Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Precious Ramotswe: Owner of No. 1 Ladies Detective's Agency and engaged to Mr. JLB Matekoni,Traditionally built, bush-tea drinking, fiercely patriotic lady detective from Gaborone
• Grace Makutsi: Secretary and Junior detective at No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Graduate and topper (97%) of Botswana Secretarial College
• Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni: Owner of Speedy Motors, Engaged to Precious Ramotswe - the owner of No.1 Ladies Detective Agency in Gaborone
• Mma Potokwane: Head lady of orphan farm
• Dr Moffat: Doctor that Ramotswe consults.
• Mr Pulani: Client at No.1 Ladies Detective Agency
• Patricia: One of the beauty contestants in Botswana's Beautiful with Integrity Contest.
• Obed Ramotswe: Late father of Precious Ramotswe The dear 'Daddy'
• Rose: Add a description of this character.
• Clovis Andersen: Wrote book on being a detective which Mma Ramotswe refers to
• Dr Leakey
• Motlamedi
• Lombroso
• Mr Sipo
• Mma Kerileng

Quotes edit see section history

• “The real poison within families is not the poison that you put in your food, but the poison that grows up in the heart when people are jealous of one another and cannot speak these feelings and drain out the poison that way.”

  Mma Precious Ramotswe

• “You simply could not create your own morality because your experience would never be enough to do so."”

  Mma Precious Ramotswe

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• It occurred to Mma Ramotswe that such behaviour was no more than ignorance; an inability to understand the hopes and aspirations of others. That understanding, thought Mma Ramotswe, was the beginning of all morality. If you knew how a person was feeling, if you could imagine yourself in her position, then surely it would be impossible to inflict further pain. Inflicting pain in such circumstances would be like hurting oneself.

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• Most morality, thought Mma Ramotswe, was about doing the right thing because it had been identified as such by a long process of acceptance and observance. You simply could not create your own morality because your experience would never be enough to do so.

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• Morality is for everybody, and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to create it. That was what made the modern morality, with its emphasis on individuals and the working out of an individual position, so weak. If you gave people the chance to work out their morality, then they would work out the version which was easiest for them and which allowed them to do what suited them for as much of the time as possible. That, in Mma Ramotswe’s view, was simple selfishness, whatever grand name one gave to it.

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• “It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don’t know everything.”

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• People do not change, but that does not mean that they will always remain the same. What you can do is find out the good side of their character and then bring that out. Then it might seem that they had changed, which they had not; but they would be different afterwards, and better.

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• We do need somebody else in this life, thought Mma Ramotswe; we need a person whom we can make our little god on this earth, as the old Kgatla saying had it. Whether it was a spouse, or a child, or a parent, or anybody else for that matter, there must be somebody who gives our lives purpose.

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• Can one be the friend of a person who behaves badly? Or is the case that bad people can only have bad friends, because only other bad people will have sufficient in common with them to be friends?

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• Who was to tell another person what size they should be? It was a form of dictatorship, by the thin, and she was not having any of it. If these thin people became any more insistent, then the more generously sized people would just have to sit on them. Yes, that would teach them! Hah!

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• You simply could not help everybody; but you could at least help those who came into your life. That principle allowed you to deal with the suffering you saw. That was your suffering. Other people would have to deal with the suffering that they, in their turn, came across.

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• Stand on your toe. That is what one said in Setswana if one hoped that something would happen. It was the same as the expression which white people used: cross your fingers.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Botswana Secretarial College
• Africa
• Bobonong
• Zebra Drive
• Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors
• Francistown
• Motswana
• Mochudi
• Gaborone

Organizations edit see section history

• No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: Add a description of this organization.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Tears of the Giraffe, and followed by The Kalahari Typing School for Men.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Alexander McCall Smith (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 828'.914

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction