The Right Attitude to Rain

This is a wonderful, meandering story that gives the Isabel Dalhousie series a totally new focus. Isabel comes to the fore as a central character instead of her accustomed role as an observer of others. To be sure, the reader still gets the benefit of her ongoing philosophical mulling of virtually everyone and everything that happens in her life, but in this book, she actually HAS a life. And it's a life that has real emotion and serious romance. Throughout this book (and the rest in the series), the author, Alexander Mccall Smith, uses his characters so well to demonstrate the unceasing zig-zagging that marks everyone's interior lives and ultimately serves up a continuing story full of human foibles, generosity, uncertainty, warmth and love of all kinds. Like virtually all of Mccall Smith's books, "The Right Attitude to Rain" leaves the reader feeling better about human kind and reflective on how to better deal with life's fellow travelers.

I have always enjoyed the Isabel Dalhousie's books and in my opinion The Right Attitude to Rain is a notch above the others. Even though Isabel was still analyzing family and friends, and coming to her own conclusions in the story was a departure from the other books. Isabel's niece, Cat, has a different personality or a different side, maybe that's what I'm trying to say. Oh well, no need to expound on the plot and other parts of the as there are numerous reviews posted. I would like to add that Mr. Smith has created a wonderful story in which you will definitely care for the characters.

The Right Attitude to Rain (2006) is the third novel in the Isabel Dalhousie series, following Friends, Lovers, Chocolate. In the previous volume, Isabel spent a bit of time thinking of Auden and Brother Fox. With a little help from Jamie, she tracked down the donor of Ian's heart. And she brought about a sense of resolution between a father and his late son. In this novel, Isabel is concerned about her interventions into others's affairs. Several people, particularly Jamie, have chided her for going over the line into nosiness. However, she has convenient excuses for noticing a foreign couple park their car in a clearly marked no-parking zone and for following them into the Scottish Gallery. As it happens, she is destined to encounter this couple often during the next few weeks. Speaking of intervening, Isabel is looking for an apartment for Grace, her housekeeper. Isabel's father has asked Isabel to take care of Grace and she has decided that this request means that she should provide a place for Grace to live. Isabel asks Jamie to go with her to inspect an apartment close to his home. Isabel immediately takes a liking to the seller, Florence Macreadie, and Florence seems to like Isabel. Florence also seems to approve of Jamie. Florence has inherited a house in Trinity from her aunt and must leave her long-time residence. Yet she is not enjoying the flood of nosy viewers who have come into her home. Cat has another boyfriend, Patrick, and Isabel is determined to hold back her opinions of the man. Isabel is told about Patrick by Eddie, Cat's only employee, who seems to approve of him. Isabel soon learns that Patrick is dominated by his mother, whom she knows slightly, but she virtuously refrains from mentioning her growing doubts on the relationship to Cat. Isabel has houseguests during the summer. Cousin Mimi McKnight and her husband Joe have fled the Dallas heat and are visiting Isabel for a few weeks before moving on to a house in Oxford. They are seldom within the house during the daylight hours. Joe is researching the history of adoption in the libraries and Mimi is haunting bookstores to find works by Arthur Waley. In this story, Isabel spends too much time thinking about the morals of various subjects innocently introduced by various acquaintances. She is personally concerned about her relationship with Jamie. Of course, Jamie loves Cat, but her niece has spurned all his advances. Now Isabel is free to wonder about her own feelings for the much younger -- fourteen years -- and very good looking man. Naturally, the Review of Applied Ethics takes up some of her time and lots of her mentality. She has a young professor on her editorial board who asks many questions. Another member of the editorial board submits an incoherent article on "The Ethics of Tactical Voting" that requires extensive editing. At least it gives her some outlet for her obsessive cogitations. This story is more personal than the previous nov

Alexander McCall Smith is an extraordinary writer under any circumstances, and this most recent chapter in the life and times of philosopher Isabel Dalhousie is no exception. The writing is excellent as always and Smith's philosophical gems are scattered throughout. I'll state up front that an element of the story introduced near the end disappointed me. I'll say no more about it so as not to spoil the book for anyone else. It's been almost a week since I finished reading The Right Attitude To Rain and the feeling has stuck, so it must be genuine. However, I have to say, I'm very interested in how this issue is handled in the next Isabel Dalhousie book. In TRATR, Isabel's cousin, Mimi, and her husband, Joe, visit from Dallas. Another Dallas couple appears in the story, as well. Tom Bruce, wealthy, middle-aged, and living with the results of Bell's palsy (have had it, so I know what he's dealing with. Mine went away. He was not so lucky) has a flirtatious, pretty, young fiancée, Angie. They are visiting Scotland, the land of Bruce's ancestors. The two couples, plus Isabel and Jamie (Isabel's niece Cat's old flame), spend time together, including a weekend getaway outside Edinburgh. Cat, meanwhile, is seeing a man who has a powerful mother. Isabel sees trouble there, but is trying not to interfere. Her relationship with Jamie heats up. I thought Smith handled the increasing heat between them very well, showing Isabel's anxiety over the age difference (14 years...nothing when it's an older man and younger woman, such as with Tom and Angie). Jamie seems to adore Isabel, but one wonders how committed he would be to a permanent relationship. Another plot feature is Isabel's search for a flat for her housekeeper, Grace. I like the everyday feel of the Dalhousie stories and enjoy taking in Smith's words of wisdom as they are presented through Isabel's character. On page 234, Tom Bruce shares with Isabel the wisdom he has gained from his disfigurement and how people react to him. She then reflects: "She did not say anything, but she knew exactly what he meant. To be able to imagine the other, and the experience of the other, was what wisdom was all about; but nobody talked about wisdom very much any more, nor virtue, perhaps because wisdom was not appreciated in a world of glitz and effect. We chose younger and younger politicians to lead us because they looked good on television and were sharp. But really we should be looking for wisdom, and choosing people who had acquired it; and such people, in general, looked bad on television--grey, lined, thoughtful." Amen. Carolyn Rowe Hill

Once again, Smith has produced a stunningly glorious novel that spends its time dealing with both human relationships and ethics; as Smith is wont to do. In a finely crafted piece Smith examines the attitudes toward a relationship between a man and a woman who are separated by 14 years. This plot element is one that Smith has carried over three books now and had to be resolved for the sake of ethical clarity. With particular finesse, Smith weaves in both the American perspective and the Scottish perspective because "Isabel" is half each and Smith mixed in some visiting American relatives from Texas. He thus created an opportunity to mix and match cultures in this ethical question. The resolution of that question I will leave to the reader as he or she consumes this finely created addition to the "Isabel Dalhousie" series of Smith books. As always, Smith is clear, with fine and illustrative human experience examples to point out the fine points of ethics, especially as it mixes with real society and real human beings. Nonetheless, his messages are clear and his style is engaging. The book is recommended to all readers of Smith's former works and anyone looking for a quick and interesting take on the societal position of older women being involved with younger men.