And What Did You Think?

I became acquainted with Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books via books on tape. I listen to books on tape as I walk or work in the yard and they can be a joy to listen to. The only problem I have with books on tape (besides the frustration when they do not work) is that sometimes the narrator is not, how you say? any damn good at all.
But sometimes, the narrator and the story come together to create a whole new dimension for the book and that was the case with these books. The narrator is a woman named Lisette Lecat and she herself is from South Africa and the way she speaks the words that form the stories of Mma (and how do you say that?) Precious Remotswe, Mma Makutsi and Mr. Matakoni is nothing short of brilliant.
Her voice. Oh, her voice.
She took these stories and presented them in a way so that I have enjoyed them with all my heart.
And so when I heard that HBO was going to do a Sunday night series of these books, I was very interested.
I watched the premier last night, staying up WAY past my bedtime, and I was entranced. It was just such a different project than HBO usually takes on. No drug addicts, no nudity, no designer fashions, no vampires or polygamists or NYC or anorexic Hollywood name-brand movie stars.
Instead, there was Mma Remotswe, a "traditionally built" Botswanan woman who with her smart brain and woman's intuition opens her own detective agency with the help of Mma Makutsi, a woman with large glasses who made an amazing 97% on her exams in the secretarial school. There is the vast scenery of Botswana and there is a tiny white van. There are children and there are beautiful dresses made of tribal prints.
There are, so far, no people of no-color.
And as I was watching this last night, it occured to me that in this country, at least, we rarely see a movie which does not have at least a few white people in it who drive the plot along with the people of color being the backdrop for the white people's story.
I'm sorry, but that's just the truth.
And so it was completely delightful to watch this movie where all the people are the people of another country with their own culture, their own scenery, their own voices, their own stories.
Their own.
I had been a tiny bit afraid that I would be disappointed after having formed my own pictures in my own head of Precious and Grace and the world in which they live, given to me by the words of Mr. McCall Smith and the voice of Ms. Lecat, but I was not. Not at all.
And I think the executives of HBO who took on this project and who are allowing it to be done so faithfully to the original stories should pat themselves on the back.
No Mafia, no hit men, no kinky sex or lurid murders.
Just Botswana and a smart woman who took the money left to her in the form of her daddy's herd of beautiful cows and opened a detective agency where with her fearlessness and intelligence she helps people with the sorts of problems that we all encounter.
I'm impressed.