Maqbool Aziz
Sanity in our time
On the Contrary, Articles of Belief, 1946-1961
By Mary McCarthy
Weidenfeld and Nicolson £8.50 order from our bookshop
For many readers in Britain as well as in the United States, Mary McCarthy still remains the author only of The Group that fine comedy of ‘coming of age’ which created a literary sensation when it first appeared in 1963. The cause of the sensation was, of course, the ‘sex bit’. Here was a story of eight quite decent American young ladies that contained not only some frank sex talk, but proceeded to show the same young ladies wanting to go – and often succeeding – beyond mere talk. Needless to say, the novel went into three printings within the year. It ought to have gone into four – but not for that reason. Rather because the book was, and still is, among the more finely modulated of Miss McCarthy’s several satiric observations of certain aspects of American life and manners.
She is, however, a good deal more than a contemporary American novelist in the tradition of Jane Austen. For over three decades, she has also been an active polemicist and an essayist. One remembers with pleasure and gratitude such works of hers as her reports on Vietnam and Hanoi (1967),
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'The authorities are able to detain individuals in solitary confinement for up to six months at a secret location', which 'increases the risk to the prisoner of torture'.
@lucyjpop looks at two cases of China's brutal crackdown on free expression.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/xu-zhiyong-thupten-lodoe
'"The Last Colony" is, among other things, part of the campaign to shift the British position through political pressure. As with all good propaganda, Sands’s case is based in truth, if not the whole of it.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/empire-strikes-back
'To her enemies she was the alien temptress who led Charles I away from the "true religion" of Protestantism and towards royal absolutism.'
Lucy Hughes-Hallett reviews @LeandadeLisle's 'colourful', 'persuasive' new biography of Henrietta Maria.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/royalist-generalissima