A Cat, a Man, and Two Women
A Cat, a Man, and Two Women (Japan's Modern Writers S.) Jun'Ichiro Tanizaki,
Publisher: Kodansha International (JPN)
ISBN: 4770016050
Edition: Paperback; 1992-03-01
Summary:
Tanizaki has long been regarded as one of the giants of
twentieth-century Japanese writing. In the postwar period, most of
his works have become known worldwide, and his place in modern
literature is as assured as it is eminent. What distinguishes this
wonderful new collection--a novella (the title story) and two shorter
pieces--is its lightheartedness, its comic realism. All three
stories, however, are variations on a favorite theme: dominance and
submission in private relationships. The "man" in the title piece is
a typical Tanizaki hero--spoiled, self-indulgent, and obstinately
ineffectual--caught up in a war between his vindictive former wife
and her willful young successor, both rivals of the fourth party in
the title: Lily--seductive, elegant, and magnificently in control--a
tortoiseshell cat. The struggle among these three female characters
for possession of this feckless man, and his bumbling attempts to
assert himself, make for a series of richly entertaining
confrontations. This is followed by "The Little Kingdom," which
describes the curiously shifting relationship between a hard-pressed
schoolteacher and a small but indomitable pupil determined to
establish his own rule. And the collection ends with "Professor
Rado," a sly portrait of a self-important academic, seen from the
point of view of a journalist eager to "get a story." In a series of
interviews, the professor responds to questions merely with grunts;
but by accident the journalist ultimately discovers a scandalous
hidden side to this eminently respectable gentleman--one so comically
grotesque that it could only have come from Tanizaki's well-known
store of erotic curiosities. Here is Tanizaki at his best,
displaying--in a first international edition--the skills that made
Mishima call his writing "above all, delicious, like French or
Chinese cuisine."
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