New Brighton Park and Botswana

Morning notes: From Eden to Exile, after another hot night with the fan blowing weakly across the bed.

Checked in at a blog I'm enjoying: Agent 007 on Publishing, an anonymous blog by a New York literary agent who was once also an editor. She (learned today that it is a she--comparing college dating experience to author-editor and author-agent relationships) is generous with her knowledge of the publishing industry, offering good tips and information otherwise hard to find. I'm drawn to this type of knowledge right now, even though it is seemingly premature for me with my project at the stage it is. I'll follow my passion.

It's B.C. Day, so Kimmie had the day off. She proposed that we have a picnic; I agreed. She packed us up a delightful lunch (egg-salad sandwiches, cut peppers, lemonade) in the genuine wicker picnic basket that Warren gave us as a wedding present a short 16 years ago. We drove over to New Brighton Park in Vancouver and hauled our goods to a spot on the lawn. I made an entry in my prose sketchbook:

MON 1 AUG 2005 1:25 pm NEW BRIGHTON PARK B.C. DAY

Touch: Wind blowing from behind—the west. Fresh, gusting breeze, cool along the back of my left shoulder and arm. Cool brushing the back of my right elbow, and curling around my head to caress my brow beneath the brim of my cap. Bare feet pressing: right sole pressing the top of my left foot. Warmth pressed to my head by the cap. Heat of sunlight cooking my bare right shoulder. Pressure of being seated on this blanket, downhill pull of the grass slope we're on.

Taste: Residual thick saltiness of Miss Vickie's Original Recipe potato chips.

Smell: The baked smell of my own skin. A damp vegetableness of the grass.

Sound: The roar of breeze across my ears. The rustle of the leaves of the lone little maple-tree nearby: like plastic bags fluttering. A persistent mechanical roar in the distance: a windy sound of the traffic rolling off the Second Narrows Bridge. Crows caw strenuously in the distance. Or the mechanical sound may be the grain elevators: the rumble of conveyors, or something. Farther away: kids' voices calling in the open air.

Sight: Wide, well-cropped green lawn: a vacant grass soccer pitch next to us, and lawn spreading around it, rolling only very gently, mainly flat. Beyond: the massive upright cylinders of the Cascadia Terminal grain towers. Pale gray, with a long conveyor angled up to the long row of housings atop girder-work gantries. A low squat ship tied up below: cream-colored cranes over a black hull. Behind it: the asymmetrical bend of the Second Narrows Bridge, with tiny cars rolling up and down it like bubbles along a transparent tube. The trees of Vancouver Heights rise thick and green over the hard line of the grain elevator, with spindly electrical towers linked like a chain-gang along the crest. An indefinite stripe of white cloud behind them, and above: blue sky tinged with white, a wash of blue lightened with white. There are yellow flowers and trembling yellow grass by the water, which itself is dark blue-green, moving like a river, pushed by wind and tide up the inlet. A pink kite dodges in the blue.

Kimmie read a chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; I read chapter 3 of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Lessons About Boys and Goats. Good stuff; I'm enjoying it.

When I first picked up the book yesterday, a modest-sized mass-market paperback at London Drugs, standing out by its title and "feel" from all the romances and thrillers that pack the few shelves there, I was drawn to it. I had first seen the book on Mara's coffee table about 3 years ago. It looked intriguing then, but I didn't have a chance to peruse it. Yesterday I decided to give it a chance with my first-sentence test. (It had already made a favorable impression by opening plainly with chapter 1--no prologue, no epigraph.) Chapter 1: The Daddy. Sentence 1:

Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill.

Not your usual opener for a mass-market paperback at London Drugs--so good. I kind of liked the faint echo of Karen Blixen, "I had a farm in Africa". Sentence 1 is a winner. On with the rest of the paragraph:

These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe--the only lady private detective in Botswana--brewed redbush tea. And three mugs--one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course.

So far, so good. The businesslike part of me enjoyed beginning with an inventory of the "assets" of the business. Smith's style is plain and direct; already I get the feeling that it will be well-suited to his subject and his heroine. In a short space he has suggested much about Mma Ramotswe and her world--more than what he has said directly. (I talked in an earlier post about how James Joyce evoked a character so strongly by describing his room.) The narrator is establishing himself as very sympathetic with his heroine, indeed semi-merged with her. We feel that the question what else does a detective agency really need? is Mma Ramotswe's, rather than the narrator's. But I feel it's the narrator's assessment when he says that Mma Ramotswe had intuition and intelligence in abundance. We feel that the narrator likes his heroine's way of thinking, and agrees with it. There is a loving hand at work.

I read a few more paragraphs in the store, but I was already willing to give it a punt. I bought the book (marked price, $10.99 Canadian; store price, $8.79: a 20% discount, for some reason). At 3 chapters in, I've learned Mma Ramotswe's life story and she's solved one small mystery. The main story is not yet in sight, but I'm comfortable and enjoying her presence. Onward!