A Cat, a Man, and Two Women

Rating:
Summary: the man & the cat, the cat & the women, man & the women...
Review:

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.

Rating:
Summary: Bit Of A Snoozer
Review: Although extremely well written, the point of these stories escapes me. And this coming from someone who has a fair familiarity with and appreciation for Japanese literature. Despite the book's short length, it took me several weeks to get through it -- my interest and intellectual curiosity were never truly aroused. I was particularly dismayed by the stories' endings, which struck me as rather arbitrary and gratuitously abrupt. To be sure, it is nowhere written in stone that a story must always provide some sort of resolution. That doesn't mean, however, that it should end more or less in mid-sentence -- and with a 'ho-hum' from the reader.

Rating:
Summary: A Cat and Japanese culture
Review: Bound in _A Cat, a Man, and Two Women_ are three stories by one of Japan's most esteemed modern writers, Junichiro Tanizaki. For anyone who has followed Tanizaki's work, the stories are ostensibly by a younger Tanizaki; the stories capture hints of the perverse and psychological drama, which he has mastered in his later work. I must admit, having read many of his later novels first, I found the stories in the collection a bit slow. Nonetheless, as admier of Tanizaki's literature, I felt the collection gave me a better understanding of his progression and maturity as a writer. His attention to the psychology of the women characters vis-à-vis the male protagonist in the title story, "A Cat, a Man, and Two Women," reminded me of his novel _Quicksand_, written much later. The story "Professor Rado" is arguably a nascent version of _A Diary of a Mad Old Man_, which centralizes trans-generational desire and foot fetishes. Out of the three stories, "The Little Kingdom" was my favorite -- it gives the impression that Tanizaki is both an astute and creative social critic. The story reminded me of the novel _Nip the Buds, Shoot the Children_, by another notable Japanese author, Kenzaburo Oe, where children rule the adult world around them. The collection is worth a read.

Rating:
Summary: Three Stars for Three Stories
Review: Bound in _A Cat, a Man, and Two Women_ are three stories by one of Japan's most esteemed modern writers, Junichiro Tanizaki. For anyone who has followed Tanizaki's work, the stories are ostensibly by a younger Tanizaki; the stories capture hints of the perverse and psychological drama, which he has mastered in his later work. I must admit, having read many of his later novels first, I found the stories in the collection a bit slow. Nonetheless, as admier of Tanizaki's literature, I felt the collection gave me a better understanding of his progression and maturity as a writer. His attention to the psychology of the women characters vis-à-vis the male protagonist in the title story, "A Cat, a Man, and Two Women," reminded me of his novel _Quicksand_, written much later. The story "Professor Rado" is arguably a nascent version of _A Diary of a Mad Old Man_, which centralizes trans-generational desire and foot fetishes. Out of the three stories, "The Little Kingdom" was my favorite -- it gives the impression that Tanizaki is both an astute and creative social critic. The story reminded me of the novel _Nip the Buds, Shoot the Children_, by another notable Japanese author, Kenzaburo Oe, where children rule the adult world around them. The collection is worth a read.

Rating:
Summary: Great stories that ended too quickly.
Review: I have mixed feelings about the three stories in a "A Cat, a Man, and Two Women". I really did love all three stories...great character studies, interesting people in interesting situations, and just enough of a comic touch to keep things rolling. However, in every case, the story ended abruptly, with no warning. I turned the page after the last paragraph in the first story, expecting the story to continue on the following page, and was shocked to discover that the story was at an end. While the stories do progress to what seems to be a foregone conclusion, I still found myself totally unprepared for the endings. There is no winding down; the stories suddenly end, almost as if the concluding parts were lost and never recovered.



Rating:
Summary: A Cat and Japanese culture
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A lovely, low-key novella, and more
Review: I sometimes wonder whom I like more: Mishima or Tanizaki. I think what it comes down to is that, what the latter may lack in raw passion (though that may not even be a fair point of comparison), he makes up for in an essential humaneness which is lacking in the former. Though he frequently puts his characters in the lowest, most degrading of situations, one never (excepting, perhaps, in a few of his early stories, in which he flirts with French fin-de-siecle decadence) senses cruelty in his writing; his affection for even those undergoing the most perversely self-inflicted suffering is ever-apparent.

In the title novella which makes up the bulk of this volume, one sees this clearly. Although overall a lighter piece of work than novels like The Key or Naomi, and lacking in the masochistic power dynamics that characterize those and much of the rest of his oeuvre, there's plenty of room for cruelty which many other authors (including Mishima, no doubt) wouldn't have hesitated to exploit. All of the characters are quite immature and petty, and that the reader is able to feel something other than contempt for them and their little power games is a testament to Tanizaki's talent. And the ending leaves one with a perhaps unexpected sense of lingering melancholy. (To the reviewer who complains about the lack of a clear-cut ending, I've gotta say, if you're looking for firm resolutions, ya picked the wrong writer, pardner.)

This collection also includes two worthwhile short stories. The Little Kingdom falls thematically somewhere between Lord of the Flies and The Chocolate War, and hints at a Zola-like facility for depicting grinding poverty, while the (in my opinion, superior) Professor Rado is the most conventionally Tanizakiesque thing in the book, with the viewpoint character discovering the hinted-at masochistic proclivities of the reclusive Rado.

A worthy collection in all; a given for Tanizaki fans.


Rating:
Summary: for the "love" of the cat
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: for the "love" of the cat
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Rubbery dialogs and odd obsessions
Review: 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.