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A review by june_englit_phd
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances by Alexander McCall Smith
4.0
"'I cannot tell you how happy I am to be back in Germany. Cambridge is a fine place, but you know the probelem'......'Yes,' said von Igelfeld. 'Everything is so irrational in that country. And the people, quite frankly, are utterly eccentric. You have to analyse their smallest pronouncements to work out what they mean. If it is bad weather they will say things like 'Charming weather we are having!''And yet the weather isn't charming,' said Unterholzer. 'Why then do they say that it's charming?' 'Why indeed?' agreed von Igelfeld. 'They often say the direct opposite of what they mean'".
Of the trilogy of books in the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, this was the one I liked least, although I still found it entertaining reading. Von Igelfeld goes off to Cambridge for a Sabbatical, and meets some interesting characters during his time there, and learns of plots to topple a Fellow of one of the Cambridge University colleges. Then, on his return home to Germany from his Sabbatical, he is convinced his rival Unterholzer has been using his office...but how can he prove it? Finally, our hero von Igelfeld gets the recognition he so rightly deserves from a University in Colombia, where he not only picks up a Fellowship, but takes an active and heroic part in a Revolution, the consequences of which not even he could have predicted!
Loved this trilogy, comic, light-hearted and fun. Well done Mr McCall Smith!
"And he realised then that there were more important things to worry about, and that we must love those with whom we live and work, and love them for all their failings, manifest and manifold though they be".
Of the trilogy of books in the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, this was the one I liked least, although I still found it entertaining reading. Von Igelfeld goes off to Cambridge for a Sabbatical, and meets some interesting characters during his time there, and learns of plots to topple a Fellow of one of the Cambridge University colleges. Then, on his return home to Germany from his Sabbatical, he is convinced his rival Unterholzer has been using his office...but how can he prove it? Finally, our hero von Igelfeld gets the recognition he so rightly deserves from a University in Colombia, where he not only picks up a Fellowship, but takes an active and heroic part in a Revolution, the consequences of which not even he could have predicted!
Loved this trilogy, comic, light-hearted and fun. Well done Mr McCall Smith!
"And he realised then that there were more important things to worry about, and that we must love those with whom we live and work, and love them for all their failings, manifest and manifold though they be".