A Cat, A Man, and Two Women by Junichiro Tanizaki

Tanizaki's feline femme fatale

At the heart of Junichiro Tanizaki's 1936 novella A Cat, A Man, and Two Women is a custody battle brought about by an unusual domestic scenario. The result is a unique love triangle with a feline femme fatale at the heart. Tanizaki's protagonist is a mature tortoiseshell cat named Lily who belongs to a timid and doting man, Shozo, who is happiest when spoiling his pet with hand served meals of the finest mackerel procured from the market by his wife Fukuko. 

The story concerns Shozo's spurned ex-wife Shinako, removed by his overbearing mother having been unable to bear Shozo a child, who contacts Fukuko to demand that Lily moves in with her to help manage the loneliness she now suffers. Fukuko waivers, though she may be jealous of the attention which Shozo showers upon Lily could this really just be an attempt by Shinako to win back Shozo's affections.

Tanizaki's characters are often driven by sexuality and destructive eroticism and the very same themes play out in A Cat, A Man, and Two Women albeit between a man a cat. Each of the characters uses Lily in one way or another to exert power, or to exact revenge enabled by the weak and effective Shozo who effectively hides from his responsibilities as a husband behind his indulgence for the cat.

Fukuko manages to convince Shozo to relent to Shinako's request and Lily is duly dispatched to her new home but this is far from the end of the tale. With Lily and Shinako now aligned the power balance shifts leaving Shozo to consider his true feelings whilst Fukuko tries to focus his attention on herself. 

The joy of reading Tanizaki today is that his subject matter and viewpoint is as contemporary as any new writing. There are times in the novella when you'll forget that it was written in the 1930s thanks to Tanizaki's Modernist approach to writing. Though the story is set in the Osaka/Kobe region it seems influenced by Tanizaki's own time spent in Yokohama where his career began in Japan's most internationally open city.

The novella is successful as a neat expose of an intimate domestic scenario but why Shinako and Fukuko tolerate Shozo's puerile obsession with his cat is ultimately frustrating. That said, the lengths people go to for their pets continues to amaze. 

A Cat, A Man, and two Women by Junichiro Tanazaki (translated by Paul McCarthy) published by Daunt Books, 96 pages.     

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