Customer Reviews

The Best Cat Ever

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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).

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.

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.

...this book says almost nothing about Cleveland Amory's cat, Polar Bear. It's a shame that it was titled in a way that would make you think it did.

Amory spends most of the book chatting about himself...I found that interesting. He was a Boston Brahmin through & through, & he did a nice job of showing the rest of us how that slice of society lives. (He also wrote the classic "Proper Bostonians.")

Especially interesting is the chapter "The Last Duchess," in which he writes of his brief career as the biographer of Wallis Warfield Simpson, the divorced woman for whom Edward the VIII abdicated the throne of England. Amory eventually gave up because she was just too awful and Edward was awful, apparently not bright, and an admirer of the Nazis. Even if you are not a fan of royalty (I usually find stories about royalty painfully dull), this chapter is fun! (It also includes a digression about how the Social Register got started.)

Mr. Amory also spun good yarns out of his refusal to donate to the Harvard alumni funds (a protest against their excessive use of laboratory animals), his very temporary role as a Hollywood scriptwriter, and public response to his reviews for the T.V. Guide.

Oh, yes, and he also had a cat!

I read the review by the stupid reader from the USA. It makes me ashamed to live in the USA if Americans can be so down on a person's love for a friend. You, reader are one of the cruelest and stupidest readers I've ever heard of. I love all three of the books by Monsieur Amery and I know that a person with enough love in his heart to write three boooks about his friend is one with enough feelings to be hurt if he read a review like that. I love cats, but I'm allergic and they make me nervous, but I feel for the man who has lost a pet. There's no worse feeling than that. It made it worth it to read all of the books because you just wanted to know how Polar Bear was doing in the next one.

I discovered one of the Polar Bear stories in a very old Reader's Digest a couple of years ago and have since read the other two books in the series, this one (The Best Cat Ever) being the last. As others have said, I was disappointed that Amory wrote about more than the titles of his books promised, but I think that's because his stories about Polar Bear were so touching, so well written, I wanted more.

But, I think because I had read the previous two books and got to know Polar Bear, the last couple of chapters of this book made me feel terrible, not terrible about the book but terrible for Amory, terrible because I've been in his place. I say, if a book can make me feel this way, it must be very well written.

I debated between four and five stars. I settled on four because some of his stories that had nothing to do with Polar Bear bored me so much I just skimmed them.

Amory's habit of name dropping and reminiscing, amusing in his earlier titles about Polar Bear, eliminates much of the charm of this book. The tale of his failed attempt to write a biography of the Duchess of Windsor was interesting, but it had no relevance whatsoever to Polar Bear the cat. His wandering thoughts on his relationship with Harvard was more petty than amusing. The condolence note from Ingrid Newkirk after Polar Bear's death is just plain creepy in light of some of the PETA scandals involving animal shelters. I'm really glad I picked the book up used at a fundraiser for my local library; at least my money went to a worthwhile cause.

I began with this book and have read the series backwards and cannot say enough about the joy and laughter the Polar Bear series, as well as Cleveland Amory's other books, have brought to my life. I found the book especially touching and helpful in dealing with the death of my own beloved dog. It was the first time I recall laughing aloud so heartily while reading. A must have/must keep for any pet or animal lover.

A friend recommended this book, despite the fact that I am not a cat lover. Gotta admit, I laughed all the way thru at Cleveland Amory's obsessive love for and dedication to his cat.

front cover, back cover, spine -- that's all you need to know & that's all you're going to get of polar bear the cat. oh, you might find polar bear's name sprinkled here & there throughout the book, but this book is more truly a book of memoirs about amory's pre - polar bear days -- with polar bear's adorable mug gracing the cover (front/back/spine) to generate sales. i had previously written a MUCH more scathing review of this book (which amazon gallantly refused to post -- apparently they're more worried about making sales than they are about such high ideals as freedom & truth?), so i will TRY to be a little more generous here: the book is not poorly written. i will concede that amory is a talented writer. & amory is a grand egotist of the first order (surpassed only perhaps by the grand poobah of all egotists, isaac asimov) & so his grand love affair with himself is truly a sight to see & a beauty to behold & can perhaps bring a chuckle to one's lips & a twinkle to one's eyes, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah ... there, did i sing enough praises to get this past the censor? look, i even gave it 3 stars -- 2 more than i gave it LAST time. how much more generous can i get? but even you must admit, dear censor, that one is bound to feel cheated, when one has spent hard - earned green on a book about a CAT, only to have it turn out to be a book about a MAN! it seems to me to make far better business sense to warn people BEFORE they buy the book, then to have them complain bitterly AFTER -- does it not? because, after all, if one goes willingly into the transaction KNOWING that the book is about a man, then one is more likely to end up being HAPPY about the giving up of the green -- kapeesh?