A Cat, a Man, and Two Women

by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Book Overview

The three pieces in this collection--the novella "A Cat, A Man, and Two Women" and two shorter pieces "The Little Kingdom" and "Professor Rado"--are lighthearted and entertaining variations on one of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 4770016050
• ISBN13: 9784770016058
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.4" x 7.2"

Customer Reviews

Rubbery dialogs and odd obsessions

Three stories make up "A Cat, a Man and Two Women," each displaying a roughly similar variation on a theme, the ever-present Tanizaki idea of domination and submission. An interesting riff in the selected trio is the various flavors of dom/sub, being both sexual and completely non-sexual. To paraphrase, sometimes a power-struggle is just a power-struggle. The titular story, taking up two-thirds of the book, sees a man, Shozo, who is a typical weak-willed Japanese man, pampered and childlike, bounced around as a pawn between three scheming women who checkmate each other in an attempt to win the dubious prize of Shozo's affection. Shozo holds the ultimate trump, however, by bestowing his love only upon his cat Lily. From there the game becomes win the cat and win the man. Shozo is clearly a Tanizaki-character, with the main variation being his non-sexual obsession, finding love where it comes unconditionally. But Lily has a will of her own. "The Little Kingdom" is a classic tale of "if you can't beat them, join them." A poverty-stricken teacher struggles to keep control of his life and his country classroom, in the face of a student who is a clear leader. Recruit the leader and win the class is his plan. A short, and semi-predictable tale, but written with enough variations that surprises can still hide around the corner. Finally, "Professor Rado" brings in the perverse nature that is Tanizaki's hallmark. Professor Rado frustrates a curious journalist, who decides to look deeper than what the professor offers in an interview. Tanizaki manages to incorporate life into this little character sketch, showing that even perversities can have perversities. All three stories are clever, with a wry sense of humor. Cat lovers will understand Shozo with no difficulties, and teachers will understand why sometimes it is easier to give into the Little Kingdom. As for Professor Rado, well...someone out there will empathize with him! A short but fun read.

A Cat and Japanese culture

I picked this book up because I had previously read and enjoyed some of the author's other works. The title of the book basically says what the main story it is about A Cat, a Man, and Two Women. The Cat belongs to the man. One of the Women is the Man's ex-wife and the other Woman is the Man's wife. The man pays too much attention to the cat and not enough to his wife. For example he has his wife cook the cat gourmet meals and feeds it to the cat. I have a cat and really liked this book because it tells you how cats think and act. But you might not like it if you don't have a cat.

for the "love" of the cat

tanizaki is my most favorite author ever since reading some of his works in college. therefore, i have read "a cat, a man, and two women" for leisure. i would have to say this is one of tanizaki's shortest works but not short of complexities of relationships of all sorts. the main part of this book deals with the complexity of not only the relationship between a man and his present wife (cousin) and an ex-wife but with a long time cat companion named Lilly. i don't know if i can call this a love triangle, more like a love rectangle. the cat, Lilly, is used and abused in this story. Lilly becomes the reasons and emotional links of all the problems between the man (Shozo) and his women, Shinako and Fukuko. A helpless animal is being "abused" by these characters, the cat can be used to represent Shozo's "actual" wife, the cat was "used" to make both wives jealous by Shozo without him directly trying, and the cat was snatched by ex-wife to lure Shozo back to her. focus is driven away from the human players in this story and is mainly on helpless Lilly. I felt Shozo never needed a wife in first place, all he needed was Lilly, Shozo is a real cat lover and tanizaki did well describing all the feelings dealing with loving a feline.

the man & the cat, the cat & the women, man & the women...

Tanizaki is one of my favourite eastern writers. He writes with a charming simplicity some of the most complicated relationships between human beings. The present story involves a man and his pet cat, his wife and the other woman. The master and the pet are very attached to each other, so much so that the wife begins to feel antagonistic towards the cat. Can this antagonism drive her husband towards the other woman? Is the other woman able to accept the cat in its superior role in the eyes of man? The charaters are by themselves rather mute and colourless, only in relationship to each other do they evolve to paint a passionate picture of love and hate. The treatment of the various relationships: the man and the cat, the cat and the wife, the cat and the other woman, the two women towards each other, the man and the wife and finally the man and the other woman continue to evolve throughout the book. This is like an Updike's short story where the relationships surpass the boundaries of country and tradition....become all too familiar and all too fearful.