Books in Brief

On The Contrary, by Mary McCarthy (Farrar, $4.50). Mary McCarthy is hardly ever dull and often malicious in a delicious way. She’s bright too. All this may outrage sentimentalists but will delight those who feel that the world can stand astringent treatment. This somewhat motley collection provides plenty. There are some superb polemics here (the peripatetic Mlle. de Beauvoir becomes a sitting goose and our “creative writing courses” effortlessly parody themselves); some serious, accurate and perceptive comments (on fashion; on Dickens and his critics). Miss McCarthy has a fine and snobbish eye for social foibles, and a playful but precise ability to relate them to their origins. Once in a while she feels she has to redeem herself from “negativism” by revealing that Gandhi, or Arthur Miller, meant well and were not always appreciated fully. All right ad hoc perhaps, though unbalanced and a bit trite, but post hoc uninteresting. And occasionally she forays beyond her depth. Thus she finds Hannah Arendt great, largely, it seems, because Miss Arendt is more portentous, a better etymologist and more widely read than her admirer. A better reason for admiring than for reviewing her. But Miss McCarthy is so often full of amusement and instruction that one feels churlish in mentioning her occasional clichés, partialities or superficialities. They stand out because they are rare. She deals with ideas in so animated a way they almost become fiction. As a femme de lettres, one may well compare her to Simone de Beauvoir, and wonder why the latter has more renown. Is it because, or in spite of, Miss McCarthy being so much more sophisticated? Or is the French intellectual tradition so much more supportive than ours?

E. VAN DEN HAAG

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On The Contrary, by Mary McCarthy (Farrar, $4.50). Mary McCarthy is hardly ever dull and often malicious in a delicious way. She’s bright too. All this may outrage sentimentalists but will delight those who feel that the world can stand astringent treatment. This somewhat motley collection provides plenty. There are some superb polemics here (the peripatetic Mlle. de Beauvoir becomes a sitting goose and our “creative writing courses” effortlessly parody themselves); some serious, accurate and perceptive comments (on fashion; on Dickens and his critics). Miss McCarthy has a fine and snobbish eye for social foibles, and a playful but precise ability to relate them to their origins. Once in a while she feels she has to redeem herself from “negativism” by revealing that Gandhi, or Arthur Miller, meant well and were not always appreciated fully. All right ad hoc perhaps, though unbalanced and a bit trite, but post hoc uninteresting. And occasionally she forays beyond her depth. Thus she finds Hannah Arendt great, largely, it seems, because Miss Arendt is more portentous, a better etymologist and more widely read than her admirer. A better reason for admiring than for reviewing her. But Miss McCarthy is so often full of amusement and instruction that one feels churlish in mentioning her occasional clichés, partialities or superficialities. They stand out because they are rare. She deals with ideas in so animated a way they almost become fiction. As a femme de lettres, one may well compare her to Simone de Beauvoir, and wonder why the latter has more renown. Is it because, or in spite of, Miss McCarthy being so much more sophisticated? Or is the French intellectual tradition so much more supportive than ours?

E. VAN DEN HAAG