The Best Cat Ever [Paperback]

Cleveland Amory (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 1994

The sequel to "The Cat who Came for Christmas" and "The Cat and the Curmudgeon" tells of Cleveland Amory's travels with his cat, Polar Bear, to reunions at Milton Academy and Harvard, recalling his prep school and university days. With the help of Katherine Hepburn and her family, he landed a plum editorial job right out of college with the "Saturday Evening Post" and soon was spending a summer in France hobnobbing with celebrities as a guest of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Later, Amory achieved his own fame, spending 14 years as a critic for "TV Guide". The two concluding chapters deal with the declining health of both Amory and Polar Bear, and the adoption of a new waif, Tiger Bear.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The story of Polar Bear, the stray cat rescued by Amory in 1978, began with the best-selling The Cat Who Came for Christmas ( LJ 10/1/87) and continued with The Cat and the Curmudgeon ( LJ 8/1/90). It reaches its inevitable conclusion here. However, readers expecting multiple cat stories and a continuation of the Amory-Polar Bear antics may be disappointed. Most of the book concerns Amory's reflections on his life (i.e., his class reunion at Harvard) and his views on humane issues (not surprising when you realize he founded the Fund for Animals). Luckily, Amory is a very readable writer, and he is able to present his sideline comments and musings without appearing to stand on a soapbox. Two highlights of this volume are Amory's response to his classmates' appeal for a donation to their class fund and the final chapter, with his heartfelt perspective on pet loss. Despite its rambling style, The Best Cat Ever will have animal lovers everywhere lapping it up like a bowl of warm milk.
- Edell Marie Schaefer, Brookfield P.L., Wis.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The eponymous feline is, of course, Polar Bear, the stray Amory adopted in The Cat Who Came for Christmas (1987) and celebrated in The Cat and the Curmudgeon (1990). But as the new book opens, the venerable puss has "been with" Amory for 14 years: no one quite knows how old he was when he was snatched from the snow on Christmas Eve. So after Amory strolls down a pre-Polar Bear memory lane--with his usual entertaining tales and ever-so-catty comments about places (Milton Academy and Harvard), people (Kate Hepburn, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and other celebrities), and publications (the Saturday Evening Post and TV Guide)--he gets down to brass tacks: the medical problems that beset man and beast in their later years. Amory and Polar Bear both suffer from arthritis; Amory is hit by a truck; and Polar Bear develops serious kidney problems. As pompous as Amory's prose can be, his love and respect for the critter with whom he lived for a decade and a half are palpable. Expect requests for this final entry in the Polar Bear saga. Mary Carroll --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; 1st Paperback Ed edition (October 12, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316037621
• ISBN-13: 978-0316037624
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,407,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meow, June 7, 2003

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best Cat Ever (Paperback)

Cleveland Amory's book `The Best Cat Ever' is part of a series he wrote that involved his cat Polar Bear, who came into Amory's life one winter evening, and became an integral part thereafter. Amory and Polar Bear in fact are buried side by side, united once more. I can relate to this personally, as each of the cats that have come into my life have come in uninvited and unexpectedly, but very welcome and very quickly indispensable.

Now I, like many cat owners, wasn't pleased at the title of the book (as of course, my cats are the best cats ever), although I certainly understood the sentiment expressed. And Amory was prepared for this:

`First, an apology. It is presumptuous of me to title this last book about the cat who owned me what I have titled it. The reason it is presumptuous is that to people who have, or have ever been, owned by a cat, the only cat who can ever be the best cat ever is their cat.'

Amory uses the wonderful tales of his cat and their life together to also recount past glories and silly stories. One such is his time at Harvard, when he and a friend enrolled in a course entitled `The Idea of Fate and the Gods' because they had heard it would not require much homework, and then were crestfallen to receive a poor grade. This grade was upgraded when the professor was reminded of their undergraduate status. He had a habit of declaring everything good by exclaiming 'Capital! -- a rather typically eccentric observation for Amory to make.

Under the chapter title 'My Last Duchess', he recounts the failed attempt to write the autobiography (I did not make a mistake here) of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (making particular point to the way it rankled her to never be given the appellation of 'royal'). In very humourous and somewhat embarrassing detail, he recounts stilted conversations and dull-as-dirt dinner parties designed more for the stroking of ego and vanity of all participants than any real social purpose (although, yes, I realise that that, for some, is a, or even THE social purpose).

Amory also recounts his animal rights activist days, something that he worked hard for during much of his life, and which is carried on in his memory at the Black Beauty Ranch and through Amory's writings, which continue to touch the heart and soul of those who read them.

Amory has been privileged to lead an interesting life that connects to many other interesting people. He does not recount the stories as standard history, or as mere gossip-columnist fare, but rather looks for overall meanings and directions in what is often a difficult pattern of discernment in life. Regardless of social status, political motivation, or intellectual stature, people are people, and will do the most remarkable, selfish, selfless, silly, wonderful things. Amory's observations of this is a delight to read.

In a very moving essay Amory recounted his final days with Polar Bear, and his difficult decision to end Polar Bear's suffering. Amory talks about the grief of losing an animal (particularly hard on single people who become quite attached to their pets) in a moving way that I wish would be used as a pastoral care text.

Amory and Polar Bear are buried together at the Black Beauty Ranch, a home for thousands of abused and abandoned animals that have come to them over the years. Amory believed (as do I) that animals have souls, too, and therefore are deserving of humane treatment and (in an interesting argument) if they do not have souls, as living creatures they deserve even better treatment.

Read this book prepared to laugh and cry. Have your tissues ready for the final chapter, and read this book with a cat on your lap (which, in fact, is how wrote this review).

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps less Cleveland, and more Polar Bear, is in order, May 27, 2002

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Best Cat Ever (Paperback)

THE BEST CAT EVER by Cleveland Amory is a bit of a sham, though certainly not one that is unattractive or was created out of malice. In the prologue, Amory writes about his deceased pet cat, Polar Bear:

"I shall dwell ... on the past and the fun we had for the fifteen years we had together."

As the reader discovers, this is just not so. As a matter of fact, most of the author's narrative is born of the time before Polar Bear came into his life. Amory remembers his first job. Amory ruefully recounts his brief stint as a Hollywood scriptwriter. Amory tells of his association with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor when he was commissioned to ghost-write the autobiography of the latter. Amory revisits his time as a reviewer for TV Guide. Or, if after, then THE BEST CAT EVER gets hardly more than honorable mention. Amory discusses arthritis and its cures. Amory revisits his alma mater, Harvard. Amory is hit by a truck.

I can't say that this short book isn't entertaining. If I had harbored, before picking it up, any interest in the author, and if the book and been entitled REMINISCENCES OF CLEVELAND (or something of the sort), then I should happily award 4, and perhaps 5, stars. Amory is indeed talented and astute, as when he states of Wallis Warfield's morganatic marriage to the abdicated King Edward VIII:

"If she settled for being a morganatic wife, not only would she not be a Queen, she would have settled for something which, to her at least, sounded all too much like being a peasant."

Amory's dry wit notwithstanding, I can only award 3 stars because Polar Bear, most of the time, just isn't there. The best chapter is certainly the last, in which Cleveland poignantly and sadly describes his beloved pet's last illness and the trauma of having him put to sleep. (I was, perhaps, reminded of the advancing age of my own cat, Trouble. While still healthy at 10 years, that heartbreaking time will certainly come for her also.)

There are better books to be savored on the relationship between a human and its feline owner. Offhand, I can name three: I & CLAUDIUS by Clare De Vries, THE CAT WHO COVERED THE WORLD by Christopher Wren, and MY CAT SPIT MCGEE by Willie Morris.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title, March 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best Cat Ever (Paperback)

For fans of Cleveland Amory's writings, this book is well worth reading. However, if the reader is expecting stories about Polar Bear, (for the most part) they are not to be found. The title would suggest that this book is the third in the series of the adventures of Amory and Polar Bear. Since I was expecting a continuation of the first two books, I was personally disappointed to find that the majority of this book was about Amory - with a great deal of his life long before he met Polar Bear.