Mary McCarthy

by Thomas Mallon

  354.21 M. de Vogüé] Either Charles-Jean Melchior de Vogüé (1829–1916), French diplomat and archaeologist, or his nephew Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé, author of The Russian Novel (1886).

  361.20 eidos] The cultural content and expression of a particular group.

  361.21 Lazarus to their Dives] Parable in Luke 16 about the beggar (Lazarus) and the rich man (Dives).

  364.30 Ajaccio] Capital of the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.

  365.26 Maurice Baring’s] Maurice Baring (1874–1945), British novelist, dramatist, poet, and travel writer.

  367.1 Hobbesian Miranda] Self-interest was the prime human motivator for the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679); in The Tempest, V.i.183–84, Miranda cries “O brave new world / That has such people in’t!”

  370.17 a New Woman] An emerging feminist; term first used by Sarah Grand in the North American Review in 1894.

  370.18 the femme savante school] A learned woman; the term has had a satirical aspect ever since Molière used it in the title of his 1672 comedy Les Femmes Savantes.

  370.27 English Ovals] An English oval-shaped cigarette that had a sophisticated aura, produced by Philip Morris beginning in 1854.

  371.28 Palladian façade] The classically regular appearance of an exterior created by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580).

  373.26 drunken Alcibiades and simple Agathon] Alcibiades (c. 450–404 B.C.E.), Athenian military hero and statesman who drunkenly orates about Socrates in Plato’s Symposium (c. 385–370 B.C.E.); the occasion is an entertainment given by the Athenian dramatist Agathon (c. 448–c. 400 B.C.E.).

  377.30–31 Dumas fils] Alexandre Dumas (1824–1895), French novelist and playwright; author of La Dame aux Camélias (Camille, 1848).

  379.30 Lydgate] John Lydgate (c. 1370–c. 1450), prolific English poet and Benedictine monk, whose works include The Fall of Princes (1430–38).

  381.10 Rorschach] Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922), Swiss psychoanalyst who developed the famous inkblot personality test.

  381.14 the Kenyon] The Kenyon Review, published at Kenyon College in Ohio and edited from 1939 to 1959 by New Critic and poet John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974).

  381.24 Petrus Borel] Joseph-Pierre Borel, known as Petrus Borel, French Romantic poète maudit (1809–1859).

  382.18 Leopardi] Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837); Italian philosopher and poet.

  383.10 Schweikism] The thwarting of authority and the shirking of duty exemplified by the title character in the satirical novel The Good Soldier Schweik (1921–23, unfinished) by the Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek (1883–1923).

  384.10 Maintenon] Françoise d’Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon (1635–1719), the secret second wife of Louis XIV of France, accused by her enemies of having too great an influence on the king.

  388.5 FEPC] Fair Employment Practices Committee, established in 1941 to enforce President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 banning discrimination by race and religion in employment in defense industries doing business with the U.S. government. Funding for the committee ended in 1946, and attempts to create a permanent FEPC were blocked by southern Democrats in Congress in 1949.

  388.20 la boxe] French: boxing.

  395.2 Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave] From Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem Marmion (1513), Canto VI, XVII.

  396.19–20 all around Robin Hood’s barn] All the land around Sherwood Forest; an idiom for “the long way around” or “all over the place.”

  396.21 a Dutch uncle] A blunt giver of sometimes unwelcome advice.

  399.27 Diotima] The likely fictional female philosopher of nonsexual love in Plato’s Symposium (c. 385–370 B.C.E.) and the source for Socrates’s thinking on the subject.

  401.37 l’acte gratuit] French: an unmotivated, impulsive action. Phrase coined by André Gide in Les Caves du Vatican (1914).

  401.40 canaille] French: the rabble or the mob.

  402.16 précieuse] French: an affected and pretentious woman.

  402.25 faute de mieux] French: for want of something better.

  403.17–18 Sulla or Diocletian] Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (138–78 B.C.E.), brutal Roman general and dictator; Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, known as Diocletian (245–313 C.E.), Roman emperor, 284–305, known both for his reforms and for terrible persecutions of Christians.

  403.26 Niebuhr and Barth] Protestant theologians Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) and Karl Barth (1886–1968).

  404.4–5 Leibnitzian worlds] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), German rationalist philosopher, considered to be the originator of symbolic logic, believed that the divinely ordained universe was “the best of all possible worlds.”

  404.24–25 the doors slamming in the Doll’s House.] Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House (1879), at the end of which its heroine, Nora, walks out on her husband and her children.

  405.7 coup de foudre] Literally, a thunderbolt; used figuratively to mean love at first sight.

  410.13 amici curiae] Friends of the court, not a party to the litigation at hand but allowed to offer advice or information.

  410.18 Wanamaker’s] Philadelphia’s first department store, with later branches in New York, London, and Paris.

  410.24 William Penn and the Indians] Penn (1644–1718), the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, concluded treaties and maintained amicable relations with the state’s American Indians.

  411.4 grand right and left] Square dance move.

  414.11 the Declaration] The American Declaration of Independence (1776) asserts that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness] it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.”

  414.39 the nigger in the woodpile.] Familiar nineteenth-century American phrase, now obviously objectionable, indicating an important hidden fact.

  415.8 the Book] Finnegans Wake (1939).

  420.37 Blue Cross] Provider of health insurance and hospital care founded in 1929.

  423.36–37 Noah in his nakedness and commit the sin of Ham] In Genesis 9, Noah is seen drunk and naked in his tent by his son Ham, who then reports the occurrence to his brothers.

  425.22–24 “ ‘Oh, what care I . . . new-wedded lord?’ ”] From the traditional Scottish ballad “The Raggle Taggle Gypsies.”

  426.32 bien élevé] French: well-bred, i.e., well-mannered.

  426.40 Intourist guide] An assigned guide and ideological minder from the official Soviet tourist agency, who would make sure that travelers to the Soviet Union saw only what the government wished them to see.

  427.6 pourri] French: decayed; rotten.

  427.7–8 stink, like the estimable Father Zossima] The devout dying prelate in Book Six of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1880) whose followers expect that a miracle will occur upon his death; instead his body decomposes rapidly, which some of the monks interpret as proof that Zossima was a false teacher.

  430.9 “Mulligan’s Ball.”] “The Famous Mulligan Ball,” humorous song by Frank L. Stanton (1857–1927), poet and newspaper columnist from the American South.

  430.12 Nora Joyce] Nora Barnacle Joyce (1884–1951), the put-upon wife of James Joyce, who shared his long self-exile on the European continent. Their daughter, Lucia (1907–1982), was diagnosed in 1936 with schizophrenia.

  431.13 “Sans doute,”] French: Without a doubt.

  432.34–35 femme du monde . . . femme de trente ans in the style of Maupassant.”] French: woman of the world; woman of thirty years. La Femme de Trente Ans (1829–42) by Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), not Maupassant, concerns the sexually unhappy marriage of its protagonist, Julie, who is thirty when she turns to adultery to escape her marriage; thirty was seen as the age when a woman’s vital forces were at their peak.

  433.1–2 one of the veils of Salome.] Salome’s seductive dance before Herod Antipas is mentioned or depicted
, with or without veils, in the book of Matthew, a story by Gustave Flaubert, a play by Oscar Wilde, and an opera by Richard Strauss.

  433.30 Périgord] Area of southwestern France well-known for foie gras.

  438.21 La Tour] Georges de La Tour (1593–1652), French religious painter famous for his beautiful depictions of candlelight.

  441.19–20 A Portrait of the Artist—] James Joyce’s first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).

  443.12–13 “Jésus-Christ, c’était un fou qui se croyait Jésus-Christ.”] Proverbial phrase: Jesus Christ, it was a madman who believed Jesus Christ.

  443.16–17 the dark night of the soul.] Condition described in poem by Saint John of the Cross (1542–1591), Spanish mystic and saint.

  443.19 Thomas à Kempises] Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471), German-born Dutch priest, author of the devotional book The Imitation of Christ (c. 1418–27).

  443.36 Noli me tangere.] “Touch me not” or “Don’t interfere with me.” In John 20:17, the resurrected Jesus tells Mary Magdalene: “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”

  448.31 Warren Austin] Warren Robinson Austin (1877–1962), Republican senator from Vermont (1931–46) and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1947–53).

  448.32 creator of Li’l Abner] Cartoonist Al Capp, born Alfred Gerald Caplin (1909–1979), drew “Li’l Abner,” a satirical comic strip set in the southern town of Dogpatch, from the 1930s through much of the 1970s. Notably liberal during the time of McCarthy’s novel, Capp later moved to the political right.

  448.34 Amiel] See note 352.32.

  449.2 Pinkerton men] Employees of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, the private security company founded in the 1850s by Allan Pinkerton (1819–1884).

  449.31 Saroyan] William Saroyan (1908–1981), Armenian American memoirist, fiction writer, and playwright, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940 for The Time of Your Life. In her Theatre Chronicles, McCarthy writes: “Saroyan is genuine, Saroyan is not mechanical, Saroyan is the real thing; he tells you this over and over again in the prefaces to his two plays. It is true. If you compare him with his contemporaries, Odets and Steinbeck, the purity of his work is blinding. Puerile and arrogant and sentimental as he may be, he is never cheap.”

  449.32 Leavis and the Cambridge school] F. R. Leavis (1895–1978), severe, influential British literary critic at the University of Cambridge; author of New Bearings in English Poetry (1932) and The Great Tradition (1948).

  450.5 réclames] French: publicity-attracting.

  450.19 Verlaine and Rimbaud.] French Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) went to prison for shooting and wounding Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), the fiercely rebellious poet with whom he had a love affair in the 1870s.

  452.1 Morris Hirshfield’s women] Morris Hirshfield (1872–1946), Polish-born American artist who began painting in his sixties after life as a factory worker. His paintings frequently featured women with long, lush tresses.

  452.7 Furioso] Prestigious literary magazine cofounded at Yale in the late 1930s by undergraduates Reed Whittemore (1919–2012) and James Jesus Angleton (1917–1987), later a legendary CIA spy, whose sister Carmen was a close friend of McCarthy’s from the mid-1940s on.

  452.15 Grandma Moses] Nickname of Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860–1961), popular American primitive painter.

  452.16 Partisan Review] Intellectual magazine founded in the 1930s and edited for many years by Philip Rahv and William Phillips. Home for many years to McCarthy’s “Theater Chronicle” as well as her essays and stories.

  452.20 poet-Pygmalion . . . Galatea] Galatea is the name given since the eighteenth century to the ivory statue that came to life after being carved by Pygmalion, the Cypriot sculptor in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 C.E.), who fell in love with it.

  455.2 au pied de la lettre] French: literally.

  455.16 the “thirteenth floor,” “Gospodin Mulcahy,” and so on.] Office and residential buildings often superstitiously refused to designate a thirteenth floor, skipping in their numeration from the twelfth to the fourteenth; “Gospodin” is a Russian honorific on the order of “Sir.”

  455.38 skunk-cabbages] Eastern North American plant that thrives in wetlands and has a bad smell.

  456.35–36 Dr. Williams, W. H. Auden, Cummings, Yvor Winters] William Carlos Williams (1883–1963), W. H. Auden (1907–1973), E. E. Cummings (1894–1962), and Yvor Winters (1900–1968) were all prominent poets of the period.

  456.38 Mr. Robert Hillyer] American poet (1895–1961) who strenuously criticized the award of the Bollingen Prize to Ezra Pound in 1949.

  457.33 Apollinaire] Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), avant-garde French poet and critic who influenced the development of both Cubism and Surrealism.

  460.25 Lycidas] Milton’s 1637 elegy for his friend Edward King.

  460.27 Ransom . . . Tate] For John Crowe Ransom, see note 381.14. Allen Tate (1899–1979), poet and critic associated with both the New Critics and, along with Ransom, the Southern Fugitive school of poets.

  460.35 Epigones] The sons of the Argive heroes of the first Theban War, who are the subjects of Aeschylus’s play (see note 460.38).

  460.37 Epicycloids] Curves traced on the circumference of a circle by rolling it on the outside of a second circle.

  460.38 Adrastus] Greek mythological king of Argos, one of the “Seven Against Thebes” in Aeschylus’s play of that name (467 B.C.E.).

  462.10 Roman holiday] A sadistic public exhibition in which the spectators are delighted by witnessing the suffering and humiliation of others.

  462.25–26 the Skull and Bones society] See note 108.21.

  466.2–3 the followers of Ulysses . . . Circe’s spell.] Cf. Book X of The Odyssey, in which Ulysses’ men are turned into swine on the island of Aeaea.

  466.32 “Inouï!”] French: unheard of; unbelievable.

  472.34 dégagé] French: at ease; unconcerned.

  473.30 bed of nights] Bed at night, archaic.

  477.18 Cecil Beaton] British photographer (1904–1980) as well as costume and stage designer. His author portrait of McCarthy appeared on the dust jacket of A Charmed Life.

  478.18 the Christian Brothers’] Brand name of ports, sherries, and brandy produced by Heaven Hill Distilleries in Kentucky.

  478.20 the Pullman company] American manufacturer and operator of railroad sleeping cars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

  480.24 the Mantuan] An epithet for Virgil, born near the northern Italian city of Mantua in 70 B.C.E.

  480.35–36 Hermann Broch and The Death of Virgil.] Broch (1886–1951) was an Austrian writer whose novel appeared in 1945.

  481.9–11 the Prince-of-Peace eclogue . . . Dido’s speech] The fourth of Virgil’s ten Eclogues, written about 40 B.C.E., seems to foretell the coming of Christ; in Book 4 of Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido, wretched with passion for the departing Aeneas, gives an emotional speech before killing herself.

  481.26 Robespierre] Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), vengefully radical figure of the French Revolution.

  481.30 Calliope] In Greek mythology, the muse of epic poetry and eloquence.

  482.27–28 Empson . . . pastoral mode.] William Empson (1906–1984), an English literary critic whose works include Some Versions of Pastoral (1935).

  483.9 Janeite] Fervent fan and advocate of the works of Jane Austen.

  483.31 Lucretius] Roman philosopher and poet (c. 99–55 B.C.E.); author of De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things).

  484.28–29 Democritus and the atom] Greek philosopher (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.E.) who posited that matter was made up of a variety of particles too small to be seen.

  486.30 the Imagist movement] Early twentieth-century poetic movement that emphasized precision of language and description over abstract pronouncement and emotional rhetoric, famously exemplified in Ezra Pound’s brief poem “In a Station of the Metro.”


  487.6 The Outcasts of Poker Flat] American short story published in 1869 by Bret Harte (1836–1902) about the misadventures of a group of moral reprobates exiled from a California town.

  488.31–32 the old John Reed Club] Network of clubs for Marxist intellectuals operating from 1929 to 1935 and controlled by the U.S. Communist Party from 1930, named for John Reed (see note 114.6). The original Partisan Review, founded in 1934, came out of the John Reed Club of New York. The publication was reconstituted as an anti-Stalinist journal in 1937, prior to McCarthy’s long association with it.

  488.32 Party name] During the 1930s, protective aliases were frequently used by members of the American Communist Party.

  490.2 frays with the Bridges union] See note 332.26–27.

  490.3 the strike at Ohrbach’s] Workers struck at the Klein’s and Ohrbach’s department stores in New York’s Union Square in late 1934 and early 1935, using disruptive tactics that included the release of white mice inside one of the stores and having children enter another with balloons saying “Don’t Buy At Ohrbach’s!” McCarthy’s friend, novelist James T. Farrell, was among those who participated in a “Writers’ Day” of picketing.

  491.22–23 north-northwest . . . handsaw] In Hamlet, II.ii.378–79, the prince tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

  492.2 A Tygre’s Heart Wrapt in a Player’s Hyde] Famous put-down of the young William Shakespeare as an “upstart crow” by playwright Robert Greene (1558–1592).

  492.9 the Mermaid Tavern] London tavern not far from St. Paul’s Cathedral where Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, and other seventeenth-century literary men—including, some say, Shakespeare—met on the first Friday of the month.

  492.35 John Brown’s Body] Blank-verse epic (1928) about the American abolitionist John Brown by the poet Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943).

  493.35 Mephistopheles] Devil of German legend who figures in the temptation of Faust, most famously in Christopher Marlowe’s 1604 play Doctor Faustus.

  495.21–23 hock and soda-water, . . . Byron] “Hock” is German white wine; “hock and soda-water” is the cure for a hangover that Byron recommends in the second canto of Don Juan (1821).