Novels 1963-1979 : The Group. Birds of America. Cannibals and Missionaries

BIRDS OF AMERICA: (05-30-2021)
Mary McCarthy's work was new to me, and after doing the research for her in preparation for the American Authors Challenge, I thought reading her might be more challenging than enjoyable. I was, therefore, very pleasantly surprised to love the experience of reading her

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very 1960ish novel about an idealist young man grappling with the real world and his place in it. It isn't plot-driven, by any means, and it has a rather abrupt and ambiguous ending, which I think was almost inevitable given the novel's lack of direction; this is a character portrait, and an examination of many social issues still plaguing civilization today. There is not much of a story arc.

Peter Levi, discouraged from joining the Students for Civil Rights group headed to Mississippi on his college break in 1964, resolves to enjoy an unexpected summer idyll with his mother back in Rocky Port, a small New England town where they had spent a happy year "in the bosom of Nature" when he was 15. Predictably, he finds many things changed, and has that "you can't go home again" experience. The summer ends with a wickedly funny description of a house and garden tour, and a night spent in jail for civil disobedience, before Peter sails off to Europe for his junior year abroad, where opportunities for soul-searching and testing one’s ethical beliefs abound.

McCarthy's skill with the language, and her ability to put her finger on exactly the right questions carried the book for me. I do love "story" and navel-gazing ain't my thing, so once in a while the episodic nature of the narrative slowed me down, and Peter Levi's angsty moments got to be a bit much--I just wanted to give him a little shove toward reality, reminding him that he was not obliged to relieve all human suffering nor to find the ultimate answers to the big questions. Still, it was a very timely read in this 21st Century moment, as all the damned questions remain with us 60-odd years later: racism, anti-Semitism, homelessness, Nature v. Technology, the future of Democracy, pollution, poverty, privilege (which McCarthy called “advantages”), testy foreign relations, political shenanigans, military conflicts. These are all discussed or illustrated situationally in sharply drawn vignettes and encounters between Peter and an array of characters from ex-naval officers to Russian students with whom he interacts at home and in France or Italy. The only area in which McCarthy fails to exhibit a “modern” sensibility is in the matter of sexual orientation; there are a couple off-hand comments about “homosexual colonies” of tourists, and “foreign queers”, which set my teeth on edge. One came from the mouth of a character who clearly does not speak for the author, and by itself could have been taken as an indication of his prejudice; the other, sadly, came from Peter’s own head, and no excuse can be offered for him. Perhaps the most troubling thing about these tossed-off mentions of “deviant” individuals is that the author does not treat this as a subject worthy of any ethical discourse at all. Brief as they were, these references probably cost the novel a half star in my rating.

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