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Not "Happy Birthday"!
22nd May 2004, 1.05pm

I don't know much at all about Steven Millhauser, but after reading "Cat 'n' Mouse" in the Spring Humour edition of the New Yorker, I'm definitely going to do some digging. "Cat 'n' Mouse", if I may be so bold, is NeoPulp par excellence. It's a straight-telling, blow-by-blow, of a by-the-numbers cat-versus-mouse cartoon, complete with sizzling sticks of dynamite, "NO SALE" cash register signs in eyes, overexaggerated cross-dressing and double-takes.

What makes it more than just a list of familiar gags is 1) the unrelenting exactness with which every scenario is described, and 2) the moments in the story that see the mouse and the cat questioning their own motivation vis-a-vis their eternal rivalry. This from the cat's perspective:

"Although he knows that he will never catch the mouse, who will forever escape into his mousehole a half inch ahead of the reaching claw, he also knows that only if he catches the mouse will his wretched life be justified. He will be transformed. Is it therefore his own life that he seeks, when he lies awake plotting against the mouse? Is it, when all is said and done, himself that he is chasing?"

The whole thing's online at the New Yorker.