Customer Reviews

Portuguese Irregular Verbs

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The first of three books in the Professor Dr von Igelfeld Series (same author as #1 Ladies Detective...).

Comical episodes surrounding the mishaps of three extremely rigid (and hysterical) German professors who are experts (of course) in their field of language/linguistics (imagine a German version of Fraiser). Racked by guilt and self-certainty, waves of supreme confidence and landslides of self-doubt, their everyday incidents will have you laughing aloud. Fans of Basil Faulty or P. G. Wodehouse and like British-humor will delight in the characters and their very digestible episodes. Each book is quite short (~120 pages) and you'll probably end up with all three.

Under 'Book Description' on this book's Amazon site, reference is made to the "rarified world" of Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld the great philologist (one who studies literary texts to determine their original form and meaning; an older word for 'linguistics'. Can one imagine anything more tedious? or bo-o-r-r-ing?). Rarified, indeed, it is...almost out of the stratosphere. Our dear doctor lives so completely in his head that he misses the point of almost all that goes on around him in the world of the mundane. He is also extraordinarily socially inept. In one instance, he is so concerned that he do things "properly" in approaching the lady he would like to make his wife that in the five weeks he waits to make his initial approach, a friend, on a little faster track, has pursued the lady and asked her to marry him. She has accepted.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs is comprised of eight short stories about events in the lives of three philologists who are friends. Dr von Igelfeld is the primary character. His friends are fellow philologists, Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer and Professor Dr Dr Florianus Prinzel. Germans all.

The stories of Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld are nothing like those of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. The humor is very dry and, for some, will be non-existent, or close to it. I think one needs to have lived a while and known a fair number of people to really appreciate this book. I believe that as a result of having read this first book in the series, I better understand a couple people I actually know, and have known for years! I also think I'll delay that trip to Venice I was thinking of taking.

It is a tribute to Mr. Smith's ability to write that he can take such stuffy, one-dimensional people and show them in a humorous light. He is simply terrifico!!

Carolyn Rowe Hill

Whether or not it is impossible to insult someone in the imperfect subjunctive tense in Hindi or not (for those of you familiar with Hindi, I defy you to think of an example!), this is a great book. In fact, this very point is debated fiercely by the protagonist, noted philologist Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld (literally "Hedgehog Field" in German) and the noted Indian philologist and author of the classic texts "Dravidian Verb Shifts" and "Terms of Ritual Abuse in the Creditor/Debtor Relationship in Village India," Professor J. G. K. L. Singh of Chandighar.

This is the first volume in a series following the adventures of Dr. von Igelfeld and his associates Professor Dr. Dr. (honoris causa) Florianus Prinzel and Professor Dr. Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer through the arcane riddles of linguistic obfuscation in languages including not only Portuguese, but also German, English, Hindi, and Urdu, just to name a few. Along the way they become involved with a cast of odd characters typical of academia, excessive dental pain (and ensuing romance), a sausage dog named Walter, a guru portending a train wreck, a contest ending in a rather unique dueling scar, and an encyclopedic collection of early Gaelic curse words.

This is a brief, but enjoyable work, and is vastly preferable to the original 1,200 page namesake work by von Igelfeld himself: Alexander McCall Smith has written a winner. For anyone amused by linguistics, stuffy Prussians (hey, who isn't?), or exceedingly improbable situations, this is a great little volume. I am looking forward to the remaining books in the series.

Goodness...! This series has certainly drawn a disparate set of reviews. It's certainly true that the von Igelfeld series (Portuguese Irregular Verbs) is very different to the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series, which is much more warm-hearted with likeable characters - but don't let that dismay you.

To decide whether this is a title you'll enjoy, think about these things:

1. Do you enjoy characters that are very subtly drawn, who are pompous, self-important, highly intellectual, somewhat impractical, with a virtually impregnable sense of self-esteem?

2. Do you enjoy characters who are not always charming and nice, and at whom the author pokes a bit of fun?

3. Do you enjoy a subtle sort of humour which isn't aiming for rich chuckles but quiet smiles at the absurdities of those who dwell in a ludicrous environment of their own making?

4. Do you find deliciously amusing the accoutrements of an exclusively academic life?

If you answer "yes" to the above, I think you'll thoroughly enjoy the "Portuguese Irregular Verbs" series. I certainly did. It reminded me VERY much of Grossmith's "Diary of a Nobody". That has the same half-affectionate mockery where the absurd becomes the hook upon which the reader hangs his hat.

If, on the other hand, you want uproarious laughter in the style of a stand-up comedian, you will probably miss the point in this series. The series really has nothing in the style of Monty Python... It's certainly not Blackadder, although I can see, in a way, why the comparison might be drawn (the wit is in the words).

I have read the series, and listened to the audiobooks (but I'm not sure this particular edition has the same reader to whom I listened. I heard the superb Hugh Laurie, who could read the fine print on a legal contract and make it sound interesting. What he does with this delicious stuff is extraordinarily amusing in its subtle way).

You'll need to make up your own mind - clearly there are many differing opinions on this series. If you do decide to listen to these... enjoy!

I bought this book from Amazon UK last year because it wasn't

yet published in the U.S. It cost me a good $20.00 with the shipping, but it was well worth it. Entertaining, funny, a good read. McCall Smith came through again. I laughed out loud, good and hard, several times. I highly recommend it.

This book is the first in McCall Smith's "Professor Dr. von Igelfeld" Series. The Professor is the protagonist of all these books, as Precious Ramotswe is the protagonist in all the "No. 1 Ladies Detective" Series books. But Professor Dr. von Igelfeld is quite a different character all together.

A professor of Romance Philology, Dr. von Igelfeld sees himself as a great academician in the present day world. Yet his field is so narrow and so esoteric, that there are few who really have interest in it. Yet, the good Dr. writes the definitive book on Portuguese Irregular Verbs, and thereby; has earned a place in immortal history: or so he would see it.

The book is extremely amusing and entertaining as McCall Smith takes us through the ill fated travails of the Good Professor Dr. von Igelfeld. The Dr. is always trying to do the "societal correct" thing. Yet he often manages to botch that effort rather enormously. Of great interest is McCall Smith's last chapter, called "A Death In Venice." And the chapter is a direct and unobscured reference to Thomas Mann's story of the same name.

The chapter is unusual, and brings all types of questions to mind about Prof. Dr. von Igelfeld, not least of which is whether he has a personal sexual identity crisis. Mann's story was about latent homosexuality, and that precise topic is eluded to, in a very unusual manner. Yet, not unlike Mann's story, the allusions are very subtle.

The book is recommended for all McCall Smith readers. The Series is greatly amusing and shows what can happen when people take themselves just a little bit too seriously.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs is one of only three books in Alexander McCall Smith's series featuring Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, author of the philological masterwork that gives this book its title. (See my reviews of the other books in the series, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances.) All of the von Igelfeld books were published in 2003, so that there is arguably no starting point to the series, yet readers would be advised to begin with this volume. The eight stories included in Portuguese Irregular Verbs provide a great deal of background information about our hero. We learn of his acquaintance while a student with Florianus Prinzel, now his colleague at the Institute of Romance Philology in Regensburg, and of his early work as an assistant to a professor of Celtic philology:

"'I couldn't have hoped for a better start to my career,' he confided in Prinzel. 'Vogelsang knows more about past anterior verbs in Early Irish than anybody else in the world.'"

We are given accounts, too, of the very moment when the idea of writing about Portuguese irregular verbs came to Igelfeld, and of his ill-fated near courtship of a certain lady dentist. Von Igelfeld travels to Ireland and Zürick, Siena and Venice and India in these stories. He meets a holy man and (maybe) a murderer, gets a tooth pulled, and provokes a sword fight. Throughout von Igelfeld is characteristically self-important and endearingly out of touch:

"Von Igelfeld sat down in the reception room and picked up the first magazine he saw on the table before him. He paged through it, noticing the pictures of food and clothes. How strange, he thought--what sort of Zeitschrift is this? Do people really read about these matters? He turned a page and began to read something called the Timely Help column. Readers wrote in and asked advice over their problems. Von Igelfeld's eyes opened wide. Did people discuss such things in open print?"

Some of the stories included in the book are better than others. In the most poignant of them ("Portuguese Irregular Verbs") Igelfeld attempts to beef up sales of his monograph to save it from being sold off by shelf foot. His quest for readers leads Igelfeld for the first time to the home of his colleague and nemesis, Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer. The visit is initially infuriating:

"Von Igelfeld peered at the plate above the bell and drew in his breath sharply. Professor Dr Dr D-A. von Unterholzer. What extraordinary, bare-faced cheek! It was little short of an outrage, on three counts, no less. Firstly, Unterholzer did not have two doctorates; there was no doubt about that. Secondly, what was all this nonsense about the hyphen between Detlev and Amadeus? Amadeus was his second name, as the whole world knew, not part of his first. And finally, and perhaps most seriously of all, there was the von. Von Igelfeld felt the anger surge up within him. If people got away with adding vons to their names whenever the mood took them, then that immeasurably reduced the significance of the real vons."

But after a moving discovery while browsing Unterholzer's bookshelves, von Igelfeld finds himself warming to the man.

Alexander McCall Smith is a charming writer, and von Igelfeld a delightful character--pretentious and jealous and deeply flawed, but ultimately capable of goodness. The Igelfeld stories are delicious, quiet reads. It's unfortunate that there aren't more of them.

Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)

This is the first book by this author I've read. Anyone who is around academics should get a kick out of this parody of neurotic and self-absorbed academics plodding away at their own tiny slices of obscurity. This is a quick read, perfect for the plane or the beach.

I picked up all three books in this series while I was London. It's a wonderful read. Absolutely hysterical. For those of you who appreciate the idiosyncrasy

of German Humor , you will find these works to be classic. I only wish a few more titles were added to this series.

This is for anyone with any kind of sense of humour - British but also American. (My American wife LOVES these books as much as I do - and so do many American friends of ours). This whole series is side-splittingly funny - you don't have to have been to university, or met genuinely strange German philologists to enjoy the totally wacky sense of humour in all 3 of the series. Ever had a boss take credit for your work? Well, so has the hero of this series... In other words, this and the two sequels are splendid, and for EVERYONE. In addition this series (and the mystery set in Edinburgh) show that McCall Smith really is a genius, since the voice in this series, in the Sunday Philosphy Club and in the justly famed Ramotswe series, are all completely different. McCall Smith truly is a writer of talent, with 3 quite distinct literary voices, all of which are equally enjoyable. Make this series a fun read for a great weekend. Christopher Catherwood (author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ (Carroll and Graf, 2004)