Development
After criticism for the first novel in the series asserted that Isabel was difficult to empathise with, McCall Smith aimed in this novel to show “more of the human side of her”. The title refers to “three issues of great philosophical importance” that test our moral inclinations. The “philosophical resonance” of friendship and lovers are evident; as McCall Smith says, “Friendship involves philosophical issues. Lovers can certainly give rise to moral difficulties.” Chocolate represents “temptation and our inability to resist temptation” and is included for personal reasons, because the temptation of chocolate affects “most of us ... me in particular.”
A key subplot is Jamie’s affair with Louise, which can be seen as demonstrating his willingness to enter into relationships with older women and foreshadowing the events of the next book in the series.
Read more about this topic: Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori. Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.”
—Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)
“The man, or the boy, in his development is psychologically deterred from incorporating serving characteristics by an easily observable fact: there are already people around who are clearly meant to serve and they are girls and women. To perform the activities these people are doing is to risk being, and being thought of, and thinking of oneself, as a woman. This has been made a terrifying prospect and has been made to constitute a major threat to masculine identity.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“I’ve always been impressed by the different paths babies take in their physical development on the way to walking. It’s rare to see a behavior that starts out with such wide natural variation, yet becomes so uniform after only a few months.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)