May 07, 2008
Mordecai Richler Biography
Kevin McGoogan reviews Reinhold Kramer's Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain in The Globe and Mail:
Reinhold Kramer, an English professor at Brandon University, has scoured the Richler archive at the University of Calgary. He has made excellent, almost invasive use of letters, notes and two unpublished manuscripts - a 1950s novel called The Rotten People and a 1970s memoir, Back to Ibiza - to show how Richler drew on his own life in creating his fiction.
By adding a few interviews with family members, and drawing on an oral biography by Globe and Mail writer Michael Posner and a scholarly study by Victor Ramraj, Kramer has produced a meticulous, prodigiously detailed biography. As the subtitle suggests, it highlights the writer's lifelong engagement with Orthodox Judaism and his triumphant emergence as a secular humanist.
Those who followed Richler closely, chuckling at his antics, savouring his victories, will enjoy reliving old favourite moments. Yes, yes, let's go again to the movie premiere of Duddy Kravitz, when the wife of the late Samuel Bronfman congratulated Richler from on high: "You've come a long way for a St. Urbain Street boy." And the author responded: "And you've come a long way for a bootlegger's wife."
Posted by Robin Varghese at 01:31 PM | Permalink
Comments
Makes it sound as though Richler were a professional Jew which his published writing (every word of which I have read) manifestly demonstrates not to have been the case: it was Montreal civic Jewish groups and the B'nai Brith that thought he was antisemitic and he had little difficulty making his scoffing more credible than their criticism. He and beautiful Florence, a non-Jew, purported to bring up their five children with the girls identifying as Jewish and the boys as gentile (or perhaps it was the other way around) and with a Christmas tree in December and Passover in the spring. Don't know how successfully they carried off the dual-religion family feat, though it's hardly uncommon to try, but all five are famous and famously accomplished so they certainly did something right. Solomon Gursky is my favourite novel of the prodigious 80s but I wonder why the reviewer discounts Barney's Version as, impliedly, a lesser masterpiece than the ones he cites. And why the biographer, if the review accurately discusses the emphasis, fails to mention the incisive and often hilarious political journalism. (He describes taking one of his sons to an NDP convention in Winnipeg on which he was reporting; he thought the convention had all the pizazz of a United Church congregational meeting and despite or perhaps because of its more-liberal-than-thou earnestness there was a minor scandal at his having a handsome young man at his side.) Or his deep commitment to Canada, not just anglophone Montreal. However, that being said, I can't wait for the biographies-in-progress and will have to invest in this one to be going on with.
Posted by: Mac | May 7, 2008 11:23:32 PM
Saw and appreciated Mac's comment on the Mordecai Richler bio. I agree completely with his assessment of 'Solomon Gursky' and 'Barney's Version', both of which I loved. I hope to reread them this summer.
I live in Winnipegg and was walking past the Convention Centre during the NDP
Convention he mentions, when I looked up and there was Richler walking my way. I
nodded and said "Hi", but to my lasting regret did not try to
engage him in conversation. I would have told him how much I enjoyed all his
writing.He, no doubt, would have adopted a pained look and mumbled a brief response...but I would have converted that in future retelling into a long and erudite exchange of views.
Posted by: Aaron | May 8, 2008 7:13:27 PM
Oops. Forgot to proofread. That is of course "Winnipeg".
Posted by: Aaron | May 8, 2008 7:15:16 PM
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