Pompous Profs (Portuguese Irregular Verbs - Alexander McCall Smith)

Member Name: MALU

Product:	Portuguese Irregular Verbs - Alexander McCall Smith
Date:	26/01/05 (224 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: nice

Disadvantages: only nice and too expensive

Alexander McCall Smith, does the author’s name ring a bell? Yes, it’s the one who´s written the by now famous series on the Botswanan Mma Precious Ramotswe and her No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. He´s a very versatile man indeed, a Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and a member of a number of national and international bodies concerned with bioethics, his work includes books on medical law, criminal law and philosophy, as well as numerous books for children, collections of short stories and novels.

He´s also the author of another series of four books so far, namely ´Portuguese Irregular Verbs´, ´The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs´, ´At The Villa Of Reduced Circumstances´ and ´The 21/2 Pillars of Wisdom´ (I´m only discussing the first here) featuring the German professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, distinguished member of the fictional Institute of Romance Philology at the University of Regensburg in Germany (the town and the university exist in reality) and his colleagues experiencing odd events.

Professors, university . . . we´re in the world of Academia, the book belongs to the genre campus novel, so very typical for the English speaking world (David Lodge!) and not at all typical for Germany which does not mean that strange things don´t happen in German universities, but German authors somehow don´t feel like writing on them (I can only think of one exception: some years ago a professor of English (!) lit wrote a campus novel with the not very original title ´ Campus´) Why then has McCall Smith set his series in Germany? The books are dedicated to Reinhard Zimmermann [he´s really Dr. Dr. (honoris causa) (mult) Reinhard Zimmermann], a friend of the author´s. From an interview: ´´Reinhard is an old friend and I thought that I would write a story for him in which a group of German professors are shown to be unable to play tennis,´´

Zimmermann enjoyed the joke and encouraged McCall Smith to write more. Before the adventures of von Igelfeld were published commercially in the United Kingdom McCall Smith had 500 copies printed privately, 200 of which Zimmermann purchased and passed along to his friends; that it was a good idea to go public with the book is shown by the fact that it was reprinted twice in its first year of publication (2003).

Now what is the book ´Portuguese Irregular Verbs´ about and in how far is it funny, if at all? Let´s begin with the names: the main protagonists of the eight chapters (the numbers one to eight are given in German) are the above mentioned Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld (the name is translated into English: hedgehogfield), Professor Dr Dr (honoris causa) Florianus Prinzel and Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer (underwood). As a German I can assure you that the names are indeed funny, very old-fashioned, long-winded, un-snappy, I´m sure the pleasure is enhanced for English readers by the fact that you can´t pronounce them properly thus making them appear even odder.

We´re told that these three men of intellect live in the second half of the 20th century, if we weren´t, we wouldn´t guess it, they are timeless in their oddity, bizzarity and whimsicality. They live in and for their respective subjects, defend them eloquently, envy each others´ success and try to gain the notoriety they believe they deserve for what they´ve given to the world of science and knowledge. ´Portuguese Irregular Verbs´, this book is not a grammar book, the title refers to the book von Igelfeld, the most distinguished of the three professors, has written ´a work of such majesty that it dwarfed all other books in the field. It was a lengthy book of almost twelve hundred pages, and was the result of years of research into the etymology and vagaries of Portuguese verbs.´

Von Igelfeld frequently participates in conferences on Comparative Philology where he presents his work and listens to other professors´ speeches. Do you have to smile when you read that the ´legend of the international philology network, Professor J.G.K.L. Singh, of Chandighar, . . . author of ´Terms of Ritual Abuse in the Creditor/Debtor Relationship in Village India´ ascends the platform´ etc. etc.? If so, you´re the target reader, if not, the book may not be for you. I find the enumeration of such titles quite funny and know that they´re only slightly exaggerated after six years of studying English and Russian philology.

There is no plot, so there is no danger of my telling you too much, we follow the protagonist from event to event, adventure would be too great a word, it´s all very low-key. One example: Before he turns to the Portuguese language von Igelfeld works as an assistant for Dr Dr Dr Dr ((no typo!) Dieter Vogelsang, one of the world´s greatest capacities on Early Irish, they go on a field trip to Ireland where they want to interview an ´extremely unpleasant, smelly old man´ by the name of Sean who is said to converse only in Old Irish. The man doesn´t want to be interviewed, though, doesn´t even open the door but hurls archaic obscenities through it for three quarters of an hour, von Igelfeld scribbles them down phonetically as quickly as he can and when he has transcribed them into German after their return is thrown out of his room by his landlady, Frau Hugendubel, who happened to see the text, because she doesn´t want to live under one roof with a pornographer.

Is this funny? Very mildly so if you ask me, the other stories are not much different humour-wise. I think I can find a bit more in the book than the average British reader because of my being German and the fact that I studied in Heidelberg like the fictitious von Igelfeld, reading about it my memories return and enrich the text, without this the text may seem a bit meagre.

The book itself is a bit meagre, too, only 128 (!) pages, but nicely made up, good paper, nice print, woodcuts in each chapter. I´d say it´s the perfect present if you need one for an inhabitant of the world of Academia, someone whose vocabulary is quite elaborate, who knows and cherishes the ego-driven battles for power and prestige, someone who´s dear to your heart and deserves a prezzie for 7.99 GBP (amazon 6.39 GBP).

Will I read the other two books of the series? Well, should I find a copy lying around somewhere I’d peep in, but I won´t buy them. I don´t know if the author or the publishing house (Polygon) is to blame, I mean, the three books have only 400 pages altogether, but cost 21.20 GBP (paperbacks) if you buy them one by one in a regular shop, if that isn´t a rip off, I don´t know what is. Maybe other readers have complained as well, there's now also an omnibus edition on the market with the title ´The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom´, it costs 8.99 GBP, but then 400 pages all at once on pompous profs, no, too much is too much.

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