The next best place . . ., 23 Jan 2006
In Christian mythology the Wandering Jew is a subject of scorn. Bereft of a homeland, this accursed wraith crosses the landscape again and again, often as not bringing some tragedy or distress in his wake. Seen as the symbol of the Jewish Diaspora, the wanderer is the subject of suspicion, fear and accusation. This solitary and often tragic figure gives rise to repression and becomes the justification for unspeakable acts, of which the 20th Century Holocaust is merely the latest and best known.

Mordecai Richler has given us an astonishing and riveting account of one of these wanderers as he might have appeared in North America. As a child, Montrealer Moses Berger encounters the Gursky family. It's the first step in what will become an almost heroic quest for the truth behind the Gursky family's shadowy ancestor, Ephraim Gursky and the grandson, Solomon, who accompanied him on a journey in Canada's North. Ephraim, against all reason, apparently shipped aboard the HMS Erebus with John Franklin's ill-starred expedition into the Arctic. Richler demonstrates the Christian attitude toward the Jews with accounts of the many searchers for Franklin's remains. Those necrophiles uniformly scoffed at the notion a Jew could have been aboard, let alone survived, since "all know" these urban dwellers wouldn't have the fortitude or presumption to attempt such a feat. The evidence, however, suggests . . .

Richler has woven a rich tapestry with this mixture of invention and history. He does it so well that separating the threads of fact and fiction becomes an insurmountable task. And why not? He's given us a unique picture of the world's second largest nation. A fresh picture indeed, given that the nation of "two solitudes" conveniently forgets those of its number who are neither English nor French. If Ephraim Gursky sailed with Franklin and initiated a dynasty of Inuit Jews with such names as Gor-ski, Girskee, or Goorski. They wander, like their mentor, into the southern lands wearing, against all reason [again!] Jewish prayer shawls. They seem as homeless as their cantor, fulfilling, even in these outlandish circumstances, the Christian prejudice against wandering Jews.

Homeless he may be, but rootless the Wandering Jew is not. No matter where they settled, the Jews brought an endless capacity for adaptation, seizing whatever opportunities emerged to assist in their survival. Wherever they settled, they viewed it as "the next best place". The homeland of Israel remained within their consciousness, but they would do the best they could in whichever land they occupied. In the Gursky's case, circumstances kept opportunity at bay until Americans, in a flush of Protestant fervour, enacted Prohibition, almost certainly one of the least honoured pieces of federal legislation ever enacted. This was the moment the Gursky clan was able to seize, starting from minimal beginnings to emerge as a mighty empire built from alcohol. Richler has again merged fantasy with reality as his account of this aspect of the Gursky family would be better spelt "Bronfman".

Mordecai Richler's inventive mind and well-honed writing skills have provided us with a true masterpiece. He knows people, certainly the Montreal Jewish community, but far beyond that urban confine also. He takes us to the Arctic, the Prairies, flirts with England, pokes into America. The only missing scene is Van Dieman's Land [Tasmania], where Ephraim Gursky arrived as a transportee only two years before Franklin arrived as governor. These, however, are simply locations in which Richler can place his people. His cast is enormous, but he handles the lot with unmatched skill, presenting every persona as fully credible. We may not know the Jewish community intimately, but reading this book is an excellent means of viewing that community and how it sees the world. Moses Berger's quest for the Gursky story makes him the pivot around which this superb novel orbits as he encounters the key players in the story - especially the Wandering Jew. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This has to be my favorite book of all time., 19 Apr 1999
This book is among my favorites of all time. I have actually re-read it four times and each time I have found something new. Smith the dedicated anti-bootlegger and anti-corruption campaigner, comes through as a complete pain in the neck and don't you hate him. Solomon, the crook is a hero. A reader would hate to be like Moses Berger but is it not a sneaking regard that you are left with. It was great. And I'll read it again.

Barney Panofsky smokes too many cigars, drinks too much whiskey and is obsessed with two things: the Montreal Canadiens hockey team and his ex-wife Miriam. An acquaintance from his youthful years in Paris, Terry McIver, is about to publish his autobiography. In its pages he accuses Barney of an assortment of sins, including murder. It's time, Barney decides, to present the world with his own version of events. Barney's Version is his memoir, a rambling, digressive rant, full of revisions and factual errors (corrected in footnotes written by his son) and enough insults for everyone, particularly vegetarians and Quebec separatists.

But Barney does get around to telling his life story, a desperately funny but sad series of bungled relationships. His first wife, an artist and poet, commits suicide and becomes--à la Sylvia Plath--a feminist icon, and Barney is widely reviled for goading her toward death, if not actually murdering her. He marries the second Mrs Panofsky, whom he calls a "Jewish- Canadian Princess", as an antidote to the first; it turns out to be a horrible mistake. The third, "Miriam, my heart's desire", is quite possibly his soul mate, but Barney botches this one too. It's painful to watch him ruin everything, and even more painful to bear witness to his deteriorating memory. The mystery at the heart of Barney's story--did he or did he not kill his friend Boogie?--provides enough forward momentum to propel the reader through endless digressions, all three wives, and every one of Barney's nearly heartbreaking episodes of forgetfulness. Barney's Version, winner of Canada's 1997 Giller Prize, is Richler's 10th novel, and a dense, energetic and ultimately poignant read. -- R. Ellis

The next best place . . ., 23 Jan 2006
In Christian mythology the Wandering Jew is a subject of scorn. Bereft of a homeland, this accursed wraith crosses the landscape again and again, often as not bringing some tragedy or distress in his wake. Seen as the symbol of the Jewish Diaspora, the wanderer is the subject of suspicion, fear and accusation. This solitary and often tragic figure gives rise to repression and becomes the justification for unspeakable acts, of which the 20th Century Holocaust is merely the latest and best known.

Mordecai Richler has given us an astonishing and riveting account of one of these wanderers as he might have appeared in North America. As a child, Montrealer Moses Berger encounters the Gursky family. It's the first step in what will become an almost heroic quest for the truth behind the Gursky family's shadowy ancestor, Ephraim Gursky and the grandson, Solomon, who accompanied him on a journey in Canada's North. Ephraim, against all reason, apparently shipped aboard the HMS Erebus with John Franklin's ill-starred expedition into the Arctic. Richler demonstrates the Christian attitude toward the Jews with accounts of the many searchers for Franklin's remains. Those necrophiles uniformly scoffed at the notion a Jew could have been aboard, let alone survived, since "all know" these urban dwellers wouldn't have the fortitude or presumption to attempt such a feat. The evidence, however, suggests . . .

Richler has woven a rich tapestry with this mixture of invention and history. He does it so well that separating the threads of fact and fiction becomes an insurmountable task. And why not? He's given us a unique picture of the world's second largest nation. A fresh picture indeed, given that the nation of "two solitudes" conveniently forgets those of its number who are neither English nor French. If Ephraim Gursky sailed with Franklin and initiated a dynasty of Inuit Jews with such names as Gor-ski, Girskee, or Goorski. They wander, like their mentor, into the southern lands wearing, against all reason [again!] Jewish prayer shawls. They seem as homeless as their cantor, fulfilling, even in these outlandish circumstances, the Christian prejudice against wandering Jews.

Homeless he may be, but rootless the Wandering Jew is not. No matter where they settled, the Jews brought an endless capacity for adaptation, seizing whatever opportunities emerged to assist in their survival. Wherever they settled, they viewed it as "the next best place". The homeland of Israel remained within their consciousness, but they would do the best they could in whichever land they occupied. In the Gursky's case, circumstances kept opportunity at bay until Americans, in a flush of Protestant fervour, enacted Prohibition, almost certainly one of the least honoured pieces of federal legislation ever enacted. This was the moment the Gursky clan was able to seize, starting from minimal beginnings to emerge as a mighty empire built from alcohol. Richler has again merged fantasy with reality as his account of this aspect of the Gursky family would be better spelt "Bronfman".

Mordecai Richler's inventive mind and well-honed writing skills have provided us with a true masterpiece. He knows people, certainly the Montreal Jewish community, but far beyond that urban confine also. He takes us to the Arctic, the Prairies, flirts with England, pokes into America. The only missing scene is Van Dieman's Land [Tasmania], where Ephraim Gursky arrived as a transportee only two years before Franklin arrived as governor. These, however, are simply locations in which Richler can place his people. His cast is enormous, but he handles the lot with unmatched skill, presenting every persona as fully credible. We may not know the Jewish community intimately, but reading this book is an excellent means of viewing that community and how it sees the world. Moses Berger's quest for the Gursky story makes him the pivot around which this superb novel orbits as he encounters the key players in the story - especially the Wandering Jew. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This has to be my favorite book of all time., 19 Apr 1999
This book is among my favorites of all time. I have actually re-read it four times and each time I have found something new. Smith the dedicated anti-bootlegger and anti-corruption campaigner, comes through as a complete pain in the neck and don't you hate him. Solomon, the crook is a hero. A reader would hate to be like Moses Berger but is it not a sneaking regard that you are left with. It was great. And I'll read it again.

Richler, 09 Feb 2008
Barney's Version is a great satire of the modern age. Very funny yet equally quite sad. Together with 'Solomon Gursky was Here' a modern masterpiece.

A view of our life, 02 Oct 2005
How would you respond to the query: "tell me about your life"? Memoirs have great value in giving us a picture of the thoughts about his life and how the world is seen. In an earlier age diaries, with their daily entries provided contemporary records and reflections. Today's pace of life has made the daily journal outmoded. Memoirs are usually conceived in a later time of life, and time-eroded memories sometimes vague or disoriented.

Barney Panofsky has produced a modern memoir. After a long life, he's reflecting on the vagaries of his journey. He's experienced some wonderful highs offset by almost overwhelming depths. An aspiring writer who's made his pilgrimage to the Left Bank of Paris, his "career" became making cheap films. No matter, he ultimately became wealthy from it, but the old adage about wealth and happiness rings with harsh truth. Without formal education, he quotes classics fluently, his self-taught skills brought out with wit and force. Hanging over this relation of a complex man is the loss of his friend and rival, "Boogie" Moscovitch. Did Barney really kill him? The trial scene mocks the legal process, bringing to mind a bevy of lawyer anecdotes. All of this is related in Richler's commanding wit, tinted with his own ongoing quest for justice and virtue, mainstays of his life and writing.

The question immediately arises - is this Barney's memoir or Richler's? That really isn't our business. What counts is how well Richler presents his character, whether semi-fictional or wholly invented. And Richler's Barney is flawlessly portrayed. A complex man of conflicting emotions, values, accomplishments, he cries out for recognition that his struggle with life makes him a peer to any man. In the words of Low's cartoon soldier "The hell this isn't the most important hole in the world! I'm in it!" So we aren't to judge either whether Barney truly represents Richler, but how convincingly Richler has portrayed Barney. The old clichés, "tragi-comic" or "flawed hero" hover about seeking expression, but labelling Barney or his creator is doomed to failure. Both are far too complex for such simple thinking.

Richler's superb wit keeps alive a story that might have descended into a mundane relation of a man wallowing in self pity. Barney feels the creeping debilitation of Alzheimer's, to which he ultimately succumbs. It's not a pleasant experience for him or the sympathetic reader. Richler isn't looking for sympathy for Barney or for himself. He's portraying life as it is, and Richler, through Barney is providing us with a warning.

Richler's a discriminating social observer and this book covers a lifetime. As a memoir of the mid-twentieth century, the historical aspect seems skimpy, but all the elements are present. The departure from similar accounts reflects what many find uncomfortable; Jews in North America are a sub-community within a population versed in ideals of consensus. Barney's view of life and the world is from that perspective. He moves in and out of the WASP and Jewish segments of society, but always returns to those roots he understands best, even when tragedy remains such a major part of that culture.

Readers shouldn't make too much of Richler/Panofsky's Canadian Jewish origins. This is a book of universal significance. Casting Richler as "a Canadian writer" as some do is to deprive him of proper recognition of his world view. He's even more than a North American writer, but one who conveys earnestly the trials life presents us all. Someone here attested to their disappointment that this book failed to cop a Booker. It's a valid complaint. Perhaps a greater award will be forthcoming. It's overdue. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Fascinating story of a frustrating character., 20 Jan 2003
Barney Panofsky and his cohorts are all artists of sorts--writers, sculptors, painters--intellectuals at odds with mainstream Montreal life, firmly convinced that they are right, the world is wrong. Boisterous, loud, and resolute in pursuing the pleasures of drugs, alcohol, and women, they live life creatively and on their own terms, taking what they want, where and when they want it. Their cynicism, self-righteousness, and self-absorption epitomize the lives of many young adults during the fifties and sixties, when much of the action of this novel takes place, via flackbacks.

With great panache, Richler loads his complex narrative with pungent satire and wry humor as he shows Barney near the end of his life, reflecting on his three marriages and divorces, his affairs, his career as a producer of second rate films and ads, his drinking, and his trial for the murder of his best friend, some thirty years before. Throughout the novel, Richler teases the reader with tiny pieces of information about the murder, creating suspense at the same time that he tamps it down with humor or neutralizes it by burying it in the mundane details of Barney's life over the span of forty years.

Certainly not a traditional murder mystery, the reader never receives the clues necessary to solve the murder until the last pages of the book. But solving the murder is hardly the point. This is Barney's story--the story of an exasperating and sometimes annoying man almost totally lacking in charm, a man who has spent a good part of his life avoiding responsibility. Now in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, Barney is an unreliable narrator, trying valiantly to set down his version of what happened to Boogie Moscovich. Only the most hard-hearted reader will fail to develop sympathy for Barney by the end of the novel, but I found it difficult to like him and his friends very much. As a result, I found this a hard read, despite my admiration for the author and delight in much of his humor.

A romp through the life of a not-so good/not-so bad-guy, 18 Jul 2001
Richler like this is like Bellow with more sauce and a little less seasoning.

You read and keep on reading Barney for so many things: you thrill at his hellfire audacity, his acid take on the cant of life, you laugh and cheer at his barbs, you hate his enemies with him. Then you shake your head with the horror of a friend when his incorrigible determination to waltz with folly loses him his love and whatever he had that was happiness. At the end you find yourself bereaved when the music of his life turns off-key and haltering before it tails off; broken and stark and haunting.

Part of you wanted to be like him - the other part is so glad that you couldn't be.

Pay your respects to Mr Richler, and read his wonderful book

Bizarre, amusing, well-written: bon oeuf, 14 Jul 2001
BV traces the story of the narrator via a series of memories intermingled with present-day dyspeptic reality. His memories are, principally, of his 'épouvanter' days in Paris, and of his three wives. Through these temporal journeys we trace his own disillusionment, his love, his joie de vivre cum joie de boire. The author does a good job of putting the reader in the shoes of an adorable but cantankerous old alcoholic eccentric. More importantly, the book is funny; at times, quite hilarious. Much of the humour comes naturally from the innate ridiculousness of the human condition: B is a man to whom one might ascribe the epithet of Scaramouche, 'he was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad'. I strongly recommend this book.

The next best place . . ., 23 Jan 2006
In Christian mythology the Wandering Jew is a subject of scorn. Bereft of a homeland, this accursed wraith crosses the landscape again and again, often as not bringing some tragedy or distress in his wake. Seen as the symbol of the Jewish Diaspora, the wanderer is the subject of suspicion, fear and accusation. This solitary and often tragic figure gives rise to repression and becomes the justification for unspeakable acts, of which the 20th Century Holocaust is merely the latest and best known.

Mordecai Richler has given us an astonishing and riveting account of one of these wanderers as he might have appeared in North America. As a child, Montrealer Moses Berger encounters the Gursky family. It's the first step in what will become an almost heroic quest for the truth behind the Gursky family's shadowy ancestor, Ephraim Gursky and the grandson, Solomon, who accompanied him on a journey in Canada's North. Ephraim, against all reason, apparently shipped aboard the HMS Erebus with John Franklin's ill-starred expedition into the Arctic. Richler demonstrates the Christian attitude toward the Jews with accounts of the many searchers for Franklin's remains. Those necrophiles uniformly scoffed at the notion a Jew could have been aboard, let alone survived, since "all know" these urban dwellers wouldn't have the fortitude or presumption to attempt such a feat. The evidence, however, suggests . . .

Richler has woven a rich tapestry with this mixture of invention and history. He does it so well that separating the threads of fact and fiction becomes an insurmountable task. And why not? He's given us a unique picture of the world's second largest nation. A fresh picture indeed, given that the nation of "two solitudes" conveniently forgets those of its number who are neither English nor French. If Ephraim Gursky sailed with Franklin and initiated a dynasty of Inuit Jews with such names as Gor-ski, Girskee, or Goorski. They wander, like their mentor, into the southern lands wearing, against all reason [again!] Jewish prayer shawls. They seem as homeless as their cantor, fulfilling, even in these outlandish circumstances, the Christian prejudice against wandering Jews.

Homeless he may be, but rootless the Wandering Jew is not. No matter where they settled, the Jews brought an endless capacity for adaptation, seizing whatever opportunities emerged to assist in their survival. Wherever they settled, they viewed it as "the next best place". The homeland of Israel remained within their consciousness, but they would do the best they could in whichever land they occupied. In the Gursky's case, circumstances kept opportunity at bay until Americans, in a flush of Protestant fervour, enacted Prohibition, almost certainly one of the least honoured pieces of federal legislation ever enacted. This was the moment the Gursky clan was able to seize, starting from minimal beginnings to emerge as a mighty empire built from alcohol. Richler has again merged fantasy with reality as his account of this aspect of the Gursky family would be better spelt "Bronfman".

Mordecai Richler's inventive mind and well-honed writing skills have provided us with a true masterpiece. He knows people, certainly the Montreal Jewish community, but far beyond that urban confine also. He takes us to the Arctic, the Prairies, flirts with England, pokes into America. The only missing scene is Van Dieman's Land [Tasmania], where Ephraim Gursky arrived as a transportee only two years before Franklin arrived as governor. These, however, are simply locations in which Richler can place his people. His cast is enormous, but he handles the lot with unmatched skill, presenting every persona as fully credible. We may not know the Jewish community intimately, but reading this book is an excellent means of viewing that community and how it sees the world. Moses Berger's quest for the Gursky story makes him the pivot around which this superb novel orbits as he encounters the key players in the story - especially the Wandering Jew. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This has to be my favorite book of all time., 19 Apr 1999
This book is among my favorites of all time. I have actually re-read it four times and each time I have found something new. Smith the dedicated anti-bootlegger and anti-corruption campaigner, comes through as a complete pain in the neck and don't you hate him. Solomon, the crook is a hero. A reader would hate to be like Moses Berger but is it not a sneaking regard that you are left with. It was great. And I'll read it again.

Richler, 09 Feb 2008
Barney's Version is a great satire of the modern age. Very funny yet equally quite sad. Together with 'Solomon Gursky was Here' a modern masterpiece.

A view of our life, 02 Oct 2005
How would you respond to the query: "tell me about your life"? Memoirs have great value in giving us a picture of the thoughts about his life and how the world is seen. In an earlier age diaries, with their daily entries provided contemporary records and reflections. Today's pace of life has made the daily journal outmoded. Memoirs are usually conceived in a later time of life, and time-eroded memories sometimes vague or disoriented.

Barney Panofsky has produced a modern memoir. After a long life, he's reflecting on the vagaries of his journey. He's experienced some wonderful highs offset by almost overwhelming depths. An aspiring writer who's made his pilgrimage to the Left Bank of Paris, his "career" became making cheap films. No matter, he ultimately became wealthy from it, but the old adage about wealth and happiness rings with harsh truth. Without formal education, he quotes classics fluently, his self-taught skills brought out with wit and force. Hanging over this relation of a complex man is the loss of his friend and rival, "Boogie" Moscovitch. Did Barney really kill him? The trial scene mocks the legal process, bringing to mind a bevy of lawyer anecdotes. All of this is related in Richler's commanding wit, tinted with his own ongoing quest for justice and virtue, mainstays of his life and writing.

The question immediately arises - is this Barney's memoir or Richler's? That really isn't our business. What counts is how well Richler presents his character, whether semi-fictional or wholly invented. And Richler's Barney is flawlessly portrayed. A complex man of conflicting emotions, values, accomplishments, he cries out for recognition that his struggle with life makes him a peer to any man. In the words of Low's cartoon soldier "The hell this isn't the most important hole in the world! I'm in it!" So we aren't to judge either whether Barney truly represents Richler, but how convincingly Richler has portrayed Barney. The old clichés, "tragi-comic" or "flawed hero" hover about seeking expression, but labelling Barney or his creator is doomed to failure. Both are far too complex for such simple thinking.

Richler's superb wit keeps alive a story that might have descended into a mundane relation of a man wallowing in self pity. Barney feels the creeping debilitation of Alzheimer's, to which he ultimately succumbs. It's not a pleasant experience for him or the sympathetic reader. Richler isn't looking for sympathy for Barney or for himself. He's portraying life as it is, and Richler, through Barney is providing us with a warning.

Richler's a discriminating social observer and this book covers a lifetime. As a memoir of the mid-twentieth century, the historical aspect seems skimpy, but all the elements are present. The departure from similar accounts reflects what many find uncomfortable; Jews in North America are a sub-community within a population versed in ideals of consensus. Barney's view of life and the world is from that perspective. He moves in and out of the WASP and Jewish segments of society, but always returns to those roots he understands best, even when tragedy remains such a major part of that culture.

Readers shouldn't make too much of Richler/Panofsky's Canadian Jewish origins. This is a book of universal significance. Casting Richler as "a Canadian writer" as some do is to deprive him of proper recognition of his world view. He's even more than a North American writer, but one who conveys earnestly the trials life presents us all. Someone here attested to their disappointment that this book failed to cop a Booker. It's a valid complaint. Perhaps a greater award will be forthcoming. It's overdue. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Fascinating story of a frustrating character., 20 Jan 2003
Barney Panofsky and his cohorts are all artists of sorts--writers, sculptors, painters--intellectuals at odds with mainstream Montreal life, firmly convinced that they are right, the world is wrong. Boisterous, loud, and resolute in pursuing the pleasures of drugs, alcohol, and women, they live life creatively and on their own terms, taking what they want, where and when they want it. Their cynicism, self-righteousness, and self-absorption epitomize the lives of many young adults during the fifties and sixties, when much of the action of this novel takes place, via flackbacks.

With great panache, Richler loads his complex narrative with pungent satire and wry humor as he shows Barney near the end of his life, reflecting on his three marriages and divorces, his affairs, his career as a producer of second rate films and ads, his drinking, and his trial for the murder of his best friend, some thirty years before. Throughout the novel, Richler teases the reader with tiny pieces of information about the murder, creating suspense at the same time that he tamps it down with humor or neutralizes it by burying it in the mundane details of Barney's life over the span of forty years.

Certainly not a traditional murder mystery, the reader never receives the clues necessary to solve the murder until the last pages of the book. But solving the murder is hardly the point. This is Barney's story--the story of an exasperating and sometimes annoying man almost totally lacking in charm, a man who has spent a good part of his life avoiding responsibility. Now in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, Barney is an unreliable narrator, trying valiantly to set down his version of what happened to Boogie Moscovich. Only the most hard-hearted reader will fail to develop sympathy for Barney by the end of the novel, but I found it difficult to like him and his friends very much. As a result, I found this a hard read, despite my admiration for the author and delight in much of his humor.

A romp through the life of a not-so good/not-so bad-guy, 18 Jul 2001
Richler like this is like Bellow with more sauce and a little less seasoning.

You read and keep on reading Barney for so many things: you thrill at his hellfire audacity, his acid take on the cant of life, you laugh and cheer at his barbs, you hate his enemies with him. Then you shake your head with the horror of a friend when his incorrigible determination to waltz with folly loses him his love and whatever he had that was happiness. At the end you find yourself bereaved when the music of his life turns off-key and haltering before it tails off; broken and stark and haunting.

Part of you wanted to be like him - the other part is so glad that you couldn't be.

Pay your respects to Mr Richler, and read his wonderful book

Bizarre, amusing, well-written: bon oeuf, 14 Jul 2001
BV traces the story of the narrator via a series of memories intermingled with present-day dyspeptic reality. His memories are, principally, of his 'épouvanter' days in Paris, and of his three wives. Through these temporal journeys we trace his own disillusionment, his love, his joie de vivre cum joie de boire. The author does a good job of putting the reader in the shoes of an adorable but cantankerous old alcoholic eccentric. More importantly, the book is funny; at times, quite hilarious. Much of the humour comes naturally from the innate ridiculousness of the human condition: B is a man to whom one might ascribe the epithet of Scaramouche, 'he was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad'. I strongly recommend this book.

A bittersweet tribute to Jewish Canadian entreprenuerial grit, 21 Feb 2007
Few novels about North America have entranced me like this one, throughout the sparse,intelligent dialogue and wry,ironic prose canadian author Mordecai Richler captures his subject matter well.
The subject is forties Montreal,deep in French Canada,where the events in the lives of the jewish hero Duddy and his family are central. Bittersweet and sometimes tragic, the actions moves between the greatest canadian metropolis "the largest inland port in the world" and the Laurentians mountains where Duddy hopes to buy some land.
One invaluable history lesson from this novel was to discover the strong and vibrant jewish communites that exist in Montreal and Toronto.
One of the finest Canadian novels I have read.

This novel was written in 1959


Some are better off never having heard of this book.., 29 May 1999
I read this book twice.Once in high school,where we "dissected" the book as English teachers do with their students, and the second time as a personal read to get more of a feeling to it. True,it does paint a realistic portrayal of Jewish life in Montreal,and the language isn't that hard except for the occasional yiddish thrown in. Basically, we are rooting for an "anti-hero" throughout the novel, a clumsy suppressed 19 year old. Duddy's character had his flaws as we humans do but there was something about the book which I did not like. Was it the style of the prose or the odd setting..I am not sure which. The only thing which I got out of the book was my likeness for the hilarious character of Friar,the Film director. I have no idea why this book went on to get critical acclaim. Mr.Richler has written much much better books like "The Acrobats" or "Barney's Vision" which I am currently reading. I guess I would recommend the book, if you can't find something better or worthwhile to read...otherwise..leave it alone. It's not worth the effort.

A very good novel by a Canadian author!, 23 May 1999
This novel was fast moving, interesting and realistic. If it wasn't for the disappointing ending (to me at least) I would have given it 5 stars. The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravits has a theme we all can relate to, but it doesn't lack humour. Very good.

The language is too stark!, 05 Apr 1999
I am reading this novel in highschool right now, and feel that this novel is quite inappropriate for students my age. Not only is it difficult to read, but the language and actions which occur in this book are unreal. I understand that to some sex makes the world go 'round, but did Richler really need to portray a 19 year old sex starved boy in this novel? I only think it gives males ideas.. Many may have enjoyed this novel, but for me, I have read better!

Memorable and Inspiring for all the wrong reasons, 12 Mar 1999
OK here's the deal. Duddy is not a good guy but the reader loves him because he is a human being and if he turns out sour and crazy it is only becasue those more fortunate than he have taken advantage of him. Duddy responds to the cards that society hands out by playing them as best he can. Richler is an incredible writer. His characters and dialogue have so much richness, so much reality. This is a book about Montreal and all the politics and culture-clash that occur between its upper-class Jews and Gentile and the lower class Jews and Gentiles. The old Jews and the young Jews, the college kids and the working kids. The French canadians and the anglo-phones, etc. There are very few women in this book, but Duddy has a very small field of vision when it comes to women, so the POV is true to the character. I love this book.

The next best place . . ., 23 Jan 2006
In Christian mythology the Wandering Jew is a subject of scorn. Bereft of a homeland, this accursed wraith crosses the landscape again and again, often as not bringing some tragedy or distress in his wake. Seen as the symbol of the Jewish Diaspora, the wanderer is the subject of suspicion, fear and accusation. This solitary and often tragic figure gives rise to repression and becomes the justification for unspeakable acts, of which the 20th Century Holocaust is merely the latest and best known.

Mordecai Richler has given us an astonishing and riveting account of one of these wanderers as he might have appeared in North America. As a child, Montrealer Moses Berger encounters the Gursky family. It's the first step in what will become an almost heroic quest for the truth behind the Gursky family's shadowy ancestor, Ephraim Gursky and the grandson, Solomon, who accompanied him on a journey in Canada's North. Ephraim, against all reason, apparently shipped aboard the HMS Erebus with John Franklin's ill-starred expedition into the Arctic. Richler demonstrates the Christian attitude toward the Jews with accounts of the many searchers for Franklin's remains. Those necrophiles uniformly scoffed at the notion a Jew could have been aboard, let alone survived, since "all know" these urban dwellers wouldn't have the fortitude or presumption to attempt such a feat. The evidence, however, suggests . . .

Richler has woven a rich tapestry with this mixture of invention and history. He does it so well that separating the threads of fact and fiction becomes an insurmountable task. And why not? He's given us a unique picture of the world's second largest nation. A fresh picture indeed, given that the nation of "two solitudes" conveniently forgets those of its number who are neither English nor French. If Ephraim Gursky sailed with Franklin and initiated a dynasty of Inuit Jews with such names as Gor-ski, Girskee, or Goorski. They wander, like their mentor, into the southern lands wearing, against all reason [again!] Jewish prayer shawls. They seem as homeless as their cantor, fulfilling, even in these outlandish circumstances, the Christian prejudice against wandering Jews.

Homeless he may be, but rootless the Wandering Jew is not. No matter where they settled, the Jews brought an endless capacity for adaptation, seizing whatever opportunities emerged to assist in their survival. Wherever they settled, they viewed it as "the next best place". The homeland of Israel remained within their consciousness, but they would do the best they could in whichever land they occupied. In the Gursky's case, circumstances kept opportunity at bay until Americans, in a flush of Protestant fervour, enacted Prohibition, almost certainly one of the least honoured pieces of federal legislation ever enacted. This was the moment the Gursky clan was able to seize, starting from minimal beginnings to emerge as a mighty empire built from alcohol. Richler has again merged fantasy with reality as his account of this aspect of the Gursky family would be better spelt "Bronfman".

Mordecai Richler's inventive mind and well-honed writing skills have provided us with a true masterpiece. He knows people, certainly the Montreal Jewish community, but far beyond that urban confine also. He takes us to the Arctic, the Prairies, flirts with England, pokes into America. The only missing scene is Van Dieman's Land [Tasmania], where Ephraim Gursky arrived as a transportee only two years before Franklin arrived as governor. These, however, are simply locations in which Richler can place his people. His cast is enormous, but he handles the lot with unmatched skill, presenting every persona as fully credible. We may not know the Jewish community intimately, but reading this book is an excellent means of viewing that community and how it sees the world. Moses Berger's quest for the Gursky story makes him the pivot around which this superb novel orbits as he encounters the key players in the story - especially the Wandering Jew. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This has to be my favorite book of all time., 19 Apr 1999
This book is among my favorites of all time. I have actually re-read it four times and each time I have found something new. Smith the dedicated anti-bootlegger and anti-corruption campaigner, comes through as a complete pain in the neck and don't you hate him. Solomon, the crook is a hero. A reader would hate to be like Moses Berger but is it not a sneaking regard that you are left with. It was great. And I'll read it again.

Richler, 09 Feb 2008
Barney's Version is a great satire of the modern age. Very funny yet equally quite sad. Together with 'Solomon Gursky was Here' a modern masterpiece.

A view of our life, 02 Oct 2005
How would you respond to the query: "tell me about your life"? Memoirs have great value in giving us a picture of the thoughts about his life and how the world is seen. In an earlier age diaries, with their daily entries provided contemporary records and reflections. Today's pace of life has made the daily journal outmoded. Memoirs are usually conceived in a later time of life, and time-eroded memories sometimes vague or disoriented.

Barney Panofsky has produced a modern memoir. After a long life, he's reflecting on the vagaries of his journey. He's experienced some wonderful highs offset by almost overwhelming depths. An aspiring writer who's made his pilgrimage to the Left Bank of Paris, his "career" became making cheap films. No matter, he ultimately became wealthy from it, but the old adage about wealth and happiness rings with harsh truth. Without formal education, he quotes classics fluently, his self-taught skills brought out with wit and force. Hanging over this relation of a complex man is the loss of his friend and rival, "Boogie" Moscovitch. Did Barney really kill him? The trial scene mocks the legal process, bringing to mind a bevy of lawyer anecdotes. All of this is related in Richler's commanding wit, tinted with his own ongoing quest for justice and virtue, mainstays of his life and writing.

The question immediately arises - is this Barney's memoir or Richler's? That really isn't our business. What counts is how well Richler presents his character, whether semi-fictional or wholly invented. And Richler's Barney is flawlessly portrayed. A complex man of conflicting emotions, values, accomplishments, he cries out for recognition that his struggle with life makes him a peer to any man. In the words of Low's cartoon soldier "The hell this isn't the most important hole in the world! I'm in it!" So we aren't to judge either whether Barney truly represents Richler, but how convincingly Richler has portrayed Barney. The old clichés, "tragi-comic" or "flawed hero" hover about seeking expression, but labelling Barney or his creator is doomed to failure. Both are far too complex for such simple thinking.

Richler's superb wit keeps alive a story that might have descended into a mundane relation of a man wallowing in self pity. Barney feels the creeping debilitation of Alzheimer's, to which he ultimately succumbs. It's not a pleasant experience for him or the sympathetic reader. Richler isn't looking for sympathy for Barney or for himself. He's portraying life as it is, and Richler, through Barney is providing us with a warning.

Richler's a discriminating social observer and this book covers a lifetime. As a memoir of the mid-twentieth century, the historical aspect seems skimpy, but all the elements are present. The departure from similar accounts reflects what many find uncomfortable; Jews in North America are a sub-community within a population versed in ideals of consensus. Barney's view of life and the world is from that perspective. He moves in and out of the WASP and Jewish segments of society, but always returns to those roots he understands best, even when tragedy remains such a major part of that culture.

Readers shouldn't make too much of Richler/Panofsky's Canadian Jewish origins. This is a book of universal significance. Casting Richler as "a Canadian writer" as some do is to deprive him of proper recognition of his world view. He's even more than a North American writer, but one who conveys earnestly the trials life presents us all. Someone here attested to their disappointment that this book failed to cop a Booker. It's a valid complaint. Perhaps a greater award will be forthcoming. It's overdue. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Fascinating story of a frustrating character., 20 Jan 2003
Barney Panofsky and his cohorts are all artists of sorts--writers, sculptors, painters--intellectuals at odds with mainstream Montreal life, firmly convinced that they are right, the world is wrong. Boisterous, loud, and resolute in pursuing the pleasures of drugs, alcohol, and women, they live life creatively and on their own terms, taking what they want, where and when they want it. Their cynicism, self-righteousness, and self-absorption epitomize the lives of many young adults during the fifties and sixties, when much of the action of this novel takes place, via flackbacks.

With great panache, Richler loads his complex narrative with pungent satire and wry humor as he shows Barney near the end of his life, reflecting on his three marriages and divorces, his affairs, his career as a producer of second rate films and ads, his drinking, and his trial for the murder of his best friend, some thirty years before. Throughout the novel, Richler teases the reader with tiny pieces of information about the murder, creating suspense at the same time that he tamps it down with humor or neutralizes it by burying it in the mundane details of Barney's life over the span of forty years.

Certainly not a traditional murder mystery, the reader never receives the clues necessary to solve the murder until the last pages of the book. But solving the murder is hardly the point. This is Barney's story--the story of an exasperating and sometimes annoying man almost totally lacking in charm, a man who has spent a good part of his life avoiding responsibility. Now in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, Barney is an unreliable narrator, trying valiantly to set down his version of what happened to Boogie Moscovich. Only the most hard-hearted reader will fail to develop sympathy for Barney by the end of the novel, but I found it difficult to like him and his friends very much. As a result, I found this a hard read, despite my admiration for the author and delight in much of his humor.

A romp through the life of a not-so good/not-so bad-guy, 18 Jul 2001
Richler like this is like Bellow with more sauce and a little less seasoning.

You read and keep on reading Barney for so many things: you thrill at his hellfire audacity, his acid take on the cant of life, you laugh and cheer at his barbs, you hate his enemies with him. Then you shake your head with the horror of a friend when his incorrigible determination to waltz with folly loses him his love and whatever he had that was happiness. At the end you find yourself bereaved when the music of his life turns off-key and haltering before it tails off; broken and stark and haunting.

Part of you wanted to be like him - the other part is so glad that you couldn't be.

Pay your respects to Mr Richler, and read his wonderful book

Bizarre, amusing, well-written: bon oeuf, 14 Jul 2001
BV traces the story of the narrator via a series of memories intermingled with present-day dyspeptic reality. His memories are, principally, of his 'épouvanter' days in Paris, and of his three wives. Through these temporal journeys we trace his own disillusionment, his love, his joie de vivre cum joie de boire. The author does a good job of putting the reader in the shoes of an adorable but cantankerous old alcoholic eccentric. More importantly, the book is funny; at times, quite hilarious. Much of the humour comes naturally from the innate ridiculousness of the human condition: B is a man to whom one might ascribe the epithet of Scaramouche, 'he was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad'. I strongly recommend this book.

A bittersweet tribute to Jewish Canadian entreprenuerial grit, 21 Feb 2007
Few novels about North America have entranced me like this one, throughout the sparse,intelligent dialogue and wry,ironic prose canadian author Mordecai Richler captures his subject matter well.
The subject is forties Montreal,deep in French Canada,where the events in the lives of the jewish hero Duddy and his family are central. Bittersweet and sometimes tragic, the actions moves between the greatest canadian metropolis "the largest inland port in the world" and the Laurentians mountains where Duddy hopes to buy some land.
One invaluable history lesson from this novel was to discover the strong and vibrant jewish communites that exist in Montreal and Toronto.
One of the finest Canadian novels I have read.

This novel was written in 1959


Some are better off never having heard of this book.., 29 May 1999
I read this book twice.Once in high school,where we "dissected" the book as English teachers do with their students, and the second time as a personal read to get more of a feeling to it. True,it does paint a realistic portrayal of Jewish life in Montreal,and the language isn't that hard except for the occasional yiddish thrown in. Basically, we are rooting for an "anti-hero" throughout the novel, a clumsy suppressed 19 year old. Duddy's character had his flaws as we humans do but there was something about the book which I did not like. Was it the style of the prose or the odd setting..I am not sure which. The only thing which I got out of the book was my likeness for the hilarious character of Friar,the Film director. I have no idea why this book went on to get critical acclaim. Mr.Richler has written much much better books like "The Acrobats" or "Barney's Vision" which I am currently reading. I guess I would recommend the book, if you can't find something better or worthwhile to read...otherwise..leave it alone. It's not worth the effort.

A very good novel by a Canadian author!, 23 May 1999
This novel was fast moving, interesting and realistic. If it wasn't for the disappointing ending (to me at least) I would have given it 5 stars. The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravits has a theme we all can relate to, but it doesn't lack humour. Very good.

The language is too stark!, 05 Apr 1999
I am reading this novel in highschool right now, and feel that this novel is quite inappropriate for students my age. Not only is it difficult to read, but the language and actions which occur in this book are unreal. I understand that to some sex makes the world go 'round, but did Richler really need to portray a 19 year old sex starved boy in this novel? I only think it gives males ideas.. Many may have enjoyed this novel, but for me, I have read better!

Memorable and Inspiring for all the wrong reasons, 12 Mar 1999
OK here's the deal. Duddy is not a good guy but the reader loves him because he is a human being and if he turns out sour and crazy it is only becasue those more fortunate than he have taken advantage of him. Duddy responds to the cards that society hands out by playing them as best he can. Richler is an incredible writer. His characters and dialogue have so much richness, so much reality. This is a book about Montreal and all the politics and culture-clash that occur between its upper-class Jews and Gentile and the lower class Jews and Gentiles. The old Jews and the young Jews, the college kids and the working kids. The French canadians and the anglo-phones, etc. There are very few women in this book, but Duddy has a very small field of vision when it comes to women, so the POV is true to the character. I love this book.

Childhood revisited!, 23 Sep 1999
Being last child of a big family, Jacob Two-Two was like finding a soulmate during my younger years! A head full of 'believable' nonsense given him by older siblings takes Jacob on quite the adventure. My childhood's most renewed booked, I managed to get an original 1975 edition recently and found I loved it even more as an adult. A definite must for anyone at the low end of the pecking order who's ever had to fight to be heard or had their youthful naievety taken advantage of by older brothers and sisters! With a wee bit of scary on top!

The next best place . . ., 23 Jan 2006
In Christian mythology the Wandering Jew is a subject of scorn. Bereft of a homeland, this accursed wraith crosses the landscape again and again, often as not bringing some tragedy or distress in his wake. Seen as the symbol of the Jewish Diaspora, the wanderer is the subject of suspicion, fear and accusation. This solitary and often tragic figure gives rise to repression and becomes the justification for unspeakable acts, of which the 20th Century Holocaust is merely the latest and best known.

Mordecai Richler has given us an astonishing and riveting account of one of these wanderers as he might have appeared in North America. As a child, Montrealer Moses Berger encounters the Gursky family. It's the first step in what will become an almost heroic quest for the truth behind the Gursky family's shadowy ancestor, Ephraim Gursky and the grandson, Solomon, who accompanied him on a journey in Canada's North. Ephraim, against all reason, apparently shipped aboard the HMS Erebus with John Franklin's ill-starred expedition into the Arctic. Richler demonstrates the Christian attitude toward the Jews with accounts of the many searchers for Franklin's remains. Those necrophiles uniformly scoffed at the notion a Jew could have been aboard, let alone survived, since "all know" these urban dwellers wouldn't have the fortitude or presumption to attempt such a feat. The evidence, however, suggests . . .

Richler has woven a rich tapestry with this mixture of invention and history. He does it so well that separating the threads of fact and fiction becomes an insurmountable task. And why not? He's given us a unique picture of the world's second largest nation. A fresh picture indeed, given that the nation of "two solitudes" conveniently forgets those of its number who are neither English nor French. If Ephraim Gursky sailed with Franklin and initiated a dynasty of Inuit Jews with such names as Gor-ski, Girskee, or Goorski. They wander, like their mentor, into the southern lands wearing, against all reason [again!] Jewish prayer shawls. They seem as homeless as their cantor, fulfilling, even in these outlandish circumstances, the Christian prejudice against wandering Jews.

Homeless he may be, but rootless the Wandering Jew is not. No matter where they settled, the Jews brought an endless capacity for adaptation, seizing whatever opportunities emerged to assist in their survival. Wherever they settled, they viewed it as "the next best place". The homeland of Israel remained within their consciousness, but they would do the best they could in whichever land they occupied. In the Gursky's case, circumstances kept opportunity at bay until Americans, in a flush of Protestant fervour, enacted Prohibition, almost certainly one of the least honoured pieces of federal legislation ever enacted. This was the moment the Gursky clan was able to seize, starting from minimal beginnings to emerge as a mighty empire built from alcohol. Richler has again merged fantasy with reality as his account of this aspect of the Gursky family would be better spelt "Bronfman".

Mordecai Richler's inventive mind and well-honed writing skills have provided us with a true masterpiece. He knows people, certainly the Montreal Jewish community, but far beyond that urban confine also. He takes us to the Arctic, the Prairies, flirts with England, pokes into America. The only missing scene is Van Dieman's Land [Tasmania], where Ephraim Gursky arrived as a transportee only two years before Franklin arrived as governor. These, however, are simply locations in which Richler can place his people. His cast is enormous, but he handles the lot with unmatched skill, presenting every persona as fully credible. We may not know the Jewish community intimately, but reading this book is an excellent means of viewing that community and how it sees the world. Moses Berger's quest for the Gursky story makes him the pivot around which this superb novel orbits as he encounters the key players in the story - especially the Wandering Jew. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This has to be my favorite book of all time., 19 Apr 1999
This book is among my favorites of all time. I have actually re-read it four times and each time I have found something new. Smith the dedicated anti-bootlegger and anti-corruption campaigner, comes through as a complete pain in the neck and don't you hate him. Solomon, the crook is a hero. A reader would hate to be like Moses Berger but is it not a sneaking regard that you are left with. It was great. And I'll read it again.

Richler, 09 Feb 2008
Barney's Version is a great satire of the modern age. Very funny yet equally quite sad. Together with 'Solomon Gursky was Here' a modern masterpiece.

A view of our life, 02 Oct 2005
How would you respond to the query: "tell me about your life"? Memoirs have great value in giving us a picture of the thoughts about his life and how the world is seen. In an earlier age diaries, with their daily entries provided contemporary records and reflections. Today's pace of life has made the daily journal outmoded. Memoirs are usually conceived in a later time of life, and time-eroded memories sometimes vague or disoriented.

Barney Panofsky has produced a modern memoir. After a long life, he's reflecting on the vagaries of his journey. He's experienced some wonderful highs offset by almost overwhelming depths. An aspiring writer who's made his pilgrimage to the Left Bank of Paris, his "career" became making cheap films. No matter, he ultimately became wealthy from it, but the old adage about wealth and happiness rings with harsh truth. Without formal education, he quotes classics fluently, his self-taught skills brought out with wit and force. Hanging over this relation of a complex man is the loss of his friend and rival, "Boogie" Moscovitch. Did Barney really kill him? The trial scene mocks the legal process, bringing to mind a bevy of lawyer anecdotes. All of this is related in Richler's commanding wit, tinted with his own ongoing quest for justice and virtue, mainstays of his life and writing.

The question immediately arises - is this Barney's memoir or Richler's? That really isn't our business. What counts is how well Richler presents his character, whether semi-fictional or wholly invented. And Richler's Barney is flawlessly portrayed. A complex man of conflicting emotions, values, accomplishments, he cries out for recognition that his struggle with life makes him a peer to any man. In the words of Low's cartoon soldier "The hell this isn't the most important hole in the world! I'm in it!" So we aren't to judge either whether Barney truly represents Richler, but how convincingly Richler has portrayed Barney. The old clichés, "tragi-comic" or "flawed hero" hover about seeking expression, but labelling Barney or his creator is doomed to failure. Both are far too complex for such simple thinking.

Richler's superb wit keeps alive a story that might have descended into a mundane relation of a man wallowing in self pity. Barney feels the creeping debilitation of Alzheimer's, to which he ultimately succumbs. It's not a pleasant experience for him or the sympathetic reader. Richler isn't looking for sympathy for Barney or for himself. He's portraying life as it is, and Richler, through Barney is providing us with a warning.

Richler's a discriminating social observer and this book covers a lifetime. As a memoir of the mid-twentieth century, the historical aspect seems skimpy, but all the elements are present. The departure from similar accounts reflects what many find uncomfortable; Jews in North America are a sub-community within a population versed in ideals of consensus. Barney's view of life and the world is from that perspective. He moves in and out of the WASP and Jewish segments of society, but always returns to those roots he understands best, even when tragedy remains such a major part of that culture.

Readers shouldn't make too much of Richler/Panofsky's Canadian Jewish origins. This is a book of universal significance. Casting Richler as "a Canadian writer" as some do is to deprive him of proper recognition of his world view. He's even more than a North American writer, but one who conveys earnestly the trials life presents us all. Someone here attested to their disappointment that this book failed to cop a Booker. It's a valid complaint. Perhaps a greater award will be forthcoming. It's overdue. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Fascinating story of a frustrating character., 20 Jan 2003
Barney Panofsky and his cohorts are all artists of sorts--writers, sculptors, painters--intellectuals at odds with mainstream Montreal life, firmly convinced that they are right, the world is wrong. Boisterous, loud, and resolute in pursuing the pleasures of drugs, alcohol, and women, they live life creatively and on their own terms, taking what they want, where and when they want it. Their cynicism, self-righteousness, and self-absorption epitomize the lives of many young adults during the fifties and sixties, when much of the action of this novel takes place, via flackbacks.

With great panache, Richler loads his complex narrative with pungent satire and wry humor as he shows Barney near the end of his life, reflecting on his three marriages and divorces, his affairs, his career as a producer of second rate films and ads, his drinking, and his trial for the murder of his best friend, some thirty years before. Throughout the novel, Richler teases the reader with tiny pieces of information about the murder, creating suspense at the same time that he tamps it down with humor or neutralizes it by burying it in the mundane details of Barney's life over the span of forty years.

Certainly not a traditional murder mystery, the reader never receives the clues necessary to solve the murder until the last pages of the book. But solving the murder is hardly the point. This is Barney's story--the story of an exasperating and sometimes annoying man almost totally lacking in charm, a man who has spent a good part of his life avoiding responsibility. Now in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, Barney is an unreliable narrator, trying valiantly to set down his version of what happened to Boogie Moscovich. Only the most hard-hearted reader will fail to develop sympathy for Barney by the end of the novel, but I found it difficult to like him and his friends very much. As a result, I found this a hard read, despite my admiration for the author and delight in much of his humor.

A romp through the life of a not-so good/not-so bad-guy, 18 Jul 2001
Richler like this is like Bellow with more sauce and a little less seasoning.

You read and keep on reading Barney for so many things: you thrill at his hellfire audacity, his acid take on the cant of life, you laugh and cheer at his barbs, you hate his enemies with him. Then you shake your head with the horror of a friend when his incorrigible determination to waltz with folly loses him his love and whatever he had that was happiness. At the end you find yourself bereaved when the music of his life turns off-key and haltering before it tails off; broken and stark and haunting.

Part of you wanted to be like him - the other part is so glad that you couldn't be.

Pay your respects to Mr Richler, and read his wonderful book

Bizarre, amusing, well-written: bon oeuf, 14 Jul 2001
BV traces the story of the narrator via a series of memories intermingled with present-day dyspeptic reality. His memories are, principally, of his 'épouvanter' days in Paris, and of his three wives. Through these temporal journeys we trace his own disillusionment, his love, his joie de vivre cum joie de boire. The author does a good job of putting the reader in the shoes of an adorable but cantankerous old alcoholic eccentric. More importantly, the book is funny; at times, quite hilarious. Much of the humour comes naturally from the innate ridiculousness of the human condition: B is a man to whom one might ascribe the epithet of Scaramouche, 'he was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad'. I strongly recommend this book.

A bittersweet tribute to Jewish Canadian entreprenuerial grit, 21 Feb 2007
Few novels about North America have entranced me like this one, throughout the sparse,intelligent dialogue and wry,ironic prose canadian author Mordecai Richler captures his subject matter well.
The subject is forties Montreal,deep in French Canada,where the events in the lives of the jewish hero Duddy and his family are central. Bittersweet and sometimes tragic, the actions moves between the greatest canadian metropolis "the largest inland port in the world" and the Laurentians mountains where Duddy hopes to buy some land.
One invaluable history lesson from this novel was to discover the strong and vibrant jewish communites that exist in Montreal and Toronto.
One of the finest Canadian novels I have read.

This novel was written in 1959


Some are better off never having heard of this book.., 29 May 1999
I read this book twice.Once in high school,where we "dissected" the book as English teachers do with their students, and the second time as a personal read to get more of a feeling to it. True,it does paint a realistic portrayal of Jewish life in Montreal,and the language isn't that hard except for the occasional yiddish thrown in. Basically, we are rooting for an "anti-hero" throughout the novel, a clumsy suppressed 19 year old. Duddy's character had his flaws as we humans do but there was something about the book which I did not like. Was it the style of the prose or the odd setting..I am not sure which. The only thing which I got out of the book was my likeness for the hilarious character of Friar,the Film director. I have no idea why this book went on to get critical acclaim. Mr.Richler has written much much better books like "The Acrobats" or "Barney's Vision" which I am currently reading. I guess I would recommend the book, if you can't find something better or worthwhile to read...otherwise..leave it alone. It's not worth the effort.

A very good novel by a Canadian author!, 23 May 1999
This novel was fast moving, interesting and realistic. If it wasn't for the disappointing ending (to me at least) I would have given it 5 stars. The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravits has a theme we all can relate to, but it doesn't lack humour. Very good.

The language is too stark!, 05 Apr 1999
I am reading this novel in highschool right now, and feel that this novel is quite inappropriate for students my age. Not only is it difficult to read, but the language and actions which occur in this book are unreal. I understand that to some sex makes the world go 'round, but did Richler really need to portray a 19 year old sex starved boy in this novel? I only think it gives males ideas.. Many may have enjoyed this novel, but for me, I have read better!

Memorable and Inspiring for all the wrong reasons, 12 Mar 1999
OK here's the deal. Duddy is not a good guy but the reader loves him because he is a human being and if he turns out sour and crazy it is only becasue those more fortunate than he have taken advantage of him. Duddy responds to the cards that society hands out by playing them as best he can. Richler is an incredible writer. His characters and dialogue have so much richness, so much reality. This is a book about Montreal and all the politics and culture-clash that occur between its upper-class Jews and Gentile and the lower class Jews and Gentiles. The old Jews and the young Jews, the college kids and the working kids. The French canadians and the anglo-phones, etc. There are very few women in this book, but Duddy has a very small field of vision when it comes to women, so the POV is true to the character. I love this book.

Childhood revisited!, 23 Sep 1999
Being last child of a big family, Jacob Two-Two was like finding a soulmate during my younger years! A head full of 'believable' nonsense given him by older siblings takes Jacob on quite the adventure. My childhood's most renewed booked, I managed to get an original 1975 edition recently and found I loved it even more as an adult. A definite must for anyone at the low end of the pecking order who's ever had to fight to be heard or had their youthful naievety taken advantage of by older brothers and sisters! With a wee bit of scary on top!

Outrageously funny fake memoirs, 04 May 2001
Barney, an old, bitter, divorced Jewish Canadian responds to public accusations with a rambling memoir that takes us through his life, from the early Paris years to the wealthy maturity as a Tv producer. sounds boring? think again! this is pure modern-day Tristram Shandy - a witty, salacious shaggy-dog story narrated with a unique voice by a great writer. people of the politically correct persuasion should avoid this, though

The next best place . . ., 23 Jan 2006
In Christian mythology the Wandering Jew is a subject of scorn. Bereft of a homeland, this accursed wraith crosses the landscape again and again, often as not bringing some tragedy or distress in his wake. Seen as the symbol of the Jewish Diaspora, the wanderer is the subject of suspicion, fear and accusation. This solitary and often tragic figure gives rise to repression and becomes the justification for unspeakable acts, of which the 20th Century Holocaust is merely the latest and best known.

Mordecai Richler has given us an astonishing and riveting account of one of these wanderers as he might have appeared in North America. As a child, Montrealer Moses Berger encounters the Gursky family. It's the first step in what will become an almost heroic quest for the truth behind the Gursky family's shadowy ancestor, Ephraim Gursky and the grandson, Solomon, who accompanied him on a journey in Canada's North. Ephraim, against all reason, apparently shipped aboard the HMS Erebus with John Franklin's ill-starred expedition into the Arctic. Richler demonstrates the Christian attitude toward the Jews with accounts of the many searchers for Franklin's remains. Those necrophiles uniformly scoffed at the notion a Jew could have been aboard, let alone survived, since "all know" these urban dwellers wouldn't have the fortitude or presumption to attempt such a feat. The evidence, however, suggests . . .

Richler has woven a rich tapestry with this mixture of invention and history. He does it so well that separating the threads of fact and fiction becomes an insurmountable task. And why not? He's given us a unique picture of the world's second largest nation. A fresh picture indeed, given that the nation of "two solitudes" conveniently forgets those of its number who are neither English nor French. If Ephraim Gursky sailed with Franklin and initiated a dynasty of Inuit Jews with such names as Gor-ski, Girskee, or Goorski. They wander, like their mentor, into the southern lands wearing, against all reason [again!] Jewish prayer shawls. They seem as homeless as their cantor, fulfilling, even in these outlandish circumstances, the Christian prejudice against wandering Jews.

Homeless he may be, but rootless the Wandering Jew is not. No matter where they settled, the Jews brought an endless capacity for adaptation, seizing whatever opportunities emerged to assist in their survival. Wherever they settled, they viewed it as "the next best place". The homeland of Israel remained within their consciousness, but they would do the best they could in whichever land they occupied. In the Gursky's case, circumstances kept opportunity at bay until Americans, in a flush of Protestant fervour, enacted Prohibition, almost certainly one of the least honoured pieces of federal legislation ever enacted. This was the moment the Gursky clan was able to seize, starting from minimal beginnings to emerge as a mighty empire built from alcohol. Richler has again merged fantasy with reality as his account of this aspect of the Gursky family would be better spelt "Bronfman".

Mordecai Richler's inventive mind and well-honed writing skills have provided us with a true masterpiece. He knows people, certainly the Montreal Jewish community, but far beyond that urban confine also. He takes us to the Arctic, the Prairies, flirts with England, pokes into America. The only missing scene is Van Dieman's Land [Tasmania], where Ephraim Gursky arrived as a transportee only two years before Franklin arrived as governor. These, however, are simply locations in which Richler can place his people. His cast is enormous, but he handles the lot with unmatched skill, presenting every persona as fully credible. We may not know the Jewish community intimately, but reading this book is an excellent means of viewing that community and how it sees the world. Moses Berger's quest for the Gursky story makes him the pivot around which this superb novel orbits as he encounters the key players in the story - especially the Wandering Jew. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This has to be my favorite book of all time., 19 Apr 1999
This book is among my favorites of all time. I have actually re-read it four times and each time I have found something new. Smith the dedicated anti-bootlegger and anti-corruption campaigner, comes through as a complete pain in the neck and don't you hate him. Solomon, the crook is a hero. A reader would hate to be like Moses Berger but is it not a sneaking regard that you are left with. It was great. And I'll read it again.

Richler, 09 Feb 2008
Barney's Version is a great satire of the modern age. Very funny yet equally quite sad. Together with 'Solomon Gursky was Here' a modern masterpiece.

A view of our life, 02 Oct 2005
How would you respond to the query: "tell me about your life"? Memoirs have great value in giving us a picture of the thoughts about his life and how the world is seen. In an earlier age diaries, with their daily entries provided contemporary records and reflections. Today's pace of life has made the daily journal outmoded. Memoirs are usually conceived in a later time of life, and time-eroded memories sometimes vague or disoriented.

Barney Panofsky has produced a modern memoir. After a long life, he's reflecting on the vagaries of his journey. He's experienced some wonderful highs offset by almost overwhelming depths. An aspiring writer who's made his pilgrimage to the Left Bank of Paris, his "career" became making cheap films. No matter, he ultimately became wealthy from it, but the old adage about wealth and happiness rings with harsh truth. Without formal education, he quotes classics fluently, his self-taught skills brought out with wit and force. Hanging over this relation of a complex man is the loss of his friend and rival, "Boogie" Moscovitch. Did Barney really kill him? The trial scene mocks the legal process, bringing to mind a bevy of lawyer anecdotes. All of this is related in Richler's commanding wit, tinted with his own ongoing quest for justice and virtue, mainstays of his life and writing.

The question immediately arises - is this Barney's memoir or Richler's? That really isn't our business. What counts is how well Richler presents his character, whether semi-fictional or wholly invented. And Richler's Barney is flawlessly portrayed. A complex man of conflicting emotions, values, accomplishments, he cries out for recognition that his struggle with life makes him a peer to any man. In the words of Low's cartoon soldier "The hell this isn't the most important hole in the world! I'm in it!" So we aren't to judge either whether Barney truly represents Richler, but how convincingly Richler has portrayed Barney. The old clichés, "tragi-comic" or "flawed hero" hover about seeking expression, but labelling Barney or his creator is doomed to failure. Both are far too complex for such simple thinking.

Richler's superb wit keeps alive a story that might have descended into a mundane relation of a man wallowing in self pity. Barney feels the creeping debilitation of Alzheimer's, to which he ultimately succumbs. It's not a pleasant experience for him or the sympathetic reader. Richler isn't looking for sympathy for Barney or for himself. He's portraying life as it is, and Richler, through Barney is providing us with a warning.

Richler's a discriminating social observer and this book covers a lifetime. As a memoir of the mid-twentieth century, the historical aspect seems skimpy, but all the elements are present. The departure from similar accounts reflects what many find uncomfortable; Jews in North America are a sub-community within a population versed in ideals of consensus. Barney's view of life and the world is from that perspective. He moves in and out of the WASP and Jewish segments of society, but always returns to those roots he understands best, even when tragedy remains such a major part of that culture.

Readers shouldn't make too much of Richler/Panofsky's Canadian Jewish origins. This is a book of universal significance. Casting Richler as "a Canadian writer" as some do is to deprive him of proper recognition of his world view. He's even more than a North American writer, but one who conveys earnestly the trials life presents us all. Someone here attested to their disappointment that this book failed to cop a Booker. It's a valid complaint. Perhaps a greater award will be forthcoming. It's overdue. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Fascinating story of a frustrating character., 20 Jan 2003
Barney Panofsky and his cohorts are all artists of sorts--writers, sculptors, painters--intellectuals at odds with mainstream Montreal life, firmly convinced that they are right, the world is wrong. Boisterous, loud, and resolute in pursuing the pleasures of drugs, alcohol, and women, they live life creatively and on their own terms, taking what they want, where and when they want it. Their cynicism, self-righteousness, and self-absorption epitomize the lives of many young adults during the fifties and sixties, when much of the action of this novel takes place, via flackbacks.

With great panache, Richler loads his complex narrative with pungent satire and wry humor as he shows Barney near the end of his life, reflecting on his three marriages and divorces, his affairs, his career as a producer of second rate films and ads, his drinking, and his trial for the murder of his best friend, some thirty years before. Throughout the novel, Richler teases the reader with tiny pieces of information about the murder, creating suspense at the same time that he tamps it down with humor or neutralizes it by burying it in the mundane details of Barney's life over the span of forty years.

Certainly not a traditional murder mystery, the reader never receives the clues necessary to solve the murder until the last pages of the book. But solving the murder is hardly the point. This is Barney's story--the story of an exasperating and sometimes annoying man almost totally lacking in charm, a man who has spent a good part of his life avoiding responsibility. Now in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, Barney is an unreliable narrator, trying valiantly to set down his version of what happened to Boogie Moscovich. Only the most hard-hearted reader will fail to develop sympathy for Barney by the end of the novel, but I found it difficult to like him and his friends very much. As a result, I found this a hard read, despite my admiration for the author and delight in much of his humor.

A romp through the life of a not-so good/not-so bad-guy, 18 Jul 2001
Richler like this is like Bellow with more sauce and a little less seasoning.

You read and keep on reading Barney for so many things: you thrill at his hellfire audacity, his acid take on the cant of life, you laugh and cheer at his barbs, you hate his enemies with him. Then you shake your head with the horror of a friend when his incorrigible determination to waltz with folly loses him his love and whatever he had that was happiness. At the end you find yourself bereaved when the music of his life turns off-key and haltering before it tails off; broken and stark and haunting.

Part of you wanted to be like him - the other part is so glad that you couldn't be.

Pay your respects to Mr Richler, and read his wonderful book

Bizarre, amusing, well-written: bon oeuf, 14 Jul 2001
BV traces the story of the narrator via a series of memories intermingled with present-day dyspeptic reality. His memories are, principally, of his 'épouvanter' days in Paris, and of his three wives. Through these temporal journeys we trace his own disillusionment, his love, his joie de vivre cum joie de boire. The author does a good job of putting the reader in the shoes of an adorable but cantankerous old alcoholic eccentric. More importantly, the book is funny; at times, quite hilarious. Much of the humour comes naturally from the innate ridiculousness of the human condition: B is a man to whom one might ascribe the epithet of Scaramouche, 'he was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad'. I strongly recommend this book.

A bittersweet tribute to Jewish Canadian entreprenuerial grit, 21 Feb 2007
Few novels about North America have entranced me like this one, throughout the sparse,intelligent dialogue and wry,ironic prose canadian author Mordecai Richler captures his subject matter well.
The subject is forties Montreal,deep in French Canada,where the events in the lives of the jewish hero Duddy and his family are central. Bittersweet and sometimes tragic, the actions moves between the greatest canadian metropolis "the largest inland port in the world" and the Laurentians mountains where Duddy hopes to buy some land.
One invaluable history lesson from this novel was to discover the strong and vibrant jewish communites that exist in Montreal and Toronto.
One of the finest Canadian novels I have read.

This novel was written in 1959


Some are better off never having heard of this book.., 29 May 1999
I read this book twice.Once in high school,where we "dissected" the book as English teachers do with their students, and the second time as a personal read to get more of a feeling to it. True,it does paint a realistic portrayal of Jewish life in Montreal,and the language isn't that hard except for the occasional yiddish thrown in. Basically, we are rooting for an "anti-hero" throughout the novel, a clumsy suppressed 19 year old. Duddy's character had his flaws as we humans do but there was something about the book which I did not like. Was it the style of the prose or the odd setting..I am not sure which. The only thing which I got out of the book was my likeness for the hilarious character of Friar,the Film director. I have no idea why this book went on to get critical acclaim. Mr.Richler has written much much better books like "The Acrobats" or "Barney's Vision" which I am currently reading. I guess I would recommend the book, if you can't find something better or worthwhile to read...otherwise..leave it alone. It's not worth the effort.

A very good novel by a Canadian author!, 23 May 1999
This novel was fast moving, interesting and realistic. If it wasn't for the disappointing ending (to me at least) I would have given it 5 stars. The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravits has a theme we all can relate to, but it doesn't lack humour. Very good.

The language is too stark!, 05 Apr 1999
I am reading this novel in highschool right now, and feel that this novel is quite inappropriate for students my age. Not only is it difficult to read, but the language and actions which occur in this book are unreal. I understand that to some sex makes the world go 'round, but did Richler really need to portray a 19 year old sex starved boy in this novel? I only think it gives males ideas.. Many may have enjoyed this novel, but for me, I have read better!

Memorable and Inspiring for all the wrong reasons, 12 Mar 1999
OK here's the deal. Duddy is not a good guy but the reader loves him because he is a human being and if he turns out sour and crazy it is only becasue those more fortunate than he have taken advantage of him. Duddy responds to the cards that society hands out by playing them as best he can. Richler is an incredible writer. His characters and dialogue have so much richness, so much reality. This is a book about Montreal and all the politics and culture-clash that occur between its upper-class Jews and Gentile and the lower class Jews and Gentiles. The old Jews and the young Jews, the college kids and the working kids. The French canadians and the anglo-phones, etc. There are very few women in this book, but Duddy has a very small field of vision when it comes to women, so the POV is true to the character. I love this book.

Childhood revisited!, 23 Sep 1999
Being last child of a big family, Jacob Two-Two was like finding a soulmate during my younger years! A head full of 'believable' nonsense given him by older siblings takes Jacob on quite the adventure. My childhood's most renewed booked, I managed to get an original 1975 edition recently and found I loved it even more as an adult. A definite must for anyone at the low end of the pecking order who's ever had to fight to be heard or had their youthful naievety taken advantage of by older brothers and sisters! With a wee bit of scary on top!

Outrageously funny fake memoirs, 04 May 2001
Barney, an old, bitter, divorced Jewish Canadian responds to public accusations with a rambling memoir that takes us through his life, from the early Paris years to the wealthy maturity as a Tv producer. sounds boring? think again! this is pure modern-day Tristram Shandy - a witty, salacious shaggy-dog story narrated with a unique voice by a great writer. people of the politically correct persuasion should avoid this, though

Childhood revisited!, 23 Sep 1999
Being last child of a big family, Jacob Two-Two was like finding a soulmate during my younger years! A head full of 'believable' nonsense given him by older siblings takes Jacob on quite the adventure. My childhood's most renewed booked, I managed to get an original 1975 edition recently and found I loved it even more as an adult. A definite must for anyone at the low end of the pecking order who's ever had to fight to be heard or had their youthful naievety taken advantage of by older brothers and sisters! With a wee bit of scary on top!

The next best place . . ., 23 Jan 2006
In Christian mythology the Wandering Jew is a subject of scorn. Bereft of a homeland, this accursed wraith crosses the landscape again and again, often as not bringing some tragedy or distress in his wake. Seen as the symbol of the Jewish Diaspora, the wanderer is the subject of suspicion, fear and accusation. This solitary and often tragic figure gives rise to repression and becomes the justification for unspeakable acts, of which the 20th Century Holocaust is merely the latest and best known.

Mordecai Richler has given us an astonishing and riveting account of one of these wanderers as he might have appeared in North America. As a child, Montrealer Moses Berger encounters the Gursky family. It's the first step in what will become an almost heroic quest for the truth behind the Gursky family's shadowy ancestor, Ephraim Gursky and the grandson, Solomon, who accompanied him on a journey in Canada's North. Ephraim, against all reason, apparently shipped aboard the HMS Erebus with John Franklin's ill-starred expedition into the Arctic. Richler demonstrates the Christian attitude toward the Jews with accounts of the many searchers for Franklin's remains. Those necrophiles uniformly scoffed at the notion a Jew could have been aboard, let alone survived, since "all know" these urban dwellers wouldn't have the fortitude or presumption to attempt such a feat. The evidence, however, suggests . . .

Richler has woven a rich tapestry with this mixture of invention and history. He does it so well that separating the threads of fact and fiction becomes an insurmountable task. And why not? He's given us a unique picture of the world's second largest nation. A fresh picture indeed, given that the nation of "two solitudes" conveniently forgets those of its number who are neither English nor French. If Ephraim Gursky sailed with Franklin and initiated a dynasty of Inuit Jews with such names as Gor-ski, Girskee, or Goorski. They wander, like their mentor, into the southern lands wearing, against all reason [again!] Jewish prayer shawls. They seem as homeless as their cantor, fulfilling, even in these outlandish circumstances, the Christian prejudice against wandering Jews.

Homeless he may be, but rootless the Wandering Jew is not. No matter where they settled, the Jews brought an endless capacity for adaptation, seizing whatever opportunities emerged to assist in their survival. Wherever they settled, they viewed it as "the next best place". The homeland of Israel remained within their consciousness, but they would do the best they could in whichever land they occupied. In the Gursky's case, circumstances kept opportunity at bay until Americans, in a flush of Protestant fervour, enacted Prohibition, almost certainly one of the least honoured pieces of federal legislation ever enacted. This was the moment the Gursky clan was able to seize, starting from minimal beginnings to emerge as a mighty empire built from alcohol. Richler has again merged fantasy with reality as his account of this aspect of the Gursky family would be better spelt "Bronfman".

Mordecai Richler's inventive mind and well-honed writing skills have provided us with a true masterpiece. He knows people, certainly the Montreal Jewish community, but far beyond that urban confine also. He takes us to the Arctic, the Prairies, flirts with England, pokes into America. The only missing scene is Van Dieman's Land [Tasmania], where Ephraim Gursky arrived as a transportee only two years before Franklin arrived as governor. These, however, are simply locations in which Richler can place his people. His cast is enormous, but he handles the lot with unmatched skill, presenting every persona as fully credible. We may not know the Jewish community intimately, but reading this book is an excellent means of viewing that community and how it sees the world. Moses Berger's quest for the Gursky story makes him the pivot around which this superb novel orbits as he encounters the key players in the story - especially the Wandering Jew. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This has to be my favorite book of all time., 19 Apr 1999
This book is among my favorites of all time. I have actually re-read it four times and each time I have found something new. Smith the dedicated anti-bootlegger and anti-corruption campaigner, comes through as a complete pain in the neck and don't you hate him. Solomon, the crook is a hero. A reader would hate to be like Moses Berger but is it not a sneaking regard that you are left with. It was great. And I'll read it again.

Richler, 09 Feb 2008
Barney's Version is a great satire of the modern age. Very funny yet equally quite sad. Together with 'Solomon Gursky was Here' a modern masterpiece.

A view of our life, 02 Oct 2005
How would you respond to the query: "tell me about your life"? Memoirs have great value in giving us a picture of the thoughts about his life and how the world is seen. In an earlier age diaries, with their daily entries provided contemporary records and reflections. Today's pace of life has made the daily journal outmoded. Memoirs are usually conceived in a later time of life, and time-eroded memories sometimes vague or disoriented.

Barney Panofsky has produced a modern memoir. After a long life, he's reflecting on the vagaries of his journey. He's experienced some wonderful highs offset by almost overwhelming depths. An aspiring writer who's made his pilgrimage to the Left Bank of Paris, his "career" became making cheap films. No matter, he ultimately became wealthy from it, but the old adage about wealth and happiness rings with harsh truth. Without formal education, he quotes classics fluently, his self-taught skills brought out with wit and force. Hanging over this relation of a complex man is the loss of his friend and rival, "Boogie" Moscovitch. Did Barney really kill him? The trial scene mocks the legal process, bringing to mind a bevy of lawyer anecdotes. All of this is related in Richler's commanding wit, tinted with his own ongoing quest for justice and virtue, mainstays of his life and writing.

The question immediately arises - is this Barney's memoir or Richler's? That really isn't our business. What counts is how well Richler presents his character, whether semi-fictional or wholly invented. And Richler's Barney is flawlessly portrayed. A complex man of conflicting emotions, values, accomplishments, he cries out for recognition that his struggle with life makes him a peer to any man. In the words of Low's cartoon soldier "The hell this isn't the most important hole in the world! I'm in it!" So we aren't to judge either whether Barney truly represents Richler, but how convincingly Richler has portrayed Barney. The old clichés, "tragi-comic" or "flawed hero" hover about seeking expression, but labelling Barney or his creator is doomed to failure. Both are far too complex for such simple thinking.

Richler's superb wit keeps alive a story that might have descended into a mundane relation of a man wallowing in self pity. Barney feels the creeping debilitation of Alzheimer's, to which he ultimately succumbs. It's not a pleasant experience for him or the sympathetic reader. Richler isn't looking for sympathy for Barney or for himself. He's portraying life as it is, and Richler, through Barney is providing us with a warning.

Richler's a discriminating social observer and this book covers a lifetime. As a memoir of the mid-twentieth century, the historical aspect seems skimpy, but all the elements are present. The departure from similar accounts reflects what many find uncomfortable; Jews in North America are a sub-community within a population versed in ideals of consensus. Barney's view of life and the world is from that perspective. He moves in and out of the WASP and Jewish segments of society, but always returns to those roots he understands best, even when tragedy remains such a major part of that culture.

Readers shouldn't make too much of Richler/Panofsky's Canadian Jewish origins. This is a book of universal significance. Casting Richler as "a Canadian writer" as some do is to deprive him of proper recognition of his world view. He's even more than a North American writer, but one who conveys earnestly the trials life presents us all. Someone here attested to their disappointment that this book failed to cop a Booker. It's a valid complaint. Perhaps a greater award will be forthcoming. It's overdue. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Fascin