On Richler
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Mordecai Richler (1931-2001). One of
Canada's best writers. Ever. He was always admired, if not always
well loved.
TDR solicited a number of writers to tell us
what they liked or disliked about Richler's work, and why. One respondent
turned us down, saying: "Can't really bring myself to write
about him. I think his cultural criticism was disturbing, his
prose uninteresting, and his columns hackery." We were fine
with that, since it seemed to us that Richler always respected
strong opinions - even if he disagreed with them. Others agreed to
send stuff, and they have. We hope you enjoy it.
Something to add? Send it to us at danforthreview@canada.com,
and we'll add your Richler comments to the list.
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Marc Ponomareff, Toronto - The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
One of Mordecai Richler’s credos was that a writer has the moral responsibility to be the "loser’s advocate": that he could stay true to this, while provoking mirth in his readers, is but one facet of his considerable talent. My favourite book from him,
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starts out as a hilarious, coming-of-age tale, then becomes progressively more grim until a note of overwhelming sadness is attained. The mixture of admiration and disdain on the part of the author for Duddy is highly intriguing; unforgettable, too, are the bravura, modernist
set-pieces/sub-sections (ahead of their time, where Can. Lit. is concerned): ‘The March of the Fletcher’s Cadets’, ‘Commencement’, ‘The Screening’, and the facsimile of Virgil’s magazine ‘The Crusader’ - "The Only Magazine in the World Published by Epileptics For Epileptics." Slyly, Richler has even put himself into the book, as the character Hersh - which always puts me in mind of Joyce
traveling ‘incognito’ through one of his own novels as the "Man in the Macintosh."
An earlier character of Richler’s, Noah Adler, tells his grandfather "I am going and I’m not going." This could be a fitting epitaph for a unique, Canadian writer who has passed on, yet who is destined to live on through the medium of his books.
Lyle Neff, Vancouver - Solomon Gursky Was Here
Solomon Gursky Was Here was Mordecai Richler's finest achievement, even
considering his many other big, satisfying novels. Like much of what he
accomplished, it was rather overlooked, probably due to his cantankerous
political views. His politics aren't exactly submerged in this epic story
either. He slips a knife into English Canadian mythology with the
excruciatingly-prissy government agent Bert Smith, on the one hand. On the
other, the Bernard Landrys of the world can't have been happy with the
riotous scene of a PQ tongue-trooper getting stomped at an Eastern Townships
barbecue. As always, whatever belief the man was attacking, he did it with
glee.
But consider the book as a whole: it's a marvel of black comedy and deep
seriousness. This is the novel English Canada was supposedly looking for.
There's its enigmatic central figure, a Jewish warlord somehow descending
from the North ("Where north? Far.") with a flock of mystical Inuit and
dangerous ravens; there's John Franklin and his Royal Navy lads; there are
lengthy, merciless satires on poet A.M. Klein and the whole Bronfman booze
dynasty. There is a good deal of useful mercilessness in this superb book,
in fact. Let's not neglect its brilliant shiftings of episode, chronology
and point of view either. It's one of the greatest Canadian novels ever.
Nathaniel G. Moore, Toronto - Jacob Two Two and the Hooded Fang
My first memory of Mordecai Richler was in Grade Four
at Northlea Public School in East York. We had two
novels that year to read, Billy and the Bubble Ship by
Elwy Yost, and Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang by Richler. We
were to read both books and in class we were to write
to both authors, explaining our thoughts on both
books. This was odd because this past year I watched a
documentary on Richler which showed little kids
writing crappy letters to him. They asked dumb but
cute questions and he likely did really mean things to
the letters after a few drinks but the point is there
was a hierarchy. Of course Mordecai never replied to
us, but Mr. Yost did, in fact he came into our class
and read a bit of his book. A bunch of us told him we
liked his book a lot and it was as good as Jacob
Two-Two and I distinctly remember Elwy Yost saying
that Richler was in a different league than he, that
Richler was the best in Canada. So from what I
remember of grade four, even other writers were afraid
of him. Anyway this cemented him in my head as someone
special in the Canlit mafia. It seems to me that Richler was the Al Capone of
the literary crafts in Canada.
David Zakss, Toronto - The
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (the film)
As someone who has taken a four-year BA in the legendarily useless Innis
College film program at the Universality of Gee Tee Eh, but never
disgraced that inutility by ever once working in the film industry, I feel
imminently qualified (any day now, any decade now) to comment on the
binary complex which was the book and the film of The Apprenticeship of Duddy
Kravitz.
The film of the Richler novel shocked me - that
something could be so similar yet so different. I watched the
movie with the novel tattooed on my mind. It had been read in one those kinds of moods, of immersion, of a childhood room, of turning me
into the whole spirit of whatever could be outside the window. Then the film
added something alien. I, impossibly, expected it to be just the way it
appeared to me when I read the novel. At first, it seemed like it could
even reach that impossible transference. However, the first anomalies hit
like the start of a meteor shower. Could Richard Dreyfuss really be Duddy?
Never again would I feel that shock of
adaptation. One of my favourite courses in film was called "Narrative
Into Film", and every film was compared with the novel it was taken from,
but none of them gave me the re-recognition process I experienced with Richler's
adaptation of his own novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
Sue Bowness, Toronto
One of Mordecai Richler's most memorable books for me was
St. Urbain's Horseman, not necessarily because it was my favourite but because half way
through it I decided I would write to him. It was grade 13 and I was
ploughing through his novels and his political writing as I prepared to give
a final report on his work for my CanLit independent study. Suddenly it
occurred to me that I should write to him and ask him to come and speak to
my class about writing; after all, Montreal was only just over an hour away
from our little high school in Eastern Ontario and I was spending a lot of
time studying his work. Maybe he could do something for me. I told my
English teacher about the plan, who was supportive but skeptical. Then I
wrote the first letter, telling Mr. Richler how much I was enjoying his
work, how I myself was also interested in writing and if he couldn't
come and speak with our class, could he at least reply to my letter and
answer my questions about "being a writer".
It was the first of three
letters I would write over the next few months, the third being a holiday
card that I sent in December, priding myself for my cultural sensitivity in
not sending him a Christmas card. Still I heard nothing, but for the
occasional rib from my classmates or my teacher asking if I had 'heard from
Mordecai' yet. Finally it was two days before the end of class, I had
already done my report sans Mordecai, when I came home to a rare airmail
letter from London, England with my name carefully typed onto the envelope, an
envelope that I would carry triumphantly into CanLit class the next day. I opened it
and a card fell out with a couple of rows of typing that started with
"Dear Ms Bowness", and ended with a scrawly signature: Mordecai Richler.
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