A Charmed Life by Mary McCarthy

A Charmed Life Reviews

• 
  Jonfaith

  A strange meandering view of a bohemian enclave in New England, sometime after the Second World War. A dramatist (a somewhat autobiographical image of the author) and her husband move back to the village after she left her previous husband there seven years before. The previous husband now remarried still lives there. He is a satirical portrait of Mccarthy's ex-husband Edmund Wilson. I enjoyed the itinerant detail, how the focus went from ensemble tics to the strange hearing in custody battle. There are bizarre ruminations on modern painting and nuclear physics, odes to erudition and homilies to the effects of alcohol. There was little to be considered conventional at play and the conclusion like much of the novel was entirely unexpected.
  
  I actually finished this a few days ago in Serbia. Life was of a different color at that point.
• 
  Anna

  More like 3.5 stars. In a lot of ways, Mary McCarthy is like a female version of an intellectualized John Cheever. I feel alert to the weaknesses of "A Charmed Life" -- it is heavy on exposition and is sometimes indulgently philosophical. But it is ultimately so interesting, and brimming with such strong and clear sentences, I couldn't put it down. McCarthy is a master at narrating how money, sex, gender, and pseudo-intellectualism are used as tools of soft-focus manipulation and power plays. Honesty is a slippery thing.
• 
  Rivse

  Neither as ambitious as The group nor as indelible as Memories of a Catholic girlhood, with a small cast of characters and somewhat exiguous plot perhaps more suited to a short story, A charmed life seems a decidedly minor entry in McCarthy's oeuvre, a waspish tone-poem on bohemian life in the New England sticks rather than a fully developed novel. Nonetheless it has many felicities--a prose style that tends toward the expository but has velocity and snap and dash, a withering eye for mendacity and self-deception, and caustic portraits of McCarthy's real-life acquaintances, ex-husbands, and friends, always one of the doubtful amusements of her romans à clef. (McCarthy once spoke of fiction as consisting of real plums baked in a fictional cake.)
  
  The chief portrait on display here is that of Edmund Wilson as Miles Murphy, which manages to be devastatingly unflattering and yet somehow free of malice. McCarthy spares him the exacting moral accounting to which she interestingly subjects the female characters. Presented as a natural force of overwhelming intellectual and sexual egotism rather than a character with sins and foibles, Miles is somehow beyond accountability and ordinary moral reproach, like a predator that can't help but abuse and kill the weaker creatures that foolishly stray into his orbit. It is they who are at fault for failing to resist his centrifugal pull, McCarthy seems to suggest, and allowing his tentacular narcissism to engulf them and, in the case of Martha Sinnott, the novel’s protagonist and Miles’ former wife, lure them into bed.
  
  The novel offers a grim view of the possibilities for female agency--artistic, intellectual, sexual--in a world that, for all its bohemian trappings, adheres to stifling 1950s notions about women and domesticity and sex. While Miles, who has surrounded himself with a menagerie that permits him the domestic tranquility needed for sustained creative effort as well as the freedom for the occasional sexual dalliance, churns out book after book, Martha, in many ways his intellectual equal, fritters her energies away in home decorating, halfhearted efforts at writing a play, and attempts at pleasing her irritable cipher of a husband. Jane Coe, Martha’s foil, is a distasteful embodiment of the hollow, cynical wifeliness into which Martha might eventually devolve, while Dolly, the only female artist in the novel, is a spinsterish painter-manquée who busies herself with unadventurous still lifes and allows herself to be exploited by an impotent local lout—hardly an inspiring portrait of female artistic autonomy. The townswomen are a sad collection of lushes and cranks and unwed mothers. The novel charts, with mordant wit and satiric sparkle, Martha's floundering and doomed efforts to attain a life of integrity and self-respect in a sinister cultural milieu that offers an intelligent woman little prospect of becoming anything other than a doormat, shrew, drudge, or corpse.
• 
  Judy

  
  Mary McCarthy sets her novels in small claustrophobic locations. In A Charmed Life a tiny community of unsuccessful artists crowd each other socially, artistically, even personally. They get together for dinners or play readings, are literary or experimental, or just plain cracked, but all harbor secret unpleasant opinions about each other. Husbands and wives manipulate each other through lies and half truths. If these omissions have consequences, they are not relayed in the novel, but make the reader uncomfortable and nervous.
  
  Martha Sinnott is the exception. She is a former actress, a playwright, seven years into her second marriage and specializes in bad decisions. Along with her current husband John, she has moved back to New Leeds, where she had lived with her first husband, Miles. He is remarried but still in the area.
  
  When Martha and Miles meet up again at a party, they reconnect in the worst possible way. The consequences wreak havoc with Martha's plans for her life with John. By the time this disaster is fully in place, I was weary of the characters, New Leeds, and the story. It could only end in tragedy.
  
  McCarthy's use of the omniscient third person point of view is impressive. All the thoughts and emotions of each main character were fully exposed. After immersing her readers in everyone's heads, she then tortures us with a drawn out, suspenseful second half of the novel.
  
  I did not like the end though I made myself wait to see what it would be. I could not admire a single character. I felt manipulated myself even to the point of grudging admiration for McCarthy's skill and wit. To one degree or another, everyone I know including myself has some of these characters' unlovely attributes.
• 
  Aurora

  È una lettura intensa e coinvolgente, mi ha lasciato un po' perplessa e delusa sul finale, tuttavia, mi è piaciuto lo stile narrativo della scrittrice, forse un po' meno come vengono trattate alcune tematiche delicate.
  Non risulta chiaro se la protagonista sia stata violentata o meno, e il modo in cui è stata trattata la questione è stata un po' superficiale e poco trasparente , visto e considerato che da una narratrice donna ci si aspetterebbe forse più delicatezza e sensibilità nel trattare certi temi.
  Va anche detto che il libro è stato scritto nel 1912, e già appare rivoluzionario per le tematiche trattate come l' aborto praticato illegalmente dalle donne.
• 
  Jessica

  This is my favorite McCarthy book (of the moment). Chapter 9 - which describes the famous sex scene between Martha and her ex-husband Miles (thinly veiled versions of McCarthy and her ex, Edmund Wilson) - is brilliant and heavily saturated with satire. McCarthy's characters, and the picture of life she paints about fictional New Leeds, are hilarious while being almost surgically precise in her rendering of detail. The way the characters rationalize their betrayals and their lies and their pettiness reveals an ugly - but true - side of human nature. In my opinion, better than The Oasis.
• 
  abi

  oh my GOD-- the ending?
• 
  Kevin

  Found a 1964 Penguin UK paperback and thought, What the heck.
  
  The book thrills for three chapters and then it and its characters go downhill quick and with a crash. At the bottom of it all is a pile of indulgent bores whose insularity sets them apart and renders them irrelevant, unless you consider yourself one of their number. Lucky you.
  
  But that Mary McCarthy sure could write a fine sentence.
• 
  lisa_emily

  Reading this is like being trapped at a dull dinner party hosted by someone who does not cook very well and all the guests are fascinated by their own eccentricities, which are charmless and tediously weird. The book starts off by possibly delving into the treacherous waters of marriage and its wreckage, but then veers off into numbingly dull denizens of New Leeds and their stagnant lives. Although the writing is not bad, the subject does not stand up under the passage of time.
• 
  Jessica

  I was really with this one until the ending. I suppose the end of the book is a product of its time though (the 1950s) but read now it just was a little eye-rolly.
• 
  PMP

  A less brutal Richard Yates.
• 
  Daniel Grenier

  4.5. J’enlève une trace d’étoile pour la fin un peu précipitée et facile. Cela dit, la dernière phrase est magnifique.
  
  Les gens parlent beaucoup de Cheever, de Updike, ou de Yates, ces grands noms de la banlieue américaine satirique, mais en lisant McCarthy, c’est surtout à Baldwin que je pense. Elle a le même genre de regard pénétrant sur ses personnages, qui ne s’appuie ni sur la caricature ni sur la condescendance, quel que soit leur statut social ou leurs origines. Et les dialogues qui prennent leur temps sont aussi savoureux que ceux de Another Country ou Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone.
  
  Dans ce roman de cachoteries et de non-dits, il y a quelques scènes d’anthologie tournant autour de l’extrême complexité de simplement mener à bien un mensonge, ce qui donne presque l’impression de lire un thriller. Il y a également une longue scène de v* s’éloignant du male gaze qui se révèle un tour de force (longue description du déni de l’agression chez l’homme; suivie d’une longue rationalisation et banalisation de l’acte chez la femme) pour une œuvre des années 1950.
• 
  Paul Hoehn

  An astonishing piece of narrative machinery filled with characters skewered in classic McCarthy style. Here, even as they are impaled on Ms. Mc’s nasty nib, their vulnerability becomes heart-rending. It’s Mary does Rhys… does Hawthorne… does Goethe.
• 
  Reid

  For the first half of this book, it was difficult to know what to make of it. Written in the mid-1950s, it appeared at first to be a period piece about—and a critique of—the laconic post-war malaise of middle class white people in a semi-decadent pseudo-bohemian enclave in rural Massachusetts. But there continued to be a nagging sense that it was about substantially more than that.
  
  What one must decide (and a delicious decision it is) is whether the author loves her characters or has contempt for them. It's not all that easy to figure out, for the very simple reason that these folks are at the same time so thoroughly lovable and contemptible. They are naifs wandering aimlessly through the world one moment, quite cruel and class-conscious the next. What to make of a character who can say, "We all know we're superior to the ordinary person, mentally, anyway, and we all live more interesting lives"?
  
  The question of the author's attitude toward her characters becomes more complex when McCarthy's biography is examined, for she was for most of her early adult life an avowed Communist, though in light of Stalin's excesses she had largely repudiated Communism by the time this book was written. Still, it would be surprising if she had entirely abandoned the idea of fair play for the masses. Her characters' arrogance and blindness to class prejudices could hardly have escaped her notice. At the same time, though, she was well-known as an autobiographical writer, and may well have lived in circumstances much like those described in this book.
  
  So what to make of all this? As with most good writing, the answers are far from simple. The fact is, it seems to me, that she both loved and abhorred these characters, found them both charming and dull, stimulating and achingly self-involved. At one point, one of the characters refers to "the sheer dentist-drill boredom of listening to the arguments of the devil as a modern quasi-intellectual," signaling her contempt for this maundering, while unable to resist the urge to participate in it.
  
  The centerpiece of the book is a dinner party that doubles as a reading—in French—of a Racine play by a group of comfortable, middle-class white people, over-educated, narrowly focused, egotistical and underemployed, discussing the nature of the world and its people. They begin with the assumption that all of them speak French fluently enough to read, understand and comment on the play, itself an indication of their status as "serious thinkers". While the conversation devolves into tautologies and arrogant pronouncements, one of the participants criticizes George Bernard Shaw as a writer who could not write tragedy because "the tragic action turned into a discussion group." While the plot of this book moves toward tragedy, these unfortunate souls wallow in their own discussion group. The juxtaposition of this statement with the reality of the situation they are in cannot be merely coincidental.
  
  In the end, this book turns out to be all of the above: it is about characters for which we feel both contempt and concern, an intellectual tour de force about quasi-intellectual self-indulgence, a period piece about post-war malaise, a treatise on the transitional period that came just before the great upheaval of the 1960s, and a very human tragedy. It is well worth reading.
• 
  Bill FromPA

  Very much an ensemble piece with one star and seven other main characters. Wide-ranging in its themes and subjects, touching on theology, philosophy, and art as well as its main concern: human relationships, their deceptions, and self-deceptions.
  
  The novel takes place in New Leeds, a fictional town on the New England seacoast populated by minor artists of various sorts, eccentrics, and alcoholics (not mutually exclusive sets). In one plot thread, which proves to have repercussions throughout the story, Miles Murphy buys a huge (6 X 11 ft) post-Cubist portrait of his ex-wife Martha from Warren Coe, a local artist whose paintings his neighbors consider something of a joke. Coe’s only other sales have been to his father-in-law, exchanges everyone has considered acts of charity under the guise of “purchases”.
  
  Later, Martha and her current husband John speak to a local, known as “the vicomte” who knows the details of the sale. They are astonished to discover the price was $1800. Martha and John try to figure out how the price was determined:

  “How did he arrive at it, do you think?” she wondered, turning to her husband. “By the yard,” he ventured. “Actually, it’s not a big price, by Fifty-seventh Street standards. A dealer would want two thousand, anyway, for a Pollock or DeKooning of that size.” “But Coe is an unknown,” virtuously objected the vicomte. “It appears to me that he took an advantage of his friend.” (71)

  Of course in 1955, Pollock was still alive and productive. In a strange way, his death in a car accident a year later makes MCarthy's unexpected and otherwise unsatisfying ending more acceptable, a not uncommon end of bohemianism.
  
• 
  Johann Guenther

  McCARTHY, Mary: „Der Zauberkreis“, Wien 1954
  Der Schauplatz dieses Romans ist ein kleiner Ort – New Leeds – an der Ostküste Amerikas. Hier leben Leute, die sich aus der Hektik der Großstädte New York oder Boston aufs Land zurückgezogen haben. Oft hoch gebildete Menschen, die dann einfachen Arbeiten nachgingen oder von ihren Rücklagen lebten. Im Buch hat man den Eindruck, dass alle Menschen ohne Arbeit leben. Ein „Bienenstock von Untätigkeit“ heißt es auf Seite 155. Viele sind Alkoholiker und Hobby-Künstler. Der Autor stellt seinem Leser aber ausgefallene Persönlichkeiten vor. Die Hauptpersonen sind mehrere Ehepaare, die aus verschiedenen Gründen zusammentreffen, Darunter auch geschiedene, die in Gesellschaften wieder ihre getrennten Partner treffen. Dies wird im Roman psychologisch aufgearbeitet. Etwas wie es Martha, die geschieden ist und mit einem netten Mann zusammenwohnt geht, wenn sie ihren getrennten Ehemann trifft. Nach einer Party, bei der sie alleine war und zu viel getrunken hatte bringt sie der Ex-Mann nach Hause und es kommt zu einem Geschlechtsverkehr. Sie wird schwanger und ist sich nicht im Klaren, ob das Kind vom jetzigen Mann ist oder vom Ex-Mann. Verzweifelt sucht sie nach einer Abtreibung. Ein Freund hilft ihr mit Geld und Abtreibungsadresse. Nach Übernahme des Geldes ist sie fröhlich und zuversichtlich alles mit der geplanten Abtreibung wieder ins Lot zu bringen. Auf der Heimfahrt kommt es zu einem Verkehrsunfall und sie stirbt. Sie stirbt mit dem Kind im Bauch.
  Erst in den letzten 100 Seiten nahm der Roman „Fahrt auf“ und wurde abwechslungsreicher und interessanter. Action kam in die Langatmigkeit des Schreibers.
  Es ist eine sehr langarmige und detailgenaue Erzählung, die wenig an Spannung besitzt.
  
• 
  Jan

  I'm interested in Mar McCarthy, partly because of the length of her career and partly because of the effect her Catholicism had on her writing. This novel has some brilliantly drawn characters, especially the protagonist, Martha Sinnott. As we follow her mental processes, she is frustratingly dedicated to discovering her "truth." But, clearly, as we view the activities of the other characters, she is misled by her past experiences, by her misreading of the veracity and good will of her husband and friends, and by her own talents as a playwright. Art, criticism, and how one determines the value of artistic effort, are all examined in this painfully articulated novel. I liked it, even though there were parts of it that were over my head (the play-reading of Racine's Berneice).
• 
  Sarah Steed

  Probably a 3.5, but that's not an option. An early Mary McCarthy set among a Cape Cod community of what can only be described as 1950s hipsters. Seriously, these people are artists who drink out of jars and eschew electric stoves in favour of making toast on an open fire. It's a slow burn but with the supporting characters and subplots just as well drawn as the main ones, it became a page turner. And I was completely blindsided by the ending.
• 
  Fionnuala

  Picked this up for a buck in a second hand shop and rather liked it. Very funny descriptions of New England proto drop outs, ghastly and plausible. Not a major novel, but smart, wry and well-written. How I do love 1950s books...
• 
  sdrd

  I'd never heard of Mary McCarthy before - found her on a shelf in a beach house. Perfect book for Summer. Reminded me of Wallace Stegner - in terms of the characters. Can't get the last page out of my mind. Enjoyed it and looking forward to reading more by her.
• 
  Mary

  Loving all things Cape Cod and having just read Hayden Herrera’s forthcoming memoir about the 40s and 50s in bohemian Wellfleet, I was cruising through this book, enjoying the wit and language. And then...that ending. That ending!!!?!???
• 
  Kristina

  
  The Memory of Running
• 
  Marko

  I have the german edition: Verzaubertes Leben?
• 
  Patty Simpson

  It's 3.5 stars but I'm rounding down because I've realized that I don't like Mary McCarthy's writing. It's good writing, I can recognize that, but I don't enjoy it. Just personal taste.
• 
  Sullivan

  Well written and gripping in it’s execution but just awful people to spend any time with, which I suppose is the point