Mary McCarthy - The Group

THE GROUP follows eight graduates from exclusive Vassar College as they find love and heartbreak, forge careers, gossip and party in 1930s Manhattan.
THE GROUP can be seen as the original SEX AND THE CITY. It is the first novel to frankly portray women's real lives, exploring subjects such as sex, contraception, motherhood and marriage.

 

Comment: This won't be a lengthy comment for I ended up DNF'ing this book. I got it by curiosity at the library because it promised to be a fictional tale on the average life of women, in the 1930s, and their life expectations. There isn't much fiction regarding these themes (independence, maternity, real life) about women in the 1930s and even less written in the 1950 or 1960s, with a clearly realistic take, and therefore I felt like trying it.

In this book we follow the lives of 8 Vassar finalists, how they went on after their graduation, what paths their lives took, what wins and losses they had... all told without censorship and ambiguity. 

As their hopes get shaped by their surroundings, will these young women live up to their own expectations or will they need to follow what society demands of them?

When I started the book, I hadn't read anything about it. On the cover of the edition I read, there was a reference to this being the book that inspired Sex and the City and there is even a prologue of sorts, written by Sex and the City author, Candace Bushnell.

I have never been a fan of the Sex and the City tv show but I knew exactly what it was about which means I did create some expectations on this book.

I thought the characters would have interesting takes on life, even though they were all going to be well-off women, but I wanted to see what the author would do about them.

I was especially curious to see how the time they lived in would play such a big part in their actions and choices.

I read around 150 pages, more or less. I'll be very honest: the writing style put me off and I didn't find any interest whatsoever in reading more about characters that felt like caricatures, like mannequins within a possible scenario, of how a woman might behave and we had 8 possible examples based on background, wealth status, connections, looks, family, personality...

Since I was struggling, I went on to read more about the author and based on what I read, it was obvious she had been a trailblazer of her time, as was this book, so scandalous and innovative for the time it was written and on how the content was so explicit.

I recognize the importance of this book and what it meant for the gender and for the target audience it was aimed at. There's no doubt this was a special book, with a key role in, perhaps, influencing what we can call today "woman's fiction" or even "chick lit".

However, its importance to the literary world notwithstanding, to me personally this was simply a boring book, told in a unappealing way, about unappealing characters and the idea of keeping up with it was putting me off and making me lazy in thinking about reading another page.

So, this was it. I did learn something, for I had never heard of the author nor of what she represented, but I don't think I'll be interested in reading her books.

Grade: DNF