The Sunday Philosophy Club (Isabel Dalhousie Book 1)

Congratulations to Alexander McCall Smith for attempting to create a character who cares about good and evil, ethics and morality, and doing the right thing. However, I wonder if Isabel, who is meant to be quite scholarly, is all that bright. For example, "She had been a young girl when the Berlin Wall came down, and Stalin, and Hitler, and all the other tyrants were distant historical figures to her, almost as remote as the Borgias. Who were her bogeymen? she wondered. Who, if anyone, would really terrify her generation?" Yoo hoo, Isabel, ever heard of Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and Yassir Arafat? Isabel believes that "people had lost their moral compass" but she spends most of her time examining rather innocuous moral shortcomings, like calling someone by a nickname that he doesn't like, or the ethics of litter. At one point Isabel puts away a piece of cake she has prepared for herself, because perhaps eating that cake is unethical since there are hungry people in the world and until there is an equal distribution of food, nobody should consume anything extra. Perhaps it would be more effective for Isabel to make a large charitable contribution rather than putting away that cake (what's going to happen to the cake if it sits in her cupboard, will it rot? is wasting food less immoral than eating more than one absolutely needs?). Cheating on one's wife or girlfriend is a no-no, but having sex with as many people (of both sexes) as one likes, on the other hand, is fine - "O well," says Isabel, "People do these things." Later, when Isabel is investigating a suspicious death, someone intentionally steers her in the wrong direction and Isabel thereafter suspects an innocent person of murder, but it never occurs to her to question the ethics of casting blame on innocent people in order to evade the law. Since Isabel is supposed to be a philosopher, it's disappointing that the bottom line of her moral/ethical code is that if a person does something terrible to another person but he didn't mean to do it, then it's OK and Isabel - who was not the injured party - forgives them (and since she has decided to forgive, there's no need to bring in the justice system). Perhaps the loved ones of the injured party are entitled to know the truth about what happened, and perhaps THEY are the ones who are entitled to forgive or not forgive, but this is another ethical question that never occurs to our heroine. Sheesh - no wonder poor Isabel was dumped by the love of her life, a fellow intellectual who left her for another woman. I suspect the other woman was a bit sharper upstairs!

Instead.....approach it as a puzzle which the lead character, Isabel Dalhousie, wants to solve. Because if you are looking for a mystery novel as they are normally presented, you will be completely disappointed. If this had been the usual type of mystery story, one question with it's resulting answer would have taken away all of the mystery and solved the case. No, read this book for other reasons. Because you already know the work of this author and you enjoy his style of presenting a story. Because you are interested in philosophy as applied to almost every incident you encounter during the day. Because you love reading books which take place in Scotland or Edinburgh. Because you are interested in art or literature.Isabel was never involved with the police in the solving of this puzzle. The reader is not given information from an official perspective, only the thoughts and wonderings of a woman who takes on the responsibility of finding out why Mark Fraser fell to his death from the balcony of a concert hall. Isabel believes that it is her moral and ethical responsibility to find out what happened.As other reviewers have stated, this is a very slow moving novel. I enjoyed many of Isabel's mental gymnastics concerning her philosophy regarding one point or another in the investigation. I enjoyed her relationship with her niece, Cat and with her housekeeper Grace. But after a while I became anxious to have the book focus on the mystery, the investigation. It really never did satisfy me on that score. I also got rather dissatisfied with the references to the Sunday Philosophy Club which, as far as I could tell, did not even exist. There were certainly never any meetings taking place in this story, no members named, no questions or topics discussed.I was easily able to read this book in one afternoon, partially because I finally began to skim over large amounts of the philosophy of blank vs blank. As an amateur sleuth Isabel has a huge amount of improvement to make before I read another of her adventures. I've noticed that later titles in this series no longer include the word mystery. That's probably good. Her character seemed like a very nice person but she really needed a better reason for getting herself involved in this case which ended with an anticlimactic whimper and a moral judgment on Isabel's part. But then, why bother the officials of Edinburgh at this late date?

All the books of this series are wonderful! I am from Germany and I liked to read this 📚 books so much. Some are translated in German and I gave it to my mom. She couldn't stop reading and she is very sad that the translating has stopped.

Como es habitual en Alexander McCall Smith, el relato combina genialmente cultura, valores e intriga, logrando un resultado magnifico. Es un autor imprescindible.

I read these novels when they were first released but my hard copies are currently in a different country to me. Alexander McColl Smith is one of my favourite authors. I love his Number 1 Ladies detective agency series. The Isabel Dalhousie series is of course very different as it’s based in Edinburgh. Isabel is a delightfully written character who is a philosopher and so each of these stories include fantastic philosophical narratives as Isabel struggles with each of her choices. However Isabel can’t help herself when it comes to helping others even if it puts herself in internal dilemmas. Her wistful crush on her nieces ex-boyfriend is certainly a dilemma she is trying not to think about as she navigates the potential existential quandaries this would cause to those around her. If you love philosophy or indeed like to understand more about this then you will love this series. Alexander McColl Smith is a master of complex stories and I adore this series!!

Un roman original qui mêle intrigue policière et philosophie. Le personnage principal est attachant tout comme les personnages secondaires. A tester.

good