At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances is a book by Scottish author and academic Alexander McCall Smith, relating further matters in the life of the main character, Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld.
The Professor is a troubled German academic whose life's achievement is the (fictional) book, Portuguese Irregular Verbs.
The book relates details of von Igelfeld's troubled relationships with the other major characters of the book series, Professor Dr Dr (honoris causa) Florianus Prinzel and Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer, who work at the fictional Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, Germany.
The book consists of two longer stories, and reviewers say they can be read separately from the other books and each other. In the first story, On Being Light Blue von Igelfeld's birthday wish leads him to a four month stint at Cambridge University where he is nonplussed by the eccentric English academics and their constant infighting. In the second story, The Villa of Reduced Circumstances, von Igelfeld unwittingly becomes embroiled in a military coup in Colombia after being invited there to receive an academic award.
The illustrations are by Iain McIntosh.
Book series
This is one book of a series:
- Portuguese Irregular Verbs (1997)
- The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (2003)
- At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (2003)
- Unusual Uses for Olive Oil (2011)