The Clique
The Clique (English original title: The Group ) is a 1963 novel by the writer Mary McCarthy . It was on the New York Times bestseller list and was successfully made into a film in 1966.
content
In 1933, eight young women from a clique from the very prestigious New York City Vassar College met because the first of them, Kay Leiland Strong, married a theater producer. On this occasion, the reader is brought closer to the peculiarities and origins of the young women, whose further lives up to 1940 are described. Most of them come from wealthy families, whose assets but by the global economic crisis has diminished considerably in the late twenties. Only the New York society girl Mary Prothero (called Pokey) and the intellectual Elinor Eastlake from Chicago (called Lakey) still have very high fortunes.
Presumably, however, it is precisely this economic crisis that enables young women to lead a more liberal, more independent life, which includes living alone in New York and providing for their own living. For example, there is Dottie Renfrew from Boston, who plans to work as a caregiver, Helena Davison, who wants to become a teacher, Polly Andrews, who makes a living as a laboratory assistant , Priss Hartshorn, who works for the NRA ( National Recovery Administration ) committed and the English scholar Libby MacAusland, who writes herself and works for publishers. Gradually the reader becomes aware of the liberal and sometimes surprisingly conservative views of the eight women on contraception, extramarital sex, love, socialism, child rearing and psychoanalysis. Mary McCarthy thus succeeds in creating a fitting portrait of this time.
In the end, the unhappily married but now divorced Kay dies. Nobody can say whether it was an accident or suicide, and the women meet again at the funeral. Almost all of them are married now, they all had to make concessions, the lesbian Lakey is returning from Europe with her partner, an Italian baroness. The global political focus is also briefly opened: Hitler and Mussolini are raging in Europe and it becomes clear that the American government under Roosevelt will have to intervene.
background
The novel has autobiographical traits: Mary McCarthy studied literature and graduated from Vassar College in 1933 .
reception
The novel was on the New York Times bestseller list . In his review of the German edition, Rudolf Hartung mentioned the “sensational success” of the novel, with which he was thoroughly criticized:
“It is bold, in many individual scenes extremely amusing and witty - we will talk about the knowledge gained from the book later - but it means next to nothing in the history of the modern novel, and despite its great detail it hardly contributes to a deeper understanding of American reality something at. "
filming
The novel was made into a film in 1966 by the director Sidney Lumet . The main characters were played by Candice Bergen (Lakey), Joan Hackett (Dottie), Elizabeth Hartman (Priss), Shirley Knight (Polly), Joanna Pettet (Kay), Mary-Robin Redd (Pokey), Jessica Walter (Libby), Kathleen Widdoes (Helena).
At the Berlin Film Festival in 1966 Lumet was nominated for the Golden Bear .
Text output
- Mary McCarthy: The gang . From the American by U. v. Zedlitz. Droemer-Knaur, Munich / Zurich 1963. 440 pages. (For 20 weeks in 1964 and 1965 at number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list )
Reviews
- Rudolf Hartung: The art of ventriloquism. About the novel "The Clique" by the American writer Mary McCarthy .
- Charles Poore: The Group , by Mary McCarthy. In: The New York Times , August 29, 1963.
Web links
- The clique in the Internet Movie Database (film adaptation)
- Biographical Sketch . Henry Ransom Center The Group Manuscripts. University of Texas at Austin. hrc.utexas.edu
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Rudolf Hartung: The art of ventriloquism. About the novel The Clique by American writer Mary McCarthy . In: Die Zeit , No. 35/1964.