and a puzzling one for the reader.

McCall Smith reins in what is becoming a messy story nicely in Parts Two and Three. La seeks refuge at a remote cottage in a farm town, where she makes her house a home, befriends locals and eventually begins to long for intimate friendships and love. Despite her new rural life, La is sophisticated college graduate, and she assembles in earnest a local orchestra (hence the book's title) in an attempt to reclaim a small part of her old life and boost morale among her war-weary neighbors and servicemen at a local RAF base.

The orchestra is a popular and critical success, and it furnishes La with additional time to spend with Feliks Dabrowski, an injured Polish soldier who tends to La's neighbor's farm, and conveniently enough, is stunningly handsome and an excellent flautist. La quickly falls in love with Feliks, and their restrained exchanges are some of the book's strongest moments as La ponders whether he'll reciprocate her feelings.

La's Orchestra is 294 pages but reads quickly, and McCall Smith's prose is delicate but charming, with the exception of a curious semicolon fetish. The book is at its best during the frequently poignant and glib dialogue, when the characters consider issues of feminism, love, death and friendship against the backdrop of a war that's ominous but never threatens to be fought in their laps.

I really loved this novel. Unlike other of McCall Smith's book, all of which I enjoy, this book stayed with me after I put it down. I loved the sweet ending to a rather sad tale and I really loved La. She endured through circumstances that would have put most people in deep depression. I enjoyed Alexander's departure and hope he does more stories that touch the heart like this one did mine.

No, it's not like his other books and it shouldn't be. It's a well-written old-fashioned novel that brims with life, drama and emotions, in an understated way. I loved it and the ending left me spellbound.

This is the quiet and gentle story of La (short for Lavender). She has moved from London to the country in 1939 after she finds out her marriage is over, "to remove herself from the physical space that her marriage occupied" and to forget about her previous life. Not long after, war is declared, and all citizens are called upon to do their part to support the war effort. La volunteers to assist with the care of chickens on a farm, and is also asked to organize an orchestra as a morale booster for troops and citizens alike. It is through La's work on the farm that she meets Feliks, a Polish airman who was badly hurt in battle, and lost the use of one eye. La and Feliks develop a friendship, and he is eventually encouraged to join the orchestra. After the hurt that La's heart has been through, will she be open to finding love again?

I did enjoy reading this book about La and her world. It is a gentle reminder about how even the seemingly smallest of lives can have an impact on others. I really like the way in which Alexander McCall Smith writes. His books are more character driven than plot driven, and because of this, his stories seem so real. I like to think that La did live at one time, and her orchestra really did play!! This book is highly readable and recommended!