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La's Orchestra Saves the World
La's Orchestra Saves the World is another delightful story celebrating friendship and the healing power of music, told with the warmth and charm we've come to love from this favourite storyteller.
It's 1939 and the war in Europe casts a long, all-encompassing shadow. In a sleepy town in Suffolk, La, the generous and determined widow, forms an amateur orchestra to entertain the locals and soothe her own broken heart. She recruits Feliks, a refugee from Poland, to play the flute, and a touching friendship emerges. When the war is over and the orchestra disbands, La is left pondering her next move. What role can she play in her community now that the war is over? And can she let herself love again?
It's 1939 and the war in Europe casts a long, all-encompassing shadow. In a sleepy town in Suffolk, La, the generous and determined widow, forms an amateur orchestra to entertain the locals and soothe her own broken heart. She recruits Feliks, a refugee from Poland, to play the flute, and a touching friendship emerges. When the war is over and the orchestra disbands, La is left pondering her next move. What role can she play in her community now that the war is over? And can she let herself love again?
294 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2008
136 people are currently reading
2379 people want to read
About the author
Alexander McCall Smith
660 books12.6k followersAlexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie Series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and he was a law professor at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland. Visit him online at www.alexandermccallsmith.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,150 reviews
May 6, 2011
This is a sweet novel, and a frustrating one. McCall Smith (of the Ladies Detective Agency fame) here offers a stand-alone volume about the cultural act of healing from war, the redemptive power of music, and the trials of patient love. The La of the title (short for Lavender) is plucky, respectful and brave - also independently wealthy after the death of her philandering husband, and as it happens displaced from London. She takes up farm work in a rural community to help with England's WWII efforts, and soon meets a quirky and diverse cast of characters, whom she brings together in a community orchestra that gathers in a time outside of war-time, rehearses, and performs a victory concert when Germany surrenders. Again thanks to her deceased philanderer, La has the capacity of material generosity, and she gives to her adopted community in very real ways. This is, so far, all standard McCall Smith stuff - perhaps a little more grounded in history than the Ladies Detective series.
Frustrating in the novel is its tendency to gloss over both relationship details and, sadly and ironically, details of the music that purportedly saves the world. La conducts and the orchestra swells and soars, but there is no actual music in the writing about music. Hardly even any details about the composers and works the orchestra rehearses and performs ! And granted, this may seem a fairly specific (ie a musician's) quibble with an otherwise enjoyable novel, but I think it stands as a symptom of something larger in the novel as a whole, namely that tendency toward glossiness without depth, as if the novel, written in haste, had to satisfy a certain number of feel-good requirements that left little time or room for depth of detail. (Another irony about the novel is that it actually does contain a fair amount of details - about La's wartime job working with chickens. Just not about the title subject.)
It's worth a read if you've got a spare few hours, and it is just feel-good-y enough to leave a good taste in the mouth at the end. Still, since I dearly love Mma Ramotswe from McCall Smith's famous series, I was disappointed to find so much surface and so little genuine feeling in this novel, especially since it promised so much to this orchestra conductor's daughter.
Frustrating in the novel is its tendency to gloss over both relationship details and, sadly and ironically, details of the music that purportedly saves the world. La conducts and the orchestra swells and soars, but there is no actual music in the writing about music. Hardly even any details about the composers and works the orchestra rehearses and performs ! And granted, this may seem a fairly specific (ie a musician's) quibble with an otherwise enjoyable novel, but I think it stands as a symptom of something larger in the novel as a whole, namely that tendency toward glossiness without depth, as if the novel, written in haste, had to satisfy a certain number of feel-good requirements that left little time or room for depth of detail. (Another irony about the novel is that it actually does contain a fair amount of details - about La's wartime job working with chickens. Just not about the title subject.)
It's worth a read if you've got a spare few hours, and it is just feel-good-y enough to leave a good taste in the mouth at the end. Still, since I dearly love Mma Ramotswe from McCall Smith's famous series, I was disappointed to find so much surface and so little genuine feeling in this novel, especially since it promised so much to this orchestra conductor's daughter.
March 26, 2010
Alexander McCall Smith has a penchant for “cute” titles, some quite funny(At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances). However, something about a character named La, short for Lavender, struck me as too twee even for my low standards. I should have followed my instinct and skipped this, but I hoped for shades of Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Peel Society, or maybe “Paradise Road,” or at the very least some insight into the Women’s Land Army.
In brief, the story is about a woman who moves to a farm to wait out World War II and starts an orchestra that meets once a month or so. The book’s failing can be summarized as briefly: None of the plotlines, let alone the themes, is developed. There’s a Polish refugee who might not actually be Polish (spies? moral dilemmas? star-crossed lovers?!?) but nothing thrilling happens. There’s La’s farm work that breezes past chickens and planting potatoes for about five paragraphs total. Then there’s some thief-in-the-neighborhood intrigue that I can’t remember the resolution to because it was dull and underdeveloped, and finally there is the orchestra, the one that “saves the world,” which practices only a few times and has two performances at which nothing happens.
Books that can’t help but be dull are one thing; who would expect drama from Bird Watching for Beginners or How to Be Your Own Accountant? But dull books that should be intriguing are the worst kind of bait-and-switch. This could have been about conflicts of personal and national loyalties, the transcending power of music, and ordinary people coping with extraordinary circumstances. The big mystery is how you could take these elements and turn out a tedious story. It also — worse still — is philosophically unmoored. For example, La wails about the destruction of war, but then thinks, “Hmm, those Nazis are so terrible that they’re actually evil! We must stop evil.” Later she laments, “Why would we develop more weapons? Who would ever go to war again? Let’s revive the old orchestra and have a concert for peace!” Imagine this oversimplification stretched out for three hundred pages.
In brief, the story is about a woman who moves to a farm to wait out World War II and starts an orchestra that meets once a month or so. The book’s failing can be summarized as briefly: None of the plotlines, let alone the themes, is developed. There’s a Polish refugee who might not actually be Polish (spies? moral dilemmas? star-crossed lovers?!?) but nothing thrilling happens. There’s La’s farm work that breezes past chickens and planting potatoes for about five paragraphs total. Then there’s some thief-in-the-neighborhood intrigue that I can’t remember the resolution to because it was dull and underdeveloped, and finally there is the orchestra, the one that “saves the world,” which practices only a few times and has two performances at which nothing happens.
Books that can’t help but be dull are one thing; who would expect drama from Bird Watching for Beginners or How to Be Your Own Accountant? But dull books that should be intriguing are the worst kind of bait-and-switch. This could have been about conflicts of personal and national loyalties, the transcending power of music, and ordinary people coping with extraordinary circumstances. The big mystery is how you could take these elements and turn out a tedious story. It also — worse still — is philosophically unmoored. For example, La wails about the destruction of war, but then thinks, “Hmm, those Nazis are so terrible that they’re actually evil! We must stop evil.” Later she laments, “Why would we develop more weapons? Who would ever go to war again? Let’s revive the old orchestra and have a concert for peace!” Imagine this oversimplification stretched out for three hundred pages.
October 23, 2024
3.5 stars
Alexander McCall Smith is probably best known for his 'Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series, but he's a prolific author who pens other books as well. This is a standalone novel by Smith about a British woman, Lavender (La) Stone, who weathers WWII in a country town.
Prior to the war La graduates from Cambridge University, but like many women of her generation, forgoes a career to get married.
Sadly for La her husband, Richard Stone, leaves her for a woman in France. Richard's parents are shamed by their son's behavior and give La a country house in Sussex, where La moves just before WWII.
Once war breaks out La wants to do her part, and becomes a kind of unofficial Land Girl who helps an arthritic Sussex farmer, Henry Madder, with his chickens.
La cleans Henry's chicken coops and collects and packs the eggs for sale. La also grows vegetables in her garden, particularly potatoes.
As it happens there's an RAF base in Sussex and La becomes friendly with an officer called Tim Honey, a recreational trumpet player.
Tim suggests La form an amateur orchestra composed of soldiers and local people. The orchestra, conducted by La, meets once a month to prepare for a Christmas recital that will (hopefully) lift the spirits of Sussex residents.
Comcomitantly a Polish refugee named Feliks is also assigned to work for farmer Henry. La becomes friendly with Feliks and encourages him to play the flute in her orchestra, and Feliks helps La with her garden.
The Brits are suspicicious of foreigners, thinking they may be spies, and there's some question about Feliks' honesty and intentions.
Many English people thought the war would be a brief affair that they would easily win, but Germany turns out to be a formidable foe with a massive war machine and the war drags on and on.
By the end of the book we learn about of the fates of La and the other main characters, both during and after WWII. As usual with Smith's books, this is a quiet story that explores human nature. I liked the book and found La to be a compelling character who navigates difficult situations with intelligence and grace.
You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com
February 4, 2010
I got this book on a whim, because my sister is Lala (her nickname for herself) and she plays in an orchestra, so I thought I might give it to her. I've enjoyed the Isobel Dalhousie books, the Prof. Igelfeld trilogy and love Mma Ramotswe above all. I've also read many of his short stories and children's books.
After I finished it (in one and a half days, and reading far too late into the night) I read the reviews and was surprised by them.
This book impressed me more than any other AMS book I have read.
His beautiful prose descriptions that twinkle here and there in other books are scattered liberally in this one. It is not a trite love story as one might expect, and it reminded me in tone strangely of a very different book "A means of grace" by Edith Pargetter, who also wrote the famous Cadfael series about a mediaeval monk/detective, and many about a modern detective too. "A means of grace" stood out from her work as a singular book about emotions and betrayal in a cold war situation.
This book starts just before the onset of WWII and also deals with things which have a sombre resonance and deep, often unexpressed emotion.
I must have read a different book from the people who found it dull or felt it was in the wrong order! To me it was the perfect embodiment of the messages and feelings it was expressing, and a book that I found profoundly moving.
I live in deep, quiet countryside myself and I know those farming families and village policemen, the amateur musicians and the pleasure in small, undramatic moments. I regard this as the pinnacle of Alexander McCall Smith's writing, but if you want a fast, racy, dramatic novel then it is not for you.
After I finished it (in one and a half days, and reading far too late into the night) I read the reviews and was surprised by them.
This book impressed me more than any other AMS book I have read.
His beautiful prose descriptions that twinkle here and there in other books are scattered liberally in this one. It is not a trite love story as one might expect, and it reminded me in tone strangely of a very different book "A means of grace" by Edith Pargetter, who also wrote the famous Cadfael series about a mediaeval monk/detective, and many about a modern detective too. "A means of grace" stood out from her work as a singular book about emotions and betrayal in a cold war situation.
This book starts just before the onset of WWII and also deals with things which have a sombre resonance and deep, often unexpressed emotion.
I must have read a different book from the people who found it dull or felt it was in the wrong order! To me it was the perfect embodiment of the messages and feelings it was expressing, and a book that I found profoundly moving.
I live in deep, quiet countryside myself and I know those farming families and village policemen, the amateur musicians and the pleasure in small, undramatic moments. I regard this as the pinnacle of Alexander McCall Smith's writing, but if you want a fast, racy, dramatic novel then it is not for you.
August 19, 2016
Audiobook performed by Emily Gray.
As World War II breaks out, Lavender Stone leaves London for a cottage in Suffolk. La (as she is known to her friends) is fleeing more than the German bombings; her husband has run off to France, and she is struggling to make sense of their marriage. The peace and solitude of the small town suit La, and she begins to make friends. Believing in the healing power of music, she forms an amateur orchestra, drawing on the musical skills of villagers and soldiers at the local RAF base. Among the musicians is a reserved, proper Pole – Feliks – who becomes a friend, and kindles feelings La thought she had put aside.
Alexander McCall Smith has a gentle way of introducing the reader to his characters. La and the other residents of the town go about their business, observing the goings on in the village and the greater world, and trying to live the best lives they can in the circumstances. They worry, rejoice, are fearful, find love, relish friendships, enjoy simple pleasures and take action when they can.
The fact that La lost her mother at a young age definitely affected how she approached life and love. I was so happy that there were people in her life who genuinely cared about her, and about whom she could care. I totally understood how she came to her decisions, and felt her anguish over having to make some of them. I applauded her resilience and her ability to maintain her faith in the basic goodness of others. Her scope of influence may have been small, but she was a treasure to those within that circle.
Emily Gray was perfect performing the audio book. Her measured tone and steady pace were ideally suited to this gentle story. I do not normally care for sound effects or embellishments in audio books, but I really would have liked to have a little orchestral accompaniment in this one. Still, the lack of a musical score did not detract from the experience or Gray’s narration.
As World War II breaks out, Lavender Stone leaves London for a cottage in Suffolk. La (as she is known to her friends) is fleeing more than the German bombings; her husband has run off to France, and she is struggling to make sense of their marriage. The peace and solitude of the small town suit La, and she begins to make friends. Believing in the healing power of music, she forms an amateur orchestra, drawing on the musical skills of villagers and soldiers at the local RAF base. Among the musicians is a reserved, proper Pole – Feliks – who becomes a friend, and kindles feelings La thought she had put aside.
Alexander McCall Smith has a gentle way of introducing the reader to his characters. La and the other residents of the town go about their business, observing the goings on in the village and the greater world, and trying to live the best lives they can in the circumstances. They worry, rejoice, are fearful, find love, relish friendships, enjoy simple pleasures and take action when they can.
The fact that La lost her mother at a young age definitely affected how she approached life and love. I was so happy that there were people in her life who genuinely cared about her, and about whom she could care. I totally understood how she came to her decisions, and felt her anguish over having to make some of them. I applauded her resilience and her ability to maintain her faith in the basic goodness of others. Her scope of influence may have been small, but she was a treasure to those within that circle.
Emily Gray was perfect performing the audio book. Her measured tone and steady pace were ideally suited to this gentle story. I do not normally care for sound effects or embellishments in audio books, but I really would have liked to have a little orchestral accompaniment in this one. Still, the lack of a musical score did not detract from the experience or Gray’s narration.
January 22, 2010
It's no secret that I love Alexander McCall Smith. I think his No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series is pretty darn near close to perfection.
In La's Orchestra Saves the World he writes with the same simple, pure style that he does in his other books and it works so well. I always feel as if life slows down and I can, figuratively speaking, smell the roses when I read one of his novels. I love the feeling of peace and calm I get and how he always finds the gentleness and kindness in people, no matter their nationality or circumstances.
Despite living in heart-breaking times and having a life that isn't filled with perfect scenarios, Lavender (La) crafts a corner out of her small world in Suffolk and lives through the horror of WWII doing what she can to help. I found it fascinating that, in reading through the book, the little things she was doing seemed .. somewhat small and inconsequential to me, the reader. That's not to say I didn't appreciate them, they were just things that seemed normal and things I would hope I would have done if I had lived during that time period. After putting the book down and thinking about it for a bit though, those small, seemingly inconsequential things start to grow and I started to realize how much the story of La meant. I always think that my small actions won't make that much of a difference and sometimes get discouraged - but every little thing does help. And I think that's what this story is all about.
Over the last several months I've read quite a few WWII books dealing with the Polish and I know this ranks up there as one I'll read again.
I'd recommend this book to anyone, just as I have with Smith's other books. It doesn't take long to read and it's worth every minute invested.
In La's Orchestra Saves the World he writes with the same simple, pure style that he does in his other books and it works so well. I always feel as if life slows down and I can, figuratively speaking, smell the roses when I read one of his novels. I love the feeling of peace and calm I get and how he always finds the gentleness and kindness in people, no matter their nationality or circumstances.
Despite living in heart-breaking times and having a life that isn't filled with perfect scenarios, Lavender (La) crafts a corner out of her small world in Suffolk and lives through the horror of WWII doing what she can to help. I found it fascinating that, in reading through the book, the little things she was doing seemed .. somewhat small and inconsequential to me, the reader. That's not to say I didn't appreciate them, they were just things that seemed normal and things I would hope I would have done if I had lived during that time period. After putting the book down and thinking about it for a bit though, those small, seemingly inconsequential things start to grow and I started to realize how much the story of La meant. I always think that my small actions won't make that much of a difference and sometimes get discouraged - but every little thing does help. And I think that's what this story is all about.
Over the last several months I've read quite a few WWII books dealing with the Polish and I know this ranks up there as one I'll read again.
I'd recommend this book to anyone, just as I have with Smith's other books. It doesn't take long to read and it's worth every minute invested.
March 10, 2011
I am a fan of Alexander McCall Smith’s books and usually love his simple story structure that allows for profound commentary on everyday life. I felt that this particular book fell short of the mark. The book is set at the outbreak of World War II in Great Britain. LA, an abbreviation for Lavender, is living in the country recovering from the betrayal of her philandering husband and his subsequent accidental death. She is the type of person who has a tendency to let life pass her by, being more of an observer than an active participant in life. LA intends to return to London but once the war starts, she decides to stay in the country and try to work for the war effort in whatever little way she can. She is rebuffed when she tries to become a nurse and let’s that setback limit her active participation in the war effort. She joins the Women’s Land Army and helps a disabled farmer take care of his chickens. This is really the full extent of her involvement in the war. She chooses something small and safe as her contribution. She becomes involved with helping an Army major organize a small orchestra consisting of villagers and airmen from a local base that meets once per month to play music. The main story line centers around the theme that by participating in this small cultural ritual, those involved can maintain a sense of normalcy amidst the horrors of war. Unfortunately, we never really connect with the orchestra’s members nor do we get a sense of LA working especially hard to keep this orchestra going. Without a personal sense of the importance of the orchestra or a sense that LA sacrificed or stretched her personal limits to keep the orchestra going, the book falls flat. What could have been special ends up being a sweet, short read.
January 16, 2020
Minor edits 17 January 2020.
I am constantly struck by the quality and sincerity of Goodreads reviews, while accommodating different views and reactions.
Because of this variety I am prompted to pen my own personal thoughts a long time after reading the book. My afterimage of the tale is one of lingering poignancy for a rural England of simpler values at a time of genuine peril.
While acknowledging some of the faults identified by others - La’s absence of earthly worries and plot points left underdeveloped - I also wondered whether there would be a business importing wine into Britain before World War Two, but I accept that this must have been so. The quality in the book I most admire, is the very quality which I think is hard to capture, that of inchoate or vague feelings which are just that, building an atmosphere of uncertainty. It is as if the world is unstable. Uncertainty during wartime is a given, and that these uncertainties should be largely unresolved reflects what reality is like in contrast to a more typical fictional narrative.
Things happen in wartime, which do not happen in peacetime: Guy Gibson was a wing commander at 26, in charge of the dam busters raid; in Italy, Eric Newby met fellow Englishmen from social classes he could not possibly mix with in peacetime (Love and War in the Apennines), and pilots, sailors and soldiers from lots of nations found themselves in Britain, and displaced people like Feliks. Reality gets distorted: look at Michael Frayn’s semi-autobiographical wartime story Spies.
La tries to make sense of this: for her the orchestra and practical rural farming represents a purpose and an opportunity to make a difference, in the uncertain and worrying world in which she finds herself.
I agree with others' comments about the music, even though talking and writing about music is really hard (film is much easier because you can chatter about what we see, as opposed to what we hear).
After I finished La’s Orchestra I gave it to my mum to read: during all her high school years, age 12 to 17, my country was at war.
I am constantly struck by the quality and sincerity of Goodreads reviews, while accommodating different views and reactions.
Because of this variety I am prompted to pen my own personal thoughts a long time after reading the book. My afterimage of the tale is one of lingering poignancy for a rural England of simpler values at a time of genuine peril.
While acknowledging some of the faults identified by others - La’s absence of earthly worries and plot points left underdeveloped - I also wondered whether there would be a business importing wine into Britain before World War Two, but I accept that this must have been so. The quality in the book I most admire, is the very quality which I think is hard to capture, that of inchoate or vague feelings which are just that, building an atmosphere of uncertainty. It is as if the world is unstable. Uncertainty during wartime is a given, and that these uncertainties should be largely unresolved reflects what reality is like in contrast to a more typical fictional narrative.
Things happen in wartime, which do not happen in peacetime: Guy Gibson was a wing commander at 26, in charge of the dam busters raid; in Italy, Eric Newby met fellow Englishmen from social classes he could not possibly mix with in peacetime (Love and War in the Apennines), and pilots, sailors and soldiers from lots of nations found themselves in Britain, and displaced people like Feliks. Reality gets distorted: look at Michael Frayn’s semi-autobiographical wartime story Spies.
La tries to make sense of this: for her the orchestra and practical rural farming represents a purpose and an opportunity to make a difference, in the uncertain and worrying world in which she finds herself.
I agree with others' comments about the music, even though talking and writing about music is really hard (film is much easier because you can chatter about what we see, as opposed to what we hear).
After I finished La’s Orchestra I gave it to my mum to read: during all her high school years, age 12 to 17, my country was at war.
September 24, 2012
London, Cambridge and Suffolk all play their part in this historical novel by Alexander McCall Smith. Set in the time around World War II, it builds a convincing picture of war-torn Britain where human kindness wars with the darkness of suspicion and fear. Real characters fill the village streets, farm the fields, and feed the airmen stationed nearby. But if foreigners are dropping bombs, can a Polish pilot with a German accent really be worthy of trust?
Betrayed by her husband, Lavender—called La—has settled into the routine of a quiet life, comfortable enough, rich enough and insulated enough from what goes on around her. But the war intrudes and this new betrayal leads her to live again, signing on to volunteer, meeting strangers, and even, finally, starting an orchestra. Like the war, her orchestra won’t last long—just a temporary diversion she thinks. And, like the war, it lasts till the fighting’s done.
Lawns turn to potato plots, neighbors to friends, and the Polish airman awakens La’s heart with his gentle formality. But when suspicions of wrong-doing grow, will honest truth turn into betrayal of love?
La’s Orchestra Saves the World is a beautifully evocative novel of Britain at war, and of hearts warring with themselves. I can vouch for the truth of the countryside drawn by the author. My Mum can vouch for the honest depiction of the people. And readers will quickly be drawn into La’s world with its love and complications, delighting in her music and looking forward to her redemption.
Disclosure: I borrowed this book from a generous friend.
January 17, 2010
I just can't resist a new Alexander McCall Smith! Hope it's as good as No. 1 Detective!
New update: Just finished it and have to say I was disappointed. The basic plot of this story had so much potential that unfortunately was never realized. The author, like in many of his previous books, has a tendency to wax poetic and ramble on for paragraphs about lovely philosphical ideas that are quite profound I am sure, but add nothing to the actual story. During these pages I, your humble reader and reviewer, tend to start making lists in my head of things I should be doing rather than reading. Not good!
I loved the character of La and Feliks but they just weren't develped fully enough to really "get" them. Smith has also peppered the book with other secondary characters and plot lines that were either unnecessary (the weird man-hating professor in Cambridge) or just strange (the Agg's son).
If you do feel like you want to try this book I would suggest totally skipping the first chapter. Start with the second chapter and then read the first chapter last. The first chapter is meant to set the story up but it's boring and confusing and a good editor would have put it last!
New update: Just finished it and have to say I was disappointed. The basic plot of this story had so much potential that unfortunately was never realized. The author, like in many of his previous books, has a tendency to wax poetic and ramble on for paragraphs about lovely philosphical ideas that are quite profound I am sure, but add nothing to the actual story. During these pages I, your humble reader and reviewer, tend to start making lists in my head of things I should be doing rather than reading. Not good!
I loved the character of La and Feliks but they just weren't develped fully enough to really "get" them. Smith has also peppered the book with other secondary characters and plot lines that were either unnecessary (the weird man-hating professor in Cambridge) or just strange (the Agg's son).
If you do feel like you want to try this book I would suggest totally skipping the first chapter. Start with the second chapter and then read the first chapter last. The first chapter is meant to set the story up but it's boring and confusing and a good editor would have put it last!
November 1, 2010
Decided to try something besides Ladies #1. I enjoyed the style and writing of this book very much. It has a feel of Potato Peel Society but not quite the happy ending you want or expect. I loved how you got an idea of what is like for people before the war started. I thought it gave some interesting history.
pg55 War is madness let loose.
on page 59 She plants a garden for the future, not knowing what it hold, and and says, "I shall not starve. Whatever happens in the world, I shall not starve here in this quiet corner of England.
An enjoyable quiet read. No where near as good as Potato Peel Society but a distant second.
Not that it isn't worth reading. I think it is worth it. I loved that she tried to help out in her own way, even if it was chickens and a garden she tried to do her part and many others were blessed for it. I loved how music and the orchestra kept them going in hard times.
Was she a patriot? I think so, but I did wonder if it was necessary to turn Dab in. Could they not have discussed it previous?
pg55 War is madness let loose.
on page 59 She plants a garden for the future, not knowing what it hold, and and says, "I shall not starve. Whatever happens in the world, I shall not starve here in this quiet corner of England.
An enjoyable quiet read. No where near as good as Potato Peel Society but a distant second.
Not that it isn't worth reading. I think it is worth it. I loved that she tried to help out in her own way, even if it was chickens and a garden she tried to do her part and many others were blessed for it. I loved how music and the orchestra kept them going in hard times.
Was she a patriot? I think so, but I did wonder if it was necessary to turn Dab in. Could they not have discussed it previous?
August 13, 2022
Wonderful.
September 6, 2009
Alexander McCall Smith is best known as a serial novelist. This particular novel is a departure from that, a "one off" work that tells the story of Lavendar Stone, who decides at the beginning of World War II to form a local orchestra in Suffolk, particulary just to show Hitler that he can't stamp out all of the beauty in the world. The novel also follows her life into the Cold War, where she brings the orchestra together for one last performance: "Absurdly, irrationally, she believed that music could make a difference to the temper of the world. She did not investigate this belief, test it to see whether it made sense; she simply believed it, and so she chose music that expressed order and healing; Bach for order; Mozart for healing. This was the antithesis of the anger and fear that could unleash the missiles; this was music showing the face of love and forgiveness."
October 22, 2016
This was fun, but a little disappointing; perhaps the characters were not sufficiently delineated for my taste. But what a catchy title.
September 14, 2017
Easy 2 stars, hard 3 stars.
First of all, if you're expecting a story about how a woman inspired her neighbours through the power of music during the harsh WWII environment of England, I'm afraid you're in for a surprise; because that's not what happens. In fact the name of the book could have easily been something else since the orchestra was introduced in the second half and was not much more than an underused plot device.
This book is neither about about the love La has for music and how she uses this potential, nor about her love life and romantic interest in a Polish refugee. I quite enjoyed the first half of the book where none of these two plot devices were used. There were very good inner monolog passages, I especially liked the way La's journey ended up in Suffolk, and how the pre-WWII context had been handled by the author. And I daresay this book should have been about that La.
The love story and the orchestra bit are mere subplots that add nothing to the wholesomeness of the plot and mess the already built up, subtle backbone of plot up. If these plot devices were to be explored, the subject matter, with the same mechanisms that work very well in the first half, could have cover almost another 200 pages. Then the first 125 pages or so would have been a great intro and not the rather more enjoyable half of the book. The last half feels rushed. The structure that author chose to tell the story is out of balance. Story opens up with different characters and some time after La's death. This start up indicates that the final chapter tidy up the story with those characters in that time, which is not the case at all. I must say, I did not want that to happen because I was not interested in their storyline, their place in and outcome from La's story. Yet it also frustrates me that that's not what happened. Also near the end of the book, it switches from 3rd person pov to 1st person unexpectedly for no apparent reason at all. This lasts for only one chapter, then the story continues on with 3rd person pov. This sudden and rather unnecessary change alienated me from the natural flow of the story. Honestly, it feels like a bumpy ride.
I purchased the book in a second hand bookshop simply because of the setting, expecting (but not interested in) a mushy, cliche heart-warming plot. I'm relieved that what I expected hadn't occurred. I would be more interested if the first half of the book widened throughout the whole of it.
Nevertheless it has some elements that provide entertainment, thoughtfulness, reflections on war generally, and is an easy summer read. I would recommend it but also advise future readers to be cautious on what to expect from it, for it may not be exactly what one was looking for to read.
First of all, if you're expecting a story about how a woman inspired her neighbours through the power of music during the harsh WWII environment of England, I'm afraid you're in for a surprise; because that's not what happens. In fact the name of the book could have easily been something else since the orchestra was introduced in the second half and was not much more than an underused plot device.
This book is neither about about the love La has for music and how she uses this potential, nor about her love life and romantic interest in a Polish refugee. I quite enjoyed the first half of the book where none of these two plot devices were used. There were very good inner monolog passages, I especially liked the way La's journey ended up in Suffolk, and how the pre-WWII context had been handled by the author. And I daresay this book should have been about that La.
The love story and the orchestra bit are mere subplots that add nothing to the wholesomeness of the plot and mess the already built up, subtle backbone of plot up. If these plot devices were to be explored, the subject matter, with the same mechanisms that work very well in the first half, could have cover almost another 200 pages. Then the first 125 pages or so would have been a great intro and not the rather more enjoyable half of the book. The last half feels rushed. The structure that author chose to tell the story is out of balance. Story opens up with different characters and some time after La's death. This start up indicates that the final chapter tidy up the story with those characters in that time, which is not the case at all. I must say, I did not want that to happen because I was not interested in their storyline, their place in and outcome from La's story. Yet it also frustrates me that that's not what happened. Also near the end of the book, it switches from 3rd person pov to 1st person unexpectedly for no apparent reason at all. This lasts for only one chapter, then the story continues on with 3rd person pov. This sudden and rather unnecessary change alienated me from the natural flow of the story. Honestly, it feels like a bumpy ride.
I purchased the book in a second hand bookshop simply because of the setting, expecting (but not interested in) a mushy, cliche heart-warming plot. I'm relieved that what I expected hadn't occurred. I would be more interested if the first half of the book widened throughout the whole of it.
Nevertheless it has some elements that provide entertainment, thoughtfulness, reflections on war generally, and is an easy summer read. I would recommend it but also advise future readers to be cautious on what to expect from it, for it may not be exactly what one was looking for to read.
September 29, 2020
“Charming” is the first word that comes to mind. This must be the least worrisome, frightening, and sad book I’ve read about World War II. Unrealistic. This is not great literature, not a book that I’ll remember much about in a year, but quick, enjoyable reading – a good choice during the pandemic quarantine. Much about the pandemic has reminded me of WWII novels with the odd shortages and cancellations of much of life’s happier pursuits. La (short for Lavender) knows that forming an amateur orchestra to perform a few times a year will perk up people’s spirits. She is a neighbor I’d welcome having next door – on top of being a kind, considerate person, she was an English major at Cambridge. During her war years in Suffolk, she doesn’t have much opportunity to talk about books.
I’ve enjoyed many of A. M. Smith’s books for his storytelling, humor, and insights into people from different parts of the world. One thought that struck me early on in this novel was that the book was not only set primarily in the late 1930’s through the War, but felt like it was written then. I’m not sure what he did that made me think so aside from a mostly straightforward time line. So many novelists now seem to write the narrative, then toss the pages into the air to weave the subplots in and out at the risk of losing us.
I’ve enjoyed many of A. M. Smith’s books for his storytelling, humor, and insights into people from different parts of the world. One thought that struck me early on in this novel was that the book was not only set primarily in the late 1930’s through the War, but felt like it was written then. I’m not sure what he did that made me think so aside from a mostly straightforward time line. So many novelists now seem to write the narrative, then toss the pages into the air to weave the subplots in and out at the risk of losing us.
April 24, 2020
Yes a re-read. Of a well loved book. I don't know why I'm so attached to this book but I have re-reed this one on many occasions. There is a quiet dignity about it, a sense of purpose without the drama. Of well meaning characters making do and doing their best in a tiny way, in a backwater of Britain but it still mattered and its all the richer for that. It makes me wish I belong, I had that sense of purpose too.
Toast
Toast
August 21, 2015
I picked this book up at the Book Fair earlier in the year and got around to reading it thanks to the fact that I was housebound for a week. I liked McCall Smith’s other books and I thought that it would be easier to read since it is a standalone book not a part of the series. Well, I was right.
La’s Orchestra is a sedate little book about Lavender Fergusson (later La and Mrs. Stone) that is very much in the same vein as Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A sort of a feel-good book about peripheral people during the Second World War. But then I was looking for a sedate book and it lived up to my expectations. You can even treat this book as a holiday from other exciting books.
Pretty much nothing happens in the book even though Word War II rages on. We follow La as she is born in Surrey, loses her mother at 15, goes to college at Cambridge, marries, separates and goes back and forth Suffolk and London. She seems the most intellectually engaged when studying English Literature under the militant Feminist Dr Price in Cambridge and that’s usually by disagreeing with her. She marries Richard Stone because he is very charming and persuasive and is shocked by both her infertility and his infidelity. (I don’t believe they are causally related. As La herself says during her student discussion on T.S Elliot, ‘Post hoc is not always propter hoc.’)
Her in-laws’ Suffolk home sounds like a perfect getaway. She comes on her own after she moves to Suffolk to heal her broken heart. When Richard dies in France in a freak accident, his share of their family enterprise makes La a young and well-off widow. While living in rural Suffolk, she wants to do something for the war effort. She tends to farmer Henry’s hens, builds a friendship with the neighbour Mrs. Agg and farmer Henry and Tim, a friend’s cousin who calls on her. Out of sheer boredom (La’s an intelligent though somewhat passive woman) puts together a rag-tag orchestra, which becomes a symbol of victory first and then of peace. With Tim making all the arrangements, La’s Orchestra is born.
When Feliks Dabrowski, a Polish airman, is assigned to work in Henry’s farm, La feels attracted to him as he does too however reserved he is. But there is a war going on and so along with tea and biscuits, love seems a luxury to indulge in. She also suspects that Feliks is German and the general mistrust in the air creates a spot of trouble where Feliks is arrested. Later he is released honourably, which makes La feel guilty. Five years on, the Orchestra gives its Victory concert, which cheers up the village enormously and fills them with a sense of purpose that is not just to do with guns and politics. La conducts her orchestra, which had long started to take on symbolic proportions. Feliks too plays in it. However, after the war, people are scattered and she goes back to life in London, which is markedly different from the one she led before that.
Her in-laws’ considerable fortune comes to her, leaving her with no worries about how to fund her life. If anything, La seems to have both time and money and yet doesn’t seem to do much with it. She is politically aware and even joins a peace march sometime in her 50s. She meets Feliks who has married and has two kids. With the arms race and the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s, La feels the end of the world looming close yet again and so calls on her the few Orchestra buddies she had been in touch with through the years. They turn up as if summoned and the Orchestra plays its peace concert. Towards the end of the concert, peace is declared. Hence, the title. Only if you allow for the flawed logic, which seems to be an echo of ‘post hoc is not always propter hoc.’ Towards the end of the book, she makes a decision to ask Feliks and his boys to stay with her.
La is one of the most detached protagonists I have ever read. Events happen to her; she is not the one who decides. If Murakami ever decides on a female protagonist, La would be her. But it’s refreshing since there are very few protagonists whose agency is not with them. Sometimes, other things and people make decisions. La does have ideas, making the decision to move to Suffolk and move back to London, growing her vegetable garden, taking lemonade to Feliks as he works on the farm. But there is this feeling that La holds her breath and waits around way too much. Her sense of decorum and propriety stop her from acting on her feelings. In that sense La is almost ordinary. But ordinariness also has its place in the scheme of things. The ordinary English life, the ordinary English people, the ordinary garden – it seems the war was being fought to protect exactly this ordinary life. So La’s Orchestra, the book, is a celebration of ordinariness. It makes me think of Doctor Who and the Doctor’s delight in the everyday and ordinary human beings.
So the book’s a read for a lazy Sunday afternoon preferably in the garden with a cup of tea and biscuits. It won’t shake your beliefs or make you question anything. It will however make you feel warm and take delight in the ordinary.
La’s Orchestra is a sedate little book about Lavender Fergusson (later La and Mrs. Stone) that is very much in the same vein as Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A sort of a feel-good book about peripheral people during the Second World War. But then I was looking for a sedate book and it lived up to my expectations. You can even treat this book as a holiday from other exciting books.
Pretty much nothing happens in the book even though Word War II rages on. We follow La as she is born in Surrey, loses her mother at 15, goes to college at Cambridge, marries, separates and goes back and forth Suffolk and London. She seems the most intellectually engaged when studying English Literature under the militant Feminist Dr Price in Cambridge and that’s usually by disagreeing with her. She marries Richard Stone because he is very charming and persuasive and is shocked by both her infertility and his infidelity. (I don’t believe they are causally related. As La herself says during her student discussion on T.S Elliot, ‘Post hoc is not always propter hoc.’)
Her in-laws’ Suffolk home sounds like a perfect getaway. She comes on her own after she moves to Suffolk to heal her broken heart. When Richard dies in France in a freak accident, his share of their family enterprise makes La a young and well-off widow. While living in rural Suffolk, she wants to do something for the war effort. She tends to farmer Henry’s hens, builds a friendship with the neighbour Mrs. Agg and farmer Henry and Tim, a friend’s cousin who calls on her. Out of sheer boredom (La’s an intelligent though somewhat passive woman) puts together a rag-tag orchestra, which becomes a symbol of victory first and then of peace. With Tim making all the arrangements, La’s Orchestra is born.
When Feliks Dabrowski, a Polish airman, is assigned to work in Henry’s farm, La feels attracted to him as he does too however reserved he is. But there is a war going on and so along with tea and biscuits, love seems a luxury to indulge in. She also suspects that Feliks is German and the general mistrust in the air creates a spot of trouble where Feliks is arrested. Later he is released honourably, which makes La feel guilty. Five years on, the Orchestra gives its Victory concert, which cheers up the village enormously and fills them with a sense of purpose that is not just to do with guns and politics. La conducts her orchestra, which had long started to take on symbolic proportions. Feliks too plays in it. However, after the war, people are scattered and she goes back to life in London, which is markedly different from the one she led before that.
Her in-laws’ considerable fortune comes to her, leaving her with no worries about how to fund her life. If anything, La seems to have both time and money and yet doesn’t seem to do much with it. She is politically aware and even joins a peace march sometime in her 50s. She meets Feliks who has married and has two kids. With the arms race and the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s, La feels the end of the world looming close yet again and so calls on her the few Orchestra buddies she had been in touch with through the years. They turn up as if summoned and the Orchestra plays its peace concert. Towards the end of the concert, peace is declared. Hence, the title. Only if you allow for the flawed logic, which seems to be an echo of ‘post hoc is not always propter hoc.’ Towards the end of the book, she makes a decision to ask Feliks and his boys to stay with her.
La is one of the most detached protagonists I have ever read. Events happen to her; she is not the one who decides. If Murakami ever decides on a female protagonist, La would be her. But it’s refreshing since there are very few protagonists whose agency is not with them. Sometimes, other things and people make decisions. La does have ideas, making the decision to move to Suffolk and move back to London, growing her vegetable garden, taking lemonade to Feliks as he works on the farm. But there is this feeling that La holds her breath and waits around way too much. Her sense of decorum and propriety stop her from acting on her feelings. In that sense La is almost ordinary. But ordinariness also has its place in the scheme of things. The ordinary English life, the ordinary English people, the ordinary garden – it seems the war was being fought to protect exactly this ordinary life. So La’s Orchestra, the book, is a celebration of ordinariness. It makes me think of Doctor Who and the Doctor’s delight in the everyday and ordinary human beings.
So the book’s a read for a lazy Sunday afternoon preferably in the garden with a cup of tea and biscuits. It won’t shake your beliefs or make you question anything. It will however make you feel warm and take delight in the ordinary.
April 12, 2023
It was easy to read, just seemed predictable and quite repetitive
January 19, 2024
I like AMS's novels very much, but coming to terms with this one required a bit more effort on my part.
My first cause of dissatisfaction with it is that it doesn't really get into the experience of music. Granted, it would be a challenge for any author of fiction to convey a sense of the appeal of music—aside from just saying, as is done here, that it's a group activity providing a distraction in difficult or frightening times. I want to quibble with the publisher's claim that this is "about the life-affirming powers of music." I think the book would have been a lot better if it had achieved that goal, if it had convincingly showed music transforming life, because as it stands the story is a wee bit flat. (I see that reviewer ruzmari picked up on the same problem.)
Apart from that missed opportunity, the depiction of La and the people around her is engaging but not exceptional. It's largely a series of events that feels almost as random as ordinary life. For example, La's employer accuses the Polish refugee of having stolen his money. Because La likes the chap, she's reluctant to believe him capable of such a deed. She's more inclined to suspect her neighbor's son, who gives every indication of being a ne'er-do-well. But the local sheriff happens to be the boy's uncle and will not entertain any idea that he could be the guilty one. Then it turns out the money wasn't stolen after all! So what was that ruckus all about? Yes, it leads to the refugee being removed from the scene, thereby frustrating La's attraction for him, but with so much reserve on both sides there's little indication that the two of them were going to get together anyway. Actually, La has her own rather bizarre suspicions, wondering if he might be a spy. Well, of course he isn't. Why would a spy be spending his days tending a farmer's pigs?
I think the author's real theme is not music but rather the very real presence of evil in the world and the sometimes-misguided tendency of people to react by associating evil with anyone unlike themselves—not just the Germans who're sending bombers over the Channel, but also the neighbor's weird kid and even the handsome man who is one's only hope for a life partner.
Belatedly, La recognizes and resists this impulse. Rather suddenly, the concluding pages of the story tilt into a mea culpa on the part of both La and her friend Tim for not having been as kind to wartime refugees as they might have been.
Music figures as the only constructive tool at hand. At the end, fearing the new threat of nuclear war, La turns to it again. Again we're told of but do not experience music's curative power. However, while it may not save the world, it does perhaps save hers. (Another paragraph or two at the end might've confirmed that.)
As I began writing this review, I saw in the story a jumble of events that did not appear to have been sufficiently or artfully shaped to a purpose. However, having thought it over, I think the purpose is there after all, just somewhat muted.
Of the AMS books that have come my way, this one is most like Chance Developments , at least in part because both involve straightforward storytelling without the author's usual subtle humor. Writing this commentary has helped me to like it more than I did at first.
My first cause of dissatisfaction with it is that it doesn't really get into the experience of music. Granted, it would be a challenge for any author of fiction to convey a sense of the appeal of music—aside from just saying, as is done here, that it's a group activity providing a distraction in difficult or frightening times. I want to quibble with the publisher's claim that this is "about the life-affirming powers of music." I think the book would have been a lot better if it had achieved that goal, if it had convincingly showed music transforming life, because as it stands the story is a wee bit flat. (I see that reviewer ruzmari picked up on the same problem.)
Apart from that missed opportunity, the depiction of La and the people around her is engaging but not exceptional. It's largely a series of events that feels almost as random as ordinary life. For example, La's employer accuses the Polish refugee of having stolen his money. Because La likes the chap, she's reluctant to believe him capable of such a deed. She's more inclined to suspect her neighbor's son, who gives every indication of being a ne'er-do-well. But the local sheriff happens to be the boy's uncle and will not entertain any idea that he could be the guilty one. Then it turns out the money wasn't stolen after all! So what was that ruckus all about? Yes, it leads to the refugee being removed from the scene, thereby frustrating La's attraction for him, but with so much reserve on both sides there's little indication that the two of them were going to get together anyway. Actually, La has her own rather bizarre suspicions, wondering if he might be a spy. Well, of course he isn't. Why would a spy be spending his days tending a farmer's pigs?
I think the author's real theme is not music but rather the very real presence of evil in the world and the sometimes-misguided tendency of people to react by associating evil with anyone unlike themselves—not just the Germans who're sending bombers over the Channel, but also the neighbor's weird kid and even the handsome man who is one's only hope for a life partner.
Belatedly, La recognizes and resists this impulse. Rather suddenly, the concluding pages of the story tilt into a mea culpa on the part of both La and her friend Tim for not having been as kind to wartime refugees as they might have been.
Music figures as the only constructive tool at hand. At the end, fearing the new threat of nuclear war, La turns to it again. Again we're told of but do not experience music's curative power. However, while it may not save the world, it does perhaps save hers. (Another paragraph or two at the end might've confirmed that.)
As I began writing this review, I saw in the story a jumble of events that did not appear to have been sufficiently or artfully shaped to a purpose. However, having thought it over, I think the purpose is there after all, just somewhat muted.
Of the AMS books that have come my way, this one is most like Chance Developments , at least in part because both involve straightforward storytelling without the author's usual subtle humor. Writing this commentary has helped me to like it more than I did at first.
May 24, 2010
La’s Orchestra Saves the World centers on an ordinary Englishwoman in the years just prior to and during WWll. It is a quiet, graceful book, describing the small day to day activities of ordinary people trying to keep some semblance of order in their lives while dealing with the abruptly changing times.
The main character, La (short for Lavender) Stone, grew up on a hilltop in Surrey, and left to attend Cambridge where she expected to “be taught how to think.” Instead, she married immediately upon graduation and began a privileged life, typical of women of her status and means. The marriage ending quickly, she finds herself living in her in-law’s cottage in a small Suffolk village.
As she struggles to comprehend the war, she finds purpose in caring for a neighbor’s chickens as part of the Woman’s Land Army and in starting the small orchestra, whose players are both villagers and soldiers from the local RAF base. Music, she believes, has the power to inspire and heal. La comes to care for Feliks Dabrowski, a shy Polish refugee airman, even as she also begins to believe that he may not be what he claims.
McCall Smith lends a light but meticulous touch to describing the events of La’s life. I had wanted to read his work, but didn’t wish to commit to a series. This stand alone novel was an excellent introduction. Often, tales set in wartime give us huge battles, huge conflicts, huge moral dilemmas. In La’s world, we find regular people using what talents they have to contribute to the war effort in whatever small ways they can. It’s not a perspective given often, and McCall Smith does it very well.
March 7, 2013
Every February, in honor of Valentine's Day, my local library has a "blind date with a book" feature whereby books are wrapped in gift paper and topped with a chocolate. Patrons are encouraged to checkout a book without knowing what is inside, thereby taking out something which they might ordinarily not select. This past February, I had a "blind date" with "La's Orchestra Saves the World".
As it so happens, I would not have chosen this book on my own. I had previously read one of McCall Smith's books (Isabel Dalgleish?) and found it extremely dry and tedious. I also had endeavored to read a few from his "Ladies Detective Agency" as several family members and friends are fans - again with no joy on my part. I always felt as if he were trying too hard to put himself into characters that did not come naturally to the voices he was giving them.
However, with this novel, I was taken in from start to finish. I found the characters charming and the reading and writing effortless as if McCall Smith had really found his voice telling the story of a young widows efforts during Word War II to boost morale in the Suffolk countryside by forming a small amateur orchestra. Although the novel is less about the orchestra and more about the necessity to maintain simple normalcies during the most abnormal times, the symbollism of bringing together this small group of disparate strangers and their perserverance during and after the war rang true with grace and authenticity.
As it so happens, I would not have chosen this book on my own. I had previously read one of McCall Smith's books (Isabel Dalgleish?) and found it extremely dry and tedious. I also had endeavored to read a few from his "Ladies Detective Agency" as several family members and friends are fans - again with no joy on my part. I always felt as if he were trying too hard to put himself into characters that did not come naturally to the voices he was giving them.
However, with this novel, I was taken in from start to finish. I found the characters charming and the reading and writing effortless as if McCall Smith had really found his voice telling the story of a young widows efforts during Word War II to boost morale in the Suffolk countryside by forming a small amateur orchestra. Although the novel is less about the orchestra and more about the necessity to maintain simple normalcies during the most abnormal times, the symbollism of bringing together this small group of disparate strangers and their perserverance during and after the war rang true with grace and authenticity.
February 11, 2013
Wow...quite a unique story, in my opinion! La was not a particularly forceful person, but she participated in life to the fullest extent possible, given her personality and circumstances. I love the way McCall Smith tells La's story and virtually no details of what I presume to be the happiest time of her life, with Feliks. I particularly appreciate the emphasis on the reality of making a difference, although in very small ways, as the overall majority of us are limited in societal power. I do believe that any difference made, no matter how small, makes a difference in the Universal flow overall, and I believe that was La's life... And that is all any of us can really do. We are relatively powerless against the political manipulations of world leaders overall, except in our own little realms of daily life. This wasn't one of my favorite books of all time, but I definitely feel better for having read it. As usual, McCall Smith tackles many societal issues, but so subtly that the story's deeper meaning affects the reader in the "glowing" aftermath! This was not an especially fast-moving book in some parts, but quite successful on the whole.
August 7, 2022
Very pleasant read. If you liked Guernsey Potato Peel, this one is very similar in tone- maybe not as much of the danger aspect. As with most of McCall Smith's books this one was notable for its gentle charm, introspection and moral dilemmas rather than any important action storyline. Nice sense of time and place and I enjoyed the way the book wrapped up as well as the way the story was introduced.
May 3, 2020
Ordinary people, in extraordinary circumstances - doing ordinary things that have an extraordinary impact.
La is an assuming hero, but a brave one, none the less. Such a perfect example of the British people, that had to fight with all they had against impending evil - and did so with kindness, resilience and even cheerfulness.
An endearing story about war, music and quiet, everyday kind of courage. Enjoyed it greatly!
La is an assuming hero, but a brave one, none the less. Such a perfect example of the British people, that had to fight with all they had against impending evil - and did so with kindness, resilience and even cheerfulness.
An endearing story about war, music and quiet, everyday kind of courage. Enjoyed it greatly!
September 28, 2015
McCall Smith doesn't seem as comfortable in the historical genre. It's hard to track the timing of the war sometimes as La seems far away from it. She's not, though. It is part romance, part history. The last section really falls short as he skips several years into the future and nuclear disarmament. This book also lacked his signature humor.
February 5, 2009
The power of music, the impact of the small people on large events, the importance of kindness, Bach for order and Mozart for healing.
February 22, 2009
Thank goodness for Alexander McCall Smith! His books are like a warm bath - soothing and comforting. A simple story of one woman's war and the aftermath.
October 22, 2016
Only just three. Okay for extremely light reading. It's a shame McCall Smith didn't develop his characters more. Not as good as the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books.
August 15, 2019
La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith introduces a new character, La Ferguson and then Stone, once she is married. We see this level of English society, but also the nature of life before World War II. La’s life is privileged, but little intimacy. She marries after Cambridge, but we do not see a “real love,” but as the author notes during this time people of her status just married and carried on. After her husband leaves for another woman, she is supported by his family. Richard, the spouse then died in an accident.
La, who great up in a more small-town environment, leaves London for Suffolk, where her in-laws had a cottage. It is here that she escapes, rediscovers herself and survives the war. Economically independent, she does not need income, but does work helping a farmer with his chickens. In this era, it is about food production.
She meets other people as they war is disrupting many people’s lives. She organizes an orchestra with the help of a RAF officer. She brings together men from the base and people from the small towns. They play once a month and it is community building.
La is drawn to a Polish airman, who suffered injuries. He works for the same farmer she tends chickens for in the area. While she is semi attracted to him, the war means many doubts about people. Yet, in her small community we do not tell the truth, since everyone is connected. La learns to cope and her orchestra is a real contribution. Like many of McCall Smith’s novels, much goes on in people’s heads as they raise questions, have doubts and sort out how to live. The novel captures many of the tensions of the war, which people did not know how it would end, but were committed to the nation. There are a few time changes in the book, which makes it intriguing.
La, who great up in a more small-town environment, leaves London for Suffolk, where her in-laws had a cottage. It is here that she escapes, rediscovers herself and survives the war. Economically independent, she does not need income, but does work helping a farmer with his chickens. In this era, it is about food production.
She meets other people as they war is disrupting many people’s lives. She organizes an orchestra with the help of a RAF officer. She brings together men from the base and people from the small towns. They play once a month and it is community building.
La is drawn to a Polish airman, who suffered injuries. He works for the same farmer she tends chickens for in the area. While she is semi attracted to him, the war means many doubts about people. Yet, in her small community we do not tell the truth, since everyone is connected. La learns to cope and her orchestra is a real contribution. Like many of McCall Smith’s novels, much goes on in people’s heads as they raise questions, have doubts and sort out how to live. The novel captures many of the tensions of the war, which people did not know how it would end, but were committed to the nation. There are a few time changes in the book, which makes it intriguing.
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