Excellent and engrossing
When I originally began "The Group", I was a bit out of the loop as to certain terms that were being thrown around -Kraft-Ebbing being one - and to my shame, I must admit going to the dictionary to look up both "peccary" and "pessary." But once I got into the groove of the book, the narrative flowed and I was able to put most things into context. Not knowing much about Mary McCarthy, I had expected a book more akin to a Rona Jaffe "Class Reunion" type-novel. But "The Group" is much more than that. It's a sophisticated, at times even satirical (in a "oh, look how silly they were!" kind of way), look at these women in their lives after college.
Each character in "The Group" gets their turn at bat as they deal with philandering husbands, first love, casual sex, child rearing and parental responsibility. McCarthy's story went by so quickly that before I knew it, I was done and wishing there had been more.
This past winter, I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the 1966 film version of "The Group" (attended by some of the actresses) and I was pleased to see how well the book had been adapted - despite Pauline Kael's misgivings. Seeing the movie made me go back to the book which I found more engrossing and enjoyable the second time around. Seeing as it will be a long, recessionary winter, I'm prepared to give it another read and why not? There's always something new to discover in this jewel of a novel.
best read for social history
This is how young women were in my mother's youth. This is, especially, how young college women, the privileged ones at least, thought, dressed, married, dabbled in careers and causes, and interacted with their peers. Until I found this connection, I was less than enchanted with this weakly plotted series of snapshots of eight Vassar friends. However, with the link to my mother and her friends, the memories flowed, validating the cadence and concerns of the book. The fascinating thing is how much, and how little, has changed since then with respect to the things that matter in life, and the responses and responsibilities of a certain group of young women to these things.
Character study designed to be shocking and progressive
McCarthy explores hot button social and political issues that were controversial at the time of the book's publication. In order to do this, she describes the lives of eight "upper crust" friends from the Vassar Class of 1933 in the five years following their graduation.
Each life story is used as a vehicle to discuss issues like pre-marital sex, adultry, birth control, divorce, homosexuality, Freudian psychiatry and mental illness, breastfeeding, racism, and Socialism and Communism. While the characters become quite vivid, this literary device ends up feeling heavy and obvious.
I also found the political issues to be quite confusing. I admit that I am not very well educated about Communist and Socialist movements in the U.S. in the 1930's. (Barbara Streisand in "The Way We Were" comes to mind.) McCarthy talks about multiple movements within both philosophies, and I did not follow apparently important nuances.
While this book held my interest, it has lost some impact over time because it no longer presents new points of view about progressive ideas. Many of the points that were quite controversial, are now firmly part of the American consciousness. Most of us are no longer surprised that (good) people use birth control, that (good) people we know are gay, or that many (good) people have mental illness.
Perhaps this book is most valuable in the way that it provides a social history lesson and points to a better future. In 50 or 60 or 70 years who knows how we will have grown in our understanding of our fellow humans? I suppose McCarthy gives me hope.
WITH THE GIRLS
A group of girls of perfectly good background, recently graduated from Vassar ('33), decide to proceed to either work or higher education not because they really have to, but because they know that they have something to contribute to emergent America. Above all things, they don't wish to marry a banker or a lawyer and become "stuffy", they'd rather be "wildly" poor than be reduced to marrying a rich man of their own set... They'd rather marry a Jew! Such seems to be the Vassar spirit, around the early thirties in the past century (their families were too propertied to suffer during the Depression).
The girls are seen to face the challenge of building up their destinies with their intuitions. The fact that they mostly come from opulent families does not mean that they can start in life without passing through the necessary rituals and rites of initiation. The novel is the story of the development of instinct among these well-to-do females. They live in the midst of the capitalist world that was ushered in after the defeat of the Spanish Armada and their main challenge is to learn to live with privilege without losing their identities and sensibilities.
These girls are not laden with "class-guilt", which is explained by one of the characters at an informal party as a recessive gene (just like blue eyes). Their interest in politics is not wide. They are aware that life will not be without its unpleasant surprises, even to women like them. There certainly are unfaithful husbands and flippant lovers, and there is also the difficulty to live up to the college's expectations, even for the most accomplished among them.
Politics is part of the danger. As Mary Prothero's mother remarks: "People who live in glass houses should be above reproach". These girls all seem to try to be above reproach. But, is the society they are part of above reproach? What are the requirements of moral life in the new, "unnatural" age that at the time was beginning? Isn't the women's role that of transmutting the oldest into the newest, at any historical moment?
The young women of the group are aware that every act of living is a statement of class, of politics, and an emotion. Every choice in life, even from the most commonplace.. ultimately amounts to an ideological statement. As different from the other Vassar girls, such as Norine (and Kay is only in and out of the "group"), who see no difference between high and low, right, beautiful, and wrong, ugly... the "group" of seven (plus Kay) South (Ivory) Tower girls are all adequately intuitive about the role of aesthetics and goodness in life choices. It is not by coincidence that the alma mater of the group, Elinor, travels to Europe and Spain, to recover thosee lost traces, in Avila, the town of Catholic female mystics, of an older, perhaps gentler word. The world before the world of economy.
OK Book
I think this book was written partly for the shock value in the early 60s. It seems to be me much of it is dribble. Its hard to phantom that women in their early 20s would be so naive about sex. I can't beleive I managed to read through a discourse on the logistics of keeping and storing a diaphram(sp) without getting nauseated. Then I was treated to another character justifying her affair with her friend's husband because her own husband was impotent. Allegedly he was impotent because he thought of his wife as a good girl. If that were the case she should have listened to her friend and told him what she was doing behind his back - that would have cured him. The book could have done without the discourse on breastfeeding. I got the impression that most of these women were stuck up spoiled rich kids. For the most part these educated women had the most atrocious choice of men. Only Polly finally found a decent man. It is a book I won't pick up to read again.
(17 reviews)
