The brand name tells all. Potential readers do not have to be informed by me of the excellence of ["The Writing on the Wall"]—the acumen, intelligence, clarity, wit and lack of bitchiness. Mary McCarthy's quality is of the kind, nevertheless, that a reviewer is able to demonstrate in apothegmatic droplets. Thus, "As Burroughs knows, the Men in White, when not simple con men, are the fuzz in another uniform." Or "A Compton-Burnett is a reliable make, as typical of British Isles workmanship as a tweed or Tiptree or an Agatha Christie." Or her calling "Pale Fire" a "centaurwork … this merman of the deep." Or "You cannot be a minority and in the majority simultaneously, and this is the current dilemma of Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir throning in France."

Miss McCarthy is excellent not only in the things she says but in her recognition of the excellence...