8 8 Books
The Girl Who Married a Lion
by Alexander McCall Smith
(pub. 2004, Canongate, 174 pages, £8.99)
Not the mane attraction
“ There was once a man who decided to review a
book of stories. As he read, he realised that this
was no ordinary book. In fact it was hardly a book
at al l. It was more like scraps of text and occasional
good bits stitched together to capitalise on the fame
of the last book the author had written. The man
was very sad. His name was Matt Taylor.”
Be warned, this is not a book of
the real world so brace yourself for
children made of wax, men with
trees growing out of their heads,
cannibals gargling hot stones and,
of course, a girl who married a lion.
Yes, it’s African folk tales time.
In fact, this book is a strange
contradiction. Like the foreword
written by Mama Ramotswe, a
much-loved character from one of
the author’s best-known works,
The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,
it’s good in theory but promises
more than it actually delivers.
In total there are 18 stories here,
gathered from Botswana and
Zimbabwe, translated from
Setswana, and then slightly
augmented (for the Western
reader) by the author.
The opening story, Guinea Fowl
Child, is pleasing, combining
magic and morality, and displaying
just the kind of ‘augmentation’ that
you would expect having read the
author’s introduction.
Unfortunately things go quickly
downhill with some stories being
so short (just 3 pages in one case)
that there isn’t room for a plot.
Often whilst I was reading, I found
myself wanting to know more than
I’d been told. Not only are visual
descriptions sometimes lacking, I
also felt certain stories were
actually incomplete, with little
deeper meaning at all. Yet meaning
is crucial in folk tales around the
world: think of the satisfying
human morality messages in
Anancy Tales or Aesop’s Fables.
There are quite a few instances of
stories which can be reduced to
something along the lines of,
“There was once a thirsty man. He
dug a hole and it filled with water.
He drank his fill and was happy.
The end.” It was hard not to add,
“So what?”
Despite these criticisms the range
of themes covered by the collection
is certainly broad. Some tales tell
how animals and people are
related. Others provoke a little
more thought, and these are the
ones which I lingered over. If you
decide to take the plunge, do
spend time reflecting on the girl
who married a lion. Although her
husband looks like a man and sires
two boys, he proves to be a lion,
leaving lion’s paw marks when he’s
chased from the village. For me it
raised interesting questions of ‘the
enemy within’, people who look
like one thing but in fact are
another. I wondered whether there
were lessons we could learn about
the current terrorist paranoia.
Should we be devising special tests
to reveal others’ true natures, as
they do in the story? And in the
end, no matter what tendencies
someone might harbour, does it
matter if they don’t enact them?
If only there were more stories like
the opening and title tales, I could
recommend this book. As it
stands, I think, like Mama
Ramotswe, it’s mostly to be read,
“…when there’s nothing much
[else] to be done.”