Abstract (EN)

The fiction of the twenty-first century is developing new representations in metaphor and narrative of how people today experience the process of ageing. Through an analysis of how growing old is presented in novels by two contemporary writers, Noah’s Compass (2009) by the American, Anne Tyler, and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2004) by the Italian, Umberto Eco, I will argue that the numerous images of aging that these otherwise very different novels share (physical shocks, amnesia, returns to childhood homes, attempts to combine the past and the present) reflect some of the difficulties encountered today in giving meaning to the transitional stage of life that sixty-year-old men find they are entering.