Mary McCarthy

by Thomas Mallon

  216.30–31 Lenin in 1917 . . . Petersburg—] Following the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917, the German government allowed Lenin to return to Russia from Switzerland through Germany via train so that he might weaken or topple the new Provisional Government that had vowed to continue fighting the Germans in World War I.

  217.11 Chinese Chippendale sideboard] The furniture designs of Thomas Chippendale (1718–1799) included Rococo, Gothic, and Chinese elements.

  218.9 Carpathian mountains] European mountain range stretching from the Czech Republic through Romania.

  218.15 faute de mieux] French: for lack of something better.

  220.26–27 Cyrus and Xenophon . . . Othello] Cyrus the Younger, a Persian prince (424?–401 B.C.E.), was accompanied on his military campaigns by Xenophon (c. 431–352 B.C.E.), Greek philosopher and historian; during the first century B.C.E., Diviciacus of the Aedui was Julius Caesar’s Gallic ally in his conquest of Gaul; in Shakespeare’s Othello, the Duke (or Doge) of Venice, unusually free of racial prejudice, admired Othello and gave him the command of Venetian troops fighting the Turks in Cyprus.

  222.15 Copernicus] Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) discovered that Earth revolves around the Sun. It had previously been believed that Earth was the center of the universe.

  222.24 Versailles, Spain, Munich, Yalta] Four twentieth-century political failures: The Versailles treaty ending World War I failed to prevent the rise of Nazism and World War II; liberal and left-wing international support failed to save the Spanish Republic from its overthrow by Francisco Franco’s fascists; the appeasement of Hitler, in Munich in 1938 by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, did not succeed in stopping his aggression; the Yalta Conference (1945) of the Allied Powers allowed Stalin to exert his domination over what became the Soviet satellite nations in Eastern Europe.

  222.35 Kautsky] See note 113.30–31.

  224.28–29 redispreads] Ready-to-eat fillings and frostings for baked goods.

  225.29 the School of Paris] Loose label for the variety of artists, French and otherwise, who worked in Paris during the early years of the twentieth century.

  227.9 Amour propre] Self-respect; a sense of one’s worth.

  227.25 “Over There.”] Patriotic song (1917) of World War I, words and music by George M. Cohan (1878–1942).

  227.29 malentendu] French: misunderstanding.

  227.36 enceinte] Pregnant.

  228.21 Keystone comedy] Silent, slapstick films made by Mack Sennett (1880–1960); their most famous elements were “bathing beauties” and the bumbling Keystone Cops.

  239.36 in camera] In private; Latin: “in a chamber.”

  240.12 Aquinas] St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Scholastic philosopher and Dominican friar whose Summa Theologica (1266–73) set forth the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

  241.12 Chassidic simpleton] Valuing sincerity above all, Hasidic Judaism emphasizes how a simple person can achieve holiness more readily than one who is learned but arrogant.

  243.1 force majeure] An exceptional circumstance that can void a contract and release persons from its obligations.

  244.9–10 emotions of Oedipus on hearing the shepherd’s tale] In Sophocles’s version of the Oedipus myth, Oedipus Rex, a shepherd who was once in the household of the murdered King Laius reveals that it was Oedipus himself who murdered Laius, his father, and then married his mother, Laius’s widow Jocasta.

  244.36 From each according to his capacities] “From each according to his capacities, to each according to his needs” was an idea put forward by the French socialist Louis Blanc (1811–1882) and made more widely famous by Karl Marx.

  250.25 élan vital] Henri Bergson’s term, used in Creative Evolution (1907), for the “vital force” that drives individual men to succeed and triumph.

  254.22 a tone poem] An orchestral work attempting to evoke something nonmusical, like a painting or a written poem.

  254.23 Lake minstrels] The Lake Poets of the Romantic era, principally Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey.

  255.24 St. Joan] The canonized Joan of Arc (c. 1412–1431), Maid of Orléans, who was instrumental in France’s victory over England in the Hundred Years War.

  255.34 Domine non sum dignus] Latin: Lord, I am not worthy, the beginning of the Catholic prayer for receiving the Eucharist.

  256.11 Proudhon and Tolstoy] French political philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), considered to be the father of anarchism; in What I Believe (1884) and other nonfiction works, Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) presented a social vision based on Christianity, nonviolence, and the end of private property.

  260.14 Moses on the mountain of Nebo.] Cf. Deuteronomy 34, when just before his death, Moses is afforded a look at the Promised Land from this mountain in Jordan.

  262.8–9 secret rearmament of Palestine] Probably a reference to the smuggling of weapons into Palestine by the Zionist Haganah and Irgun paramilitary organizations, in support of their military efforts against both British rule and Arab resistance to the formation of a Jewish state.

  262.9 Henry Ford’s peace ship] In 1915, Ford sponsored a quixotic amateur peace mission to Europe on the Oscar II which he hoped would bring an end to World War I. The voyage failed in its goal of ending the fighting and the participants were subject to derision in the American press.

  262.20 Archimedes and the airplane] The “principle of displacement,” discovered by the Greek mathematician and philosopher Archimedes (c. 287–212 B.C.E.), would contribute to the development of manned flight.

  262.20 Dunkerque] In 1940, hundreds of thousands of British and French troops, surrounded by German forces, were evacuated from the French port of Dunkirk by all available boats that could come across the Channel from England.

  264.13 Marshall Plan figures] American-financed recovery initiative named for George Marshall (1880–1959), U.S. secretary of state under President Truman, 1947–49. The plan helped to revive the economies of Western European nations following World War II and thus reduce their vulnerability to communism.

  264.23 World Federalists] Adherents of the World Federalist Movement (WFM), founded in 1947 and dedicated to a stronger amalgamation of the world’s nations than that provided by the recently formed United Nations.

  266.28 an Arrow Collar ad] Early twentieth-century advertisements featuring the Arrow Collar Man, wearer of stylish shirts and collars manufactured by Cluett Peabody & Company. The ads were beautifully illustrated by the artist J. C. Leyendecker (1874–1951).

  269.17–18 Whistler’s Nocturne] Nocturne in Black and Gold, The Falling Rocket, oil painting (c. 1875) by American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903).

  270.8 Carpathians] See note 218.9.

  271.2 Fontainebleau] French commune outside Paris, most famous for the enormous château used as a residence by French monarchs from the twelfth through nineteenth centuries.

  271.4 Lapérouse] Parisian restaurant established in 1766 on the Quai des Grands Augustins (6th arrondisement), which held three Michelin stars from 1933 to 1968.

  277.3 Rhadamanthine] Exemplifying rigorous justice, after Rhadamanthus, mythological son of Zeus and Europa and one of the judges of the dead in the underworld, known for being especially inflexible in judgment.

  279.25–26 English man of letters . . . between them] Lytton Strachey (1880–1932), homosexual biographer and member of the Bloomsbury set, is credited with a version of this remark in response to a military examiner’s question about how, as a pacifist during World War I, Strachey would deal with the attempted rape of his sister by a German soldier.

  287.21 Brueghelesque] Adjective derived from the crowded, bustling genre paintings of both Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525–1569) and Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638).

  THE GROVES OF ACADEME

  291.1 Atque inter silvas academi quaerere verum] From Horace’s Epistles, II.ii.45: “And seek for
truth in the groves of academe.”

  295.17–18 Joyce . . . Trieste] From 1905 to 1915, while he was writing Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce (1882–1941) lived in Trieste, then part of Austria-Hungary; for part of that time he taught at the Berlitz School.

  295.21–22 an ash-plant stick . . . Dedalus] In James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Stephen Dedalus carries an ashplant, or walking stick, which he uses as “casque and sword” and for dancing, drumming, and striking a chandelier.

  295.22 Science and Society] Quarterly magazine, published since 1936, featuring Marxist scholarship.

  296.6 Bennington-style] Located in Vermont, Bennington College, a women’s school until 1969, was known for its progressive outlook and bohemian manners.

  296.24 “Bis, bis!”] Old Latin for “Again! Again!” or “Encore!”

  296.25 consonantia] Latin: harmony or agreement.

  296.33 Alexander Meiklejohn] Leading educational reformer; a dean of Brown University and president of Amherst College, Meiklejohn (1872–1964) was a strong proponent of the First Amendment and served on the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union.

  298.37–38 the Wallace campaign] In 1948, as the candidate of the Progressive Party, former vice president Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965) led a left-wing challenge to President Harry S. Truman. His campaign was heavily influenced by Communists and fellow travelers, and he finished fourth in the presidential race, behind Truman; Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey; and Strom Thurmond, the segregationist candidate of the States’ Rights Democratic Party (“Dixiecrats”).

  299.15–17 Dr. Fuchs . . . Mr. Hiss . . . Mr. Greenglass . . . Senator McCarthy] Klaus Fuchs (1911–1988), a physicist on the Manhattan Project and at Los Alamos convicted of giving atomic secrets to the USSR. Alger Hiss (1904–1996), convicted of perjury in 1950, is now generally believed to have been a Soviet spy, though at the height of the Cold War he was a sympathetic figure to many American liberals, who often championed his innocence and believed that he had been hounded in the House of Representatives investigation propelled by Congressman Richard Nixon. David Greenglass (1922–2014) participated in the Manhattan Project and was convicted of stealing atomic secrets for the Soviet Union. His testimony against his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, helped lead to her execution. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (1908–1957) pursued Communists in American government in a series of investigations that eventually, because of his reckless tactics and disregard for civil liberties, led to his censure by the Senate in 1954.

  299.25 the Stockholm Peace Petition] The Stockholm Appeal, a call for banning all nuclear weapons, was issued in 1950 by the World Peace Council, an international body that conformed entirely to the dictates of the Soviet Communist Party.

  300.9 Swedish glögg and pfeffernuesse] A spicy, hot wine punch; small, spicy cookies.

  301.7 A.A.U.P. Grievance Committee] A body within the American Association of University Professors that deals with faculty complaints.

  301.33 the law of the talion] An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; see Exodus 21:24 and Matthew 5:38.

  304.22 Windy MacPherson] Windy McPherson’s Son (1916), novel by Sherwood Anderson.

  308.19–20 Baal-worshipers] Phoenicians who, according to the Hebrew Bible, venerated the fertility god of that name.

  310.40 Whitehead] Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), English philosopher and co-author, with Bertrand Russell, of Principia Mathematica (1910–13).

  311.1 Vico’s cyclical theory] The cyclical theory of history propounded by the Italian political philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668–1744), which influenced James Joyce in the writing of Finnegans Wake.

  311.2 the veto] In Twentieth-Century Western Philosophy of Religion 1900–2000, Eugene Thomas Long discusses “a breakdown of the close relationship between philosophy and theology that had characterized much western thinking in the early part of the century.” He mentions how H. J. Paton, in his 1949–50 Gifford Lectures, “challenges . . . a theological and a philosophical veto of all natural knowledge of God. The theological veto is associated in particular with Karl Barth, and the so-called positivists of revelation, and the philosophical veto is associated in particular with A. J. Ayer and the logical positivists.”

  311.18 orgones?] The energetic life forces imagined by the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957).

  313.40 Nabs] Informal name for snack cracker sandwiches, generally containing cheese or peanut butter, manufactured by Nabisco and other companies.

  316.4 “ ‘Springes to catch woodcocks’ ”] In Hamlet, I.iii.115, Polonius uses the phrase to indicate how he views Hamlet’s attempt to trap his daughter, Ophelia.

  317.31–32 the Cadet party in the Duma] The liberal Constitutional Democratic Party, which was active in the Russian legislative assembly (Duma) in the decade before the Bolshevik Revolution; its members were called Kadets.

  317.32–33 Cocteau and Diaghileff] Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), French writer and film director; Sergei Diaghilev (1872–1929), founder of the Ballets Russes in 1909.

  318.25 narodnika] Narodniks, members of Russian populist movement founded by aristocrats and intellectuals in the 1860s.

  318.37 Gestalt] School of German psychological thought that emphasized the “unified wholes” constructed by the mind.

  318.38 Four Quartets boy] A devotee, presumably, of T. S. Eliot’s volume of philosophical and religious poetry published in 1943.

  319.8 Kropotkin] Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), Russian anarchist philosopher.

  319.24 Russian kïssel] A jellied fruit dessert.

  330.15 bornée] French: restricted or narrow-minded.

  332.8 Yalta period] At the February 1945 Yalta Conference, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin planned the postwar configuration of Central and Eastern Europe.

  332.12 Daily Worker] Chief publication of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) from 1924 until 1958. The daily paper was later replaced by more occasional publications.

  332.26–27 the Bridges Defense Committee, . . . the Trenton Six] Harry Bridges (1901–1990), head of the International Longshoremen’s Association, was prosecuted for lying about his membership in the Communist Party; the Hollywood Ten were a group of screenwriters and directors cited for contempt of Congress in 1947 after they refused to answer questions about their Communist affiliations; the Trenton Six were African American defendants sentenced to death in 1948 by an all-white jury for the murder of a white New Jersey shopkeeper.

  332.38–39 a Budenz or a Miss Bentley] Louis Budenz (1891–1972), a former editor of the Daily Worker, and Elizabeth Bentley (1908–1963), a key member of a Soviet espionage network, both broke with the American Communist Party in 1945 and became paid informants for the FBI and friendly witnesses before Cold War–era congressional committees investigating Communist activity in America. Bentley was, along with McCarthy, one of the most famous Vassar graduates of her generation.

  333.2 Ite missa est] Latin words announcing the conclusion of the Catholic Mass: “Go, you are sent forth.”

  335.8–9 Bennington . . . St. John’s] For Bennington, see note 296.6. Students at St. John’s College, in Annapolis, Maryland, focus on the “Great Books” of Western culture.

  335.13 Aquinas and Dewey] For Thomas Aquinas, see note 240.12. He is here made the exemplar of traditional, faith-based education, in contrast to the progressive approach favored by the American philosopher John Dewey (1859–1952).

  335.15 Antioch . . . Black Mountain] Progressive colleges in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and Black Mountain, North Carolina; the latter institution operated from 1933 to 1957 and is lastingly famous for the school of experimental poets associated with it.

  340.12–13 dragon’s teeth sown in the Theban meadow.] Cadmus, the mythological king of Thebes, is supposed to have planted the teeth of a dragon he’d slain, from which grew a race of warriors.

  340.14�
�Cadmean alphabet] The Phoenician alphabet, thought to have been introduced to Greece by the legendary figure Cadmus in about 2000 B.C.E.

  341.20 Mercersburg controversy] Mid-nineteenth-century dispute over Calvinist theology and the nature of the Eucharist among Protestants of Pennsylvania’s Lancaster synod.

  341.22–23 Geneva and Heidelberg, . . . Augsburg] Factional centers during the Protestant Reformation and the battles between Calvinism and Lutheranism.

  342.8 nihil humani a me alienum] Latin: “Nothing human is alien to me,” from Heauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormenter) by Roman playwright Publius Terentius Afer, known as Terence (c. 186–c. 159 B.C.E.).

  343.2 Dewey, Pestalozzi, and Montessori] Three educational reformers: the American John Dewey (1859–1952), the Swiss Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), and the Italian Maria Montessori (1870–1952).

  346.29 Maccabeean movement] Successful second-century B.C.E. Jewish rebellion against the Hellenistic king of the Seleucid Empire, of which Judea was at that time a province.

  347.13 Stendhal and Benjamin Constant] Stendhal, pseudonym of French novelist Marie-Henri Beyle (1783–1842), author of The Red and the Black (1830); Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (1767–1830), author of the novel Adolphe (1816), was a French political philosopher born in Switzerland and descended from French Huguenots.

  347.15 Manon] L’Histoire de Manon Lescaut (History of Manon Lescaut, 1731), novel by French author Abbé Prévost (1697–1763) and the basis for operas by Puccini and Massenet.

  347.24–25 Flowering Judas] The first short-story collection (1930) published by Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980).

  350.7 lotos-land] Greek mythological island whose inhabitants eat the tranquilizing lotus plant; visited by Odysseus and his men in Book IX of The Odyssey.

  352.3 bierstube, lieder] German beer hall; German art songs from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

  352.32 Amiel] Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881), Swiss poet, philosopher, and diarist.

  352.37 Maurice Dekobra] Pseudonym of the French mystery writer Maurice Tessier (1885–1973).