{"id":94269,"date":"2016-02-09T15:55:45","date_gmt":"2016-02-09T20:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=94269"},"modified":"2016-02-09T15:56:53","modified_gmt":"2016-02-09T20:56:53","slug":"94269","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/09\/94269\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cats in Our Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

An illustration by James Mason from The Cats in Our Lives<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Over the weekend, Turner Classic Movies ran the 1954\u00a0A Star Is Born<\/em>\u00a0as part of its Month of Oscars: the single greatest page of the TV-watching calendar. Anyway, by the end\u2014between the tragic irony of Judy Garland starring in a film about addiction and the vulnerable dignity James Mason brought to his role\u2014I was, maybe not surprisingly, in tears. And I thought, in turn, not just of James Mason the matinee idol, but of James Mason the cat fancier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You may admire him for his turns in films like\u00a0Julius Caesar<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0North by Northwest<\/em>, but Mason had a parallel life as an animal lover, and with his wife, Pamela, he wrote 1949\u2019s\u00a0The Cats in Our Lives<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>The Masons had lots of cats\u2014nine by one reporter\u2019s count\u2014and the book is a collection of anecdotes about their quirks and the inevitable pain that comes of losing beloved pets. Indeed, readers were so moved by the stories of\u00a0Toy Boy, Tribute, and Whitney Thompson\u2014as well as the loss of Lady Augusta Leeds to a coyote attack\u2014that the Masons found themselves inundated with letters and ultimately published the 1956 follow-up\u00a0Favorite Cat Stories of Pamela and James Mason<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Cat lovers, as the Internet knows all too well by now, are an ardent bunch. Writers as widely assorted as Charles Bukowski, James Joyce, and Stevie Smith have been moved to dedicate books to the feline. Perhaps it\u2019s the private nature of the relationship\u2014there\u2019s much less performative dog-park action\u2014or the cat\u2019s fabled aloofness. Where the dog inspires, the cat intrigues. Mason\u2019s book is particularly noteworthy in that he illustrated it, too, and his sketches of cats in all their many states\u2014regal, insolent, playful\u2014show not just real skill but real love. (You can see more on the Silents and Talkies blog<\/a>.) Call it the Edward Lear School of Cat Tribute, if you like.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"6415854025_447a159504\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"6415825305_faed54865f_z\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"6415826893_36eee2bcf4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, Turner Classic Movies ran the 1954\u00a0A Star Is Born\u00a0as part of its Month of Oscars: the single greatest page of the TV-watching calendar. Anyway, by the end\u2014between the tragic irony of Judy Garland starring in a film about addiction and the vulnerable dignity James Mason brought to his role\u2014I was, maybe not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[19261,21104,8017,1114,7575,14847,947,7531,12280,7030,21103],"class_list":["post-94269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-actors","tag-cat-fancy","tag-cats","tag-charles-bukowski","tag-edward-lear","tag-felines","tag-james-joyce","tag-james-mason","tag-judy-garland","tag-stevie-smith","tag-turner-classic-movies"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Actor James Mason Had a Great Sideline: Drawing Cats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on James Mason\u2019s books about cats.\" \/>\n<meta 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