The art of doing good. Aging, creativity and wisdom in the Isabel Dalhousie novels.

Several studies have examined the interaction between the aging process and literary creativity, either to confirm the stereotype that wisdom and experience do not compensate for the inevitable decline of intellectual (and all) capacities (Lehman 1953; de Beauvoir 1972) or to highlight the empowering possibilities of embracing the knowledge and insight of a lifetime to continue developing creativity in maturity (Wyatt-Brown and Rossen 1993; Cohen-Shalev 2002; Casado-Gual, Domínguez-Rué and Worsfold 2016). Not so much emphasis, however, has been put on how this new creative stage and the wisdom gained in a lifetime can contribute to improving the author's personal and/or intellectual fulfilment and, by extension, benefit readers by the sharing of that experience. Since wisdom is a quality often associated with old age, it would not be odd to assume that the lessons learned from life and career can not only lead the artist to a period of renewed engagement, but the sharing of that awareness can also inspire readers to get a glimpse of "the good life". One such example is the Scottish writer Alexander McCall-Smith (1948). McCall-Smith is currently one of the best-loved and most prolific authors in English, having written more than a hundred volumes, mostly after the age of fifty. Among such an extensive production, this article concentrates on his Sunday Philosophy Club series, featuring middle-aged philosopher and amateur detective Isabel Dalhousie, whose deep philosophical interrogations and intensely human dimension interrogate fundamental notions about ethical living and life at large.

What goes around comes back around: life narratives and the significance of the past in Donna Leon's Death at La Fenice.

This paper examines the life narratives of characters in Donna Leon's much-celebrated novel Death at La Fenice (1992). In the first of her Brunetti mystery series, Commissario Guido Brunetti investigates the death of the renowned conductor Helmut Wellauer, poisoned during a performance of La Traviata at La Fenice. As his investigation progresses, Brunetti discovers dark secrets in the past of the acclaimed Maestro, revealing his dishonesty and cruelty, but, most shockingly, his involvement in a horrendous case of child abuse and death by neglect. My analysis will address the role of memory and the significance of the past for the present, as the tragic experiences of the Santina sisters in the 1930s become intertwined with those of Wellauer's present wife Elizabeth and her daughter Alexandra. Using literary theory and cultural gerontology as methodological tools, this paper will explore Leon's portrait of the aging process: Wellauer's lack of remorse for his past sins and his inability to cope with impending deafness will be contrasted with the painful account by Wellauer's former lover, the once famous soprano Clemenza Santina, whose narrative response to her traumatic experience renders the past more alive than the present. The significance of memory, as well as the crucial role of life narratives in the personal and cultural construction of identity, will be addressed to interrogate the ways in which our perception of aging can be enriched by literary studies.

Mothers, daughters and midlife (self)-discoveries: gender and aging in the Amanda Cross' Kate Fansler series.

In the same way that many aspects of gender cannot be understood aside from their relationship to race, class, culture, nationality and/or sexuality, the interactions between gender and aging constitute an interesting field for academic research, without which we cannot gain full insight into the complex and multi-faceted nature of gender studies. Although the American writer and Columbia professor Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (1926-2003) is more widely known for her best-selling mystery novels, published under the pseudonym of Amanda Cross, she also authored remarkable pieces of non-fiction in which she asserted her long-standing commitment to feminism, while she also challenged established notions on women and aging and advocated for a reassessment of those negative views. To my mind, the Kate Fansler novels became an instrument to reach a massive audience of female readers who might not have read her non-fiction, but who were perhaps finding it difficult to reach fulfillment as women under patriarchy, especially upon reaching middle age. Taking her essays in feminism and literary criticism as a basis and her later fiction as substantiation to my argument, this paper will try to reveal the ways in which Heilbrun's seemingly more superficial and much more commercial mystery novels as Amanda Cross were used a catalyst that informed her feminist principles while vindicating the need to rethink about issues concerning literary representations of mature women and cultural stereotypes about motherhood.