Cast a Cold Eye [Paperback]

Mary McCarthy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1963

The seven stories collected here showcase McCarthy's formidable powers of observation, her deliciously witty writing style, and her celebrated talent for dissecting characters with biting acuity. A young woman looks for subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways to escape her unsatisfying marriage; an innocuous single man's friends realize his companionship has an enormous price; and an Italian guide puzzles a traveling pair of Americans.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

MARY MCCARTHY (1912-1989) was a short-story writer, bestselling novelist, essayist, and critic. She was the author of The Stones of Florence and Birds of America, among other books.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: Signet (September 1, 1963)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451023803
• ISBN-13: 978-0451023803
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,940,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Metonymy, the part is taken for the whole, June 19, 2007

By 

Mary E. Sibley (Carneys Point, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cast A Cold Eye (Paperback)

Well, would someone leave her husband after the petunias bloomed? Possibly. Murder is more civilized than divorce. The first story of the collection describes the calculated withdrawal of love from a household. The story that follows is of an unpleasant cast, too. Francis Cleary is inane, and as such is the perfect guest for his married friends. Sadly, though, he produces a melancholy effect. He is innocent since he has abandoned the idea of marriage.

Mary McCarthy really does carry on like a latter-day Ben Jonson. In both instances the writers were good students of classical literature. Words such as bounder, titles such as "Cicerone", signal this characteristic.

In "The Old Men" a graduate student in history has broken his elbbow and is bothered in the hospital by the old man across the hall calling to the nurse. A hospital is a place of no attachments. One is no longer a point on a social graph. Perhaps to even exist is a matter of impersonation the young man thinks. He converts the noise, the pseudo sobbing of some of the old men in the ward, into musical notation, a sort of chant. His sense of contentment is punctured when he hears a dying woman sreaming in the night. On the way to the operating room to have his elbow reset he asks to see into the room across the hall. It is vacant. He dies during the procedure.

The narrator's grandmother wars against the Protestants. The family has no friends and entertaining is held to be foolish. The four children have had a happy existence until their parents are lost in an influenza epidemic. The children are separated from each other and sent to live with relatives. They are not well-treated. Visits to the grandmother become enjoyable. Five years later the Protestant grandfather arrives on the scene and is affronted on the children's behalf.

When Mary, at her Catholic school, is compared to the poet Byron, the grandfather protests. The grandfather and the school head had each said previously the other person was a fine man or woman. Two girls at the convent have marked out their own roles as class clowns. The narrator is nicknames by them clever young egg, (in initials), since the they had sensed her guileless ambition. It is predicted that she will grow up to be a novelist.

The wit and excellence of the writing in this collection cannot be described adequately.