The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom

As my newest feature for CheeseWeb, I’m going to start doing some mini book reviews on some of the books I’ve been reading. I’m starting with the book I recently finished, The 2 ½ Pillars of Wisdom, by Alexander McCall Smith. This book contains the Von Igelfeld Trilogy, which includes: Portuguese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances.

I had read a couple of McCall Smith’s books before, which I enjoyed, but they were from the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. The Von Igelfeld Trilogy is about a German professor of Philology (study of languages and their structures). He has published one seminal, but obscure work, and has a rather inflated sense of self importance. He has two colleagues; one whom he adores and one who drives him crazy. The trilogy is basically a collection of stories about his unusual and usually unfortunate adventures.

My favorite of the three was The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs. The title is not a reference to an obscure passage. Rather, Von Igelfeld actually has numerous run ins involving sausage dogs, a creature that he is rather un-fond of. I found At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, to be my least favorite of the three; however there were still some entertaining passages. In particular, one concerning my future home:

Von Igelfeld had little time for Belgium. In the first place, he was not at all sure that the country was even necessary, in the way in which France and Germany were obviously necessary. It would have been more convenient all round if part of Belgium had remained with France, as Napoleon had so wisely intended, and the Flemish part could then have been tacked onto the Netherlands, on linguistic grounds.