Dr. Moritz-Maria von Ingelfeld is a legend in his own mind. He's convinced that his masterpiece, "Portuguese Irregular Verbs," ought to be adored and pored over by scholars around the world. He worries endlessly about who has read it, who owns a copy of it, and whether anyone has requested it from the library. He believes that, in honor of his immense contribution to the field, he is entitled to the comfortable chair, his own bathroom, and all kinds of international honors, and he will scheme if he has to in order to get them. Poor, misunderstood, underappreciated von Ingelfeld.

Reading these three novellas, I couldn't help thinking of comic figures from the British Isles, from Rowan Atkinson (my suggestion for the role of von Ingelfeld in a movie version) to Oscar Wilde to Hyacinth Bucket from "Keeping Up Appearances." Hyacinth is so ridiculous and delusional that no one cares when she's humiliated. The problem is that von Ingelfeld is not delusional-he actually is a scholar, just a socially inept one. This makes the novellas amusing but rather awkward: the reader can't be completely happy when von Ingelfeld is disappointed, but can't really care about him either. That's sad, because I really wanted to love these books.

For a trilogy, these books are very short-barely 100 pages each-and thanks to Iain McIntosh, they feature very cute, quirky illustrations to go with their cute, quirky titles. Each novella can stand on its own, too-you do not need to read the first two to understand the third. All you need to know is that von Ingelfeld is a self-important, bumbling scholar running about the world hoping someone will heap well-deserved awards upon him. The series takes him from Germany to America, Colombia and India, plus the less-exotic Italy and England. (Alexander McCall Smith lives in Scotland and has spent a great deal of time in Africa, where his best-selling series "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is set.)

In "Portuguese Irregular Verbs," the first book in the trilogy, von Ingelfeld decides he wants to marry his dentist, and so naturally gives her his enormous book as a present (much to his dismay, she uses the gift as a footstool). To add insult to injury, she marries his rival, Unterholzer, whom von Ingelfeld considers his intellectual inferior (he doesn't even have a "von" in his name!) but who somehow always manages to thwart von Ingelfeld in his search for academic glory.

In "The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs," von Ingelfeld arranges to give a lecture in America-for no other reason than to beat Professor Prinzel, who had an American lecture scheduled at a later date-only to find that he'd been mistaken for Professor Martin Ingelfold, an imminent (and recently deceased) expert on dachshunds. An American sausage-dog colleague comes to visit him in Germany, von Ingelfeld is called upon to perform surgery on a sausage dog.... Absolutely any plot involving sausage dogs is bound to be funny. If you buy one book in the series, make it this one.

In "At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances," von Ingelfeld spends a sabbatical at Cambridge, where he fights over bathroom privileges with other visiting scholars. Upon returning to Germany, he finds that Unterholzer has been using his office. But that rivalry is nothing compared to his adventures in Colombia. (Guerillas are less funny than sausage dogs, but you probably knew that already.)

These novellas will inevitably be described as "light-hearted," "delightful," or "charming," or "whimsical." I hate the word "whimsical" and shall never use it in print, but I suppose that the term is apt enough. Finally we have a critically acclaimed author who writes odd little stories about ridiculous people and sausage dogs. I have to be happy about that.