The Kalahari Typing School for Men (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 4)

Alexander McCall Smith brings Mma Ramotswe back onstage with all her formidable qualities very much in effect; her shrewd mother-wit, her common sense, and her uncanny intuition. Like the first three book, "The Kalahari Typing School for Men" is an enchanting love poem to the people and the continent that so intrigues and fascinates Smith, and which he makes so fascinating for the rest of us. It's all summed up in his coda on the final page:

africa
africa africa
africa africa africa
africa africa
africa


Three cheers for McCall Smith and his fabulous book!   June 29, 2003
Bookreporter.com (New York, New York)
29 out of 29 found this review helpful

Western writers usually enter Africa by way of a protagonist who belongs to their own culture (missionary, functionary, explorer, soldier, mail-order bride) and is venturing into unknown territory. So it is one of the mysteries --- and miracles --- of recent fiction that a Scotsman named Alexander McCall Smith should have created a character like Precious Ramotswe, the full-bodied, clear-headed, absolutely captivating investigator who inhabits all four of his Botswana novels: THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY, TEARS OF THE GIRAFFE, MORALITY FOR BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, and now, THE KALAHARI TYPING SCHOOL FOR MEN.

Mma Ramotswe (in traditional Botswana culture, honorifics are always used; it seems rude not to do so in the review as well) has had a tough life: married to an abusive jazz musician, she loses her baby and then her beloved father. But she finds her vocation: she sets up the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and is soon attracting clients. She also acquires a fiance, garage owner Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, two orphans, and a sidekick, Mma Makutsi, who received a grade of 97 percent on her exams at the Botswana Secretarial College. You don't have to be familiar with the first three books to follow the action in KALAHARI --- McCall Smith is careful to supply context for the first-time reader --- but I think it's better to discover them in order. Not only do you gradually develop a sense of Mma Ramotswe and her life on Zebra Drive (yep, that's the name of her street), but you also become deeply fond of Botswana (this is important since, to the average Westerner, Africa is still a "dark" --- that is, unknown --- continent). These wise, charming books leave you feeling washed clean and peaceful, with an expanded sense of humanity.

Although KALAHARI and the other books are technically mysteries, plot is not the main thing here. There are interlocking events --- a man across town opens a new detective agency; Mma Makutsi starts a typing school for men; Mma Ramotswe solves a case or two --- but there is little real tension or suspense. What keeps you reading is the wonderful writing: pure, economical, funny, utterly lacking in condescension. The evocation of Botswana is often lyrical (its quiet roads, its ubiquitous cattle). Sometimes the stories seem fable-like, as if McCall Smith is telling them around a campfire in the deep African night. This impression is reinforced by the repetition of certain phrases. Mma Ramotswe has a "tiny white van" and is "traditionally built." She believes in "the old Botswana morality" --- a phrase that covers everything from knocking and calling out "Ko Ko" before you enter someone's house to the deeper sense of courtesy and integrity that is being overwhelmed by modern life.

It is one of the many ironies of this wonderful book that Mma Ramotswe and her cohorts, despite their professed yearning for traditional values, are actually the smartest, most progressive people around. Because they are authentic and honest and guided by common sense rather than greed or pride, they make phony modernists like the proprietor of the rival Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency look like idiots (the scene in which Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi pay him a visit is priceless). Indeed, THE KALAHARI TYPING SCHOOL FOR MEN, more than the others in the series, is very much occupied with gender; it has a feminist streak a mile wide.

Consider the characters McCall Smith gives us: the entrepreneurial Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi; the imposing head of the orphan farm, Mma Potokwani, who wangles free products and services from everyone ("It would take a degree of courage that few possessed to turn [her] down"); Mma Tsolamosese, whose daughter has died of AIDS and who is caring for her doomed grandchild with dignity and compassion; and Mma Boko, who is head of a local branch of the Botswana Rural Women's Association but refuses to run for office because "all [men] do is talk about money and roads and things like that. ... We women have more important things to talk about."

With sly humor and wry tolerance, the novel captures that conspiratorial sense among women --- in any culture --- that men are not quite up to their standards (Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni being the exception, of course): "The trouble with men," muses Mma Ramotswe, "was that they went about with their eyes half closed for much of the time. ... That was why women were so good at tasks which required attention to the way people felt. Being a private detective, for example. ..." Or Mma Makutsi, commenting on the essays written by her typing-school students: "All of life seemed to be laid out before her: mothers, wives, football teams, ambitions at work, cherished motor cars; everything that men liked." And when Mma Ramotswe says her foster son is going through "a difficult patch," a friend replies dryly: "Boys do go through times like that. It can last for fifty years."

McCall Smith, it turns out, was born in what is now Zimbabwe (then called Southern Rhodesia) and taught law at the University of Botswana, but those facts alone hardly explain his astounding ability to enter the soul of a woman as well as the soul of Africa. He, like Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, must be one of the exceptions, a good man. He is certainly an imaginative and observant one. Somehow he manages to communicate the specific feel and spirit of Botswana while also creating characters that transcend the barriers of geography, culture, and gender.

McCall Smith is writing a fifth Precious Ramotswe book, according to his publisher, and has started a new series featuring another lady detective, Isabel Dalhousie (Scottish father, American mother). I can't wait.

--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman


Fortunately, NOT the Last in the Series! MORE! MORE!   July 12, 2003
H. Row (Arvada, CO United States)
20 out of 22 found this review helpful

Alexander McCall Smith has written over 50 books from specialized works as The Criminal Law of Botswana, Forensic
Aspects of Sleep to Children's books. He currently is a Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh University

The Kalahari Typing School For Men
Now that The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (UNTIL NOW, the only detective agency for ladies and others in Botswana) is established, its founder, Precious Ramotswe, can look upon her life with pride: she's reached her late thirties ("the finest age to be"), has a house, two children, a good fiance -- Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni -- and many satisfied customers. But life is never without its problems. It turns out that her adopted son is responsible for the dead hoopoe bird in the garden; her assistant, Mma Makutsi, wants a husband and needs help with her idea to open the Kalahari Typing School for Men; yet Mma Ramotswe's sexist rival has no trouble opening his Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency across town. Will Precious Ramotswe's delightfully cunning and profoundly moral methods save the day? Follow the continuing story of Botswana's first lady detective in the irresistible "Kalahari Typing School for Men".
Readers who haven't yet discovered Mma Ramotswe will enjoy discovering how her quiet humor, understated observations on life, and resolutely intuitive approach to detection promise to put Botswana on the sleuthing map for good.
IF there is a downside to this excellent series of enchanting mysteries, it is that it takes several years after a books initial release overseas to appear in US publication. Readers who are hooked on the lovable characters, beautiful setting and imaginative plots will be glad to know that The Full Cupboard of Life (the 5th in the series, is to be published by Polygon UK May 2003). And in a recent interview Alexander McCall Smith forsees even more books in the series! When will Mma Ramotswe and Mr J.L.B. Metekoni tie the knot (is that the correct phrase for getting married in Botswana?). What further adventures and Life's lessons will the group encounter and share with their readers? I for one CAN'T WAIT!!!

The Full Cupboard of Life (the 5th in the series, is to be published by Polygon UK May 2003)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book for it's unique and likable characters and exotic setting. The uniqueness of the mysteries
reflect a simpler lifestyle than many of us live and especially expect in a "mystery". TOTAL ENJOYMENT!
John Row


I love these books: Great writing not bound by genre   January 1, 2004
bensmomma (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful

"The Kalahari Typing School for Men" continues the story of "lady detective" Precious Ramotswe, her fiance, Mr. J.L.B. Maketoni, and the assistant detective/secretary, Mma Makutsi.

McCall Smith is an outstanding writer, not bound by genre. His descriptions of the Botswana countryside are as evocative as any "nature" writer's, and his ability to create interesting, entertaining, and complex characters is unparalleled. Precious, Mr. Maketoni, and Mma Makutsi are so clearly drawn that you would know them instantly if you met them on the street. In "Kalahari," we particularly get to know the plain, bespectacled, but utterly self-reliant Mma Makutsi better, when she starts her own typing school.

My one caveat for series neophytes is that there is very little detecting going on in these books; in fact, McCall Smith appears to have given up clues, discovery, and the like entirely in favor of more character development.

But he's so very very good at it, you mustn't miss it!


I LOVE THE CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK!   May 27, 2003
Fafa Demasio (New York City)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

"I must remember, thought Mma. Ramotswe, how fortunate I am in this life; at every moment, but especially now, sitting on the verandah of my house in Zebra Drive, and looking up at the high sky of Botswana, so empty that the blue is almost white. Here she was then, Precious Ramotswe, owner of Botswana's only detective agency, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency-an agency which by and large had lived up to its initial promise to provide satisfaction for its clients, although some of them, it must be said, could never be satisfied. And here she was too, somewhere in her late thirties, which as far as she was concerned was the very finest age to be; here she was with the house in Zebra Drive and two orphan children, a boy and a girl, bringing life and chatter into the home. These were blessings with which anybody should be content. With these things in one's life, one might well say that nothing more was needed." (Page 1)
So begins Alexander McCall Smith's latest book, THE KALAHARI TYPING SCHOOL FOR MEN. He has a wonderful African storytelling voice. Parts of the book are funny, sad, educational, and touching.
Mma. Ramotswe deals with real and moral problems. Although the troubles take place in Africa, they are universal and range from searching for people from the past, cheating spouses, looking for love, raising children, trying to improve one's financial status, trying to right a wrong, to dealing with competition, and more.
I enjoy the way Mma. Ramotswe solves her clients' problems as well as her own. There are no guns or high-speed chases. There is no fighting, cursing, or the likes. An element of danger and adventure exists in Mma. Ramotswe's work but the detective uses her wits and manners when dealing with others. The plot is always refreshing.
I love the way THE KALAHARI TYPING SCHOOL FOR MEN transports me to Mma. Ramotswe's world. I feel like I'm a part of the detective agency. I feel like I'm riding with Mma. Ramotswe in her little white van along the Botswana plains. I feel like I'm sharing a cup of red bush tea with her and Mma. Makutsi. I feel like I've tasted a slice of the cake that Mma. Potokwani always serves Mma. Ramotswe at the orphanage. I feel like I know the kind and gentle Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. I feel like I'm in the same room with his funny mechanic apprentices.
Another good read.
Fafa Demasio