Reigning cats.

IT IS A GENERAL RULE of publishing that books about cats sell and books about dogs do not. In mainstream non-fiction publishing the most popular books are said to be about cats, golf and the Third Reich, and there have been some ingenious attempts--notably by Alan Coren--at titles and covers combining the three.

The reason is, apparently, that dog lovers love only their own dogs, whereas cat lovers love all cats in general. Dog lovers, it seems, are attracted to their own dogs by their own dog's personalities and the devotion their own dogs give them. The owner of a Pekinese will not see a story about Rin Tin Tin and think: "That's my dog." He or she will go less gooey over the sight of a strange dog encountered on an afternoon walk than will a cat lover who stops to pet every cat encountered. The cat lover seems to love cats in a more abstract way--for the qualities of beauty, grace and mystery that all cats possess--though they can in addition to this love individual cats. One thinks of Plato's theory of forms and of the ideal.

Cats as aliens in fiction are plausible: the most affectionate cat, when she is lying on your chest, purring and kneading and staring up into your eyes with her own huge eyes, seems to be trying to communicate something. Diane Duane stories about cats, although more fantasy than science fiction, such as On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service, exploit this property of cats beautifully, as, a long time ago, did Paul Gallico's Thomasina, a perfect creation by an often uneven writer.

When two cats are together also, lying and staring at one another for hours, there seems to be something we cannot pick up passing between them. The essence of cat is mystery. Yet we can see enough of ourselves in cats to recognise them as not utterly other. We know, too, that they understand us well enough to manipulate us with a good deal of success. Even Jeffrey Archer, not always the most subtle of novelists, brought off a good story of feline wiles in his collection of short stories A Twist in the Tale.

Cats are capable of a great variety of behaviour. What could be more tender and maternal than a mother cat with kittens? What could be more endearingly transparent that a cat rubbing against you and purring in the hope of a treat from the refrigerator? Only Long John Silver in Treasure Island is comparable in raising hypocrisy into a kind of honesty. And as with Long John Silver we can again and again fall for the wheedlings of the most piratical cat and take it into our heart despite its manifest banditry. What could be more cunning than a cat working out a strategy to be adopted, or that once accomplished, to be admitted to the bed? Or more imperious than a cat taking as its right the most comfortable chair beside the fire?

Cats are capable of quite extraordinary affection but it must be earned, never taken for granted as a dog's affections are. As the great Geoffrey Household said in Rogue Male, what they appreciate in human beings is not their ability to produce food, which they take for granted, but their entertainment value. You must show you take them seriously as individuals, respect their dignity. Then they may condescend to love you.

And then suddenly we read of the mother cat burnt nearly to death returning into a burning building to carry her kittens out one by one. One novelist (I think it was E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel) defined a rounded character as one that can surprise and still be convincing. Cats can always surprise and be convincing. Our old cat--she belonged to our neighbours and decided to move in with us--would return ...