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The king of the cats.


READERS OF Jeffrey Hart's When the Going Was Good! may recall a particularly ironic "camera eye" devoted to the long, disorderly life of F. W. Dupee, a highly regarded professor of English at Columbia University who flirted desperately with all the latest trends: Stalinism, orgone or·gone  
n.
A universal life force hypothesized by Wilhelm Reich, supposed to emanate from all organic material that purportedly can be captured with a boothlike device and used to restore psychological well-being.
 boxes, tweed jackets, homosexuality, student riots. Mr. Dupee's sundry enthusiasms apparently kept him away from his typewriter most of the time; his entire published output would fit in a good-sized shoebox shoe·box  
n.
1. An oblong box, usually made of cardboard, for holding a pair of shoes.

2. Something resembling or suggestive of such a box, as a plain, rectangular building or a cramped room or dwelling.

Noun 1.
. More's the pity, as the University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including  has reminded us by issuing an expanded edition of The King of the Cats, Mr. Dupee's 1965 collection of periodical essays in what he like to call "literary portraiture." A relaxed, graceful stylist, Mr. Dupee had a wildly electric range of intererest: Casanova, Samuel Butler, J. F Powers, Nabokov, Max Beerbohm. Mary McCarthy's admiring introduction places Mr. Dupee squarely in the Sainte-Beuvian line of descent Noun 1. line of descent - the kinship relation between an individual and the individual's progenitors
filiation, lineage, descent

family relationship, kinship, relationship - (anthropology) relatedness or connection by blood or marriage or adoption
, ranking him above Edmund Wilson ("a fineness od intuition of which Wilson with his wounds and bows was incapable") and praising his "conversational" tone. Ex-wifely pique may have been what caused Miss McCarthy to drag Wilson into it, in every other respect she is right as rain. The eight new pieces added to this edition include Mr. Dupee's brilliant New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of
 Review of Books essay on Truman Capote's In Cold Blood ("it is surely to Capote's credit that one cannot quite suspend one's disbelief that In Cold Blood is a novel") and an introduction to The Way of All Flesh to symphatetic and articulate as to make one almost disagree with Malcolm Muggeridge's famously jaundiced jaun·diced  
adj.
1. Affected with jaundice.

2. Yellow or yellowish.

3. Affected by or exhibiting envy, prejudice, or hostility.


jaundiced
Adjective

1.
 view of Samuel Butler.
COPYRIGHT 1985 National Review, Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1985, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Author:Teachout, Terry
Publication:National Review
Article Type:Book Review
Date:Nov 15, 1985
Words:269
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