The Group

During our trip to the Lake District, I didn’t get as much reading done as I had planned. Sure, I read Unruly Times by A.S. Byatt to brush up on my Wordsworth an Coleridge knowledge, which is highly recommended if you are looking for not a biography per sé, but a look at the time they lived in and what was like to be a writer then.

I also started in The Group by Mary McCarthy and finally finished it last week and it was great! Originally published in 1963, it is set in 1933 and follows the lives of 8 Vassar graduates beginning with the wedding of Kay Strong and ending with her death in 1940. During these seven years we see these women grow up and sadly also grow apart.

Each leading very different lives, we get a sense of what it was like to be a woman during that particular period in the US. McCarthy incorporates themes such as contraception, love, sex, socialism, and even psychoanalysis in her dazzling and strangely identifiable portrait of womanhood.

The plot is mainly influenced by the political and economic atmosphere of the time and offers the reader some sharp social criticism as well the inner workings of the female psyche. Dealing with topics such as child-raising, sexism in the work place, exploring your own sexuality, financial troubles and unrealistic expectations, these women ultimately strive for autonomy and independence in a time when a woman’s role is still largely restricted to marriage and childbirth. The Group finally, gives us a wonderful look at a time when Feminism was just slowly seeping through.

I personally loved the characters who are dealing with many issues that are still relevant today. When I graduated university, I also belonged to a group (The 8 Bachelorettes), and we were all full of hope and promise. Although most of us still keep touch, our lives have also gone in entirely opposite directions: some climb the corporate ladder, while others love to stay at home with their children making me realizes that women in essence haven’t changed that much, just society’s expectations. To me, Feminism isn’t about equality but more about choice and more specifically having the choice to be a stay-at-home mom or the head of a major corporation, the women in The Group didn’t have the option (yet).

The period in which this novel is set, 1930s New York, also speaks to the imagination with it’s glamour, hardships and progress and overwhelmed me with an intoxicating sense of nostalgia. In the end, I savoured every minute of this stunning novel which has whet my appetite for more period fiction.