The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

We\’ve been reading through McCall-Smith\’s Isabel Dalhousie series of novels this past Summer and just completed this one. Each book has been better than the one before. Although the stories seem quite personal, centered around Isabel herself and her immediate circle of friends, family, and acquaintances in Edinburgh, their scope gradually expands to encompass issues important to many millions of readers. Isabel holds a Ph.D. in moral philosophy and is owner and editor of the \”Review of Applied Ethics,\” but she struggles almost daily with internal and well as external conflicts, just as we all do. She cares about climate change, social justice, and being of service to people in need. She also has a deep appreciation for music and paintings. She sometimes makes mistakes in her social interactions but then always strives to correct them. Her internal dialogue is always fascinating. Although Isabel is clearly the protagonist in this series, the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, is also a highly important character throughout. I\’ve never been there, but these books have made parts of Edinburgh seem nearly as familiar to me as the town in which I grew up, and I have come to love Isabel\’s city and the Scottish countryside around it.

We can think and act ethically in various ways. In his two series featuring female characters, Alexander McCall Smith illustrates this. One approach, in the Isabel Dalhousie Mysteries series, is to “stop and think” before acting. This creates an interruption in the flow of events. The other, in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, involves a continuous evaluation and adjustment which can become almost seamless. There are problems with the “stop and think” ethics, as McCall Smith notes. Isabel Dalhousie often makes the right decision for the wrong reasons. This happens because she doesn’t, and can’t know all the information about another person and the particular situation they’re in. In the last book of the series, she doesn’t have an important piece of information, but the person, Jane, she’s helping does. Jane learns that her supposed father is infertile. The other part that Isabel has not taken into account is Jane’s psychological processes. All Isabel knows is what Jane told her: she wants to find her father. Isabel doesn’t put herself into the other’s shoes, that is, an act of consciousness, and so she doesn’t imagine other possibilities. Now, this is not always true; sometimes she imagines other scenarios, but these are based on a reworking of the facts and perhaps a few psychological clues. These imaginings are usually far-fetched, almost artificially-induced, one might say, rather than organic (nurtured without artificial methods). So she is caught unaware of Jane’s acceptance of the “false” father and her re-focus on her mother. In time, this may not be enough for Jane, as McCall Smith hints. David Hume said that philosophical statements, ideas, theories would be best linked to psychological processes. This is what Isabel is missing, what she struggles with. In fact, she struggles with empathy. Isabel’s quick, unexamined assessment of others has led her to be uncharitable. When she learns to “stop and think” it keeps her from jumping to conclusions. She learns to question her assumptions. She grants, cerebrally, that others have a point of view and reasoning that is plausible. This helps her begin to develop a sense of what might be going on with other people. It’s a poor substitute for empathy, or compassion, but in her case leads toward developing these capacities. Isabel belongs to the privileged wealthy class who don\’t have to work to make a living, so she has a basic alienation from the rest of society. Isabel has not yet overcome that alienation, but she is striving for the integration of love, community, work, and purpose that make life worth living.

sabel finds herself musing on various topics as she helps a fellow philosopher track down her biological father in this 8th book in the series. She feels guilt over financial advice from a spiritualist, that leads to a major loss, has to figure out how to deal with her young son’s new enchantment with swear words, finds herself in an ethical dilemma over a mushroom incident, and wonders about the importance of biological family. Isobel also has an ethical challenge involving Professor Lettuce and his nephew which she must resolve. She and Jamie finally make plans for their wedding. Overall, a satisfying addition to the series.

While this doesn\’t keep you on the edge of your seat, it provides great food for thought and makes me wish I\’d taken more Philosophy courses in college rather than just Philosophy 101. The book gives you a good look at Scotland and how it fits into the world in the 21st century, and it gives you great examples of how to raise a child and how to keep relationships alive and healthy. The more I read the more I enjoy the Isabel series!

I like this series my Alexander McCall Smith and have read each one in the series so far. This book was good but not as interesting (at least to me) as those previous. I found this one much more philosophic. Although Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher by trade, the writing of this book was much more about philosophical thought and moral contemplation than any of the previous books. I always thought that there was a mystery at the very bottom of Smith\’s books in this series (even though they are not murder mysteries, they are mysteries all the same – only about people\’s lives, both past and present). This story is indeed about the forgotten affairs of youth. Isabel becomes acquainted with another philosopher from Australia who is there in Scotland to find something out about her mother and her father. Her mother was pregnant, never told the father, and had the child adopted out and was taken to Australia. Isabel is contemplative about what is morally the right thing to do when she does find her father but fears that without a DNA test, the relationship is based on a lie. This is really the gist and fiber of the story. There are other examples in the novel about when it is right or wrong to tell the truth, one being an unfortunate mushroom incident. In the end, although Isabel seems at odds with the end results, Smith does come full circle with the story as Isabel\’s lover and her finally tie the knot. I think fans of Smith\’s Dalhousie series will indeed find the story somewhat comforting, although not really all that exciting.

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