Mordecai & Me: An Appreciation of a Kind

If you didn't know what the fuss was all about concerning Canada's infamous author, Mordecai Richler, (infamous according to the Jewish and French-Canadian communities, and even sometimes English Canada), fret no longer, help is at hand.Montreal author, literary journalist and book reviewer Joel Yanofsky's recent book, Mordecai & Me An Appreciation of a Kind, certainly provides a candid account and sometimes-poignant view of this Canadian icon. Yanofsky confesses in his book that he entertained mixed feelings about Richler, and that his feelings had mixed feelings. He even consulted a dream analyst, after he had recurring dreams in which he pesters famous and quite dead authors. According to his analyst, these dreams are a result of his feeling inadequate and undeserving to write about Richler. However, perhaps even Yanofsky was surprised, as are his readers, that his book is a clever and eye-opening study of an individual, whom the author has described as crusty and ill tempered, or more exacting, as he states-"a curmudgeon," and "a pain in the ass."Although, much of what Yanofsky says may not be new to readers who have followed Richler's career, it is the way it is presented that makes the book a fascinating read. It is a valuable contribution to the understanding of a Canadian writer and satirist, who accomplished the feat of being very funny and serious at the same time. I would even say that he probably would have also made a great stand up comic had he ventured into this territory.Everyone knows the pleasure derived from reading an interesting book, and I must admit, even though I am not much of a Richler fan, Yanofsky's narrative engaged me in a way that I felt I was not a bystander but rather someone who was being taken on a journey. An adventure, where both the reader and the author tagged along with Richler from the moment he entered the Canadian literary scene until his death. So excited were we that we could hardly wait to tell our friends the remarkable trip we had just taken, and all the wonderful discoveries we had acquired along the way. The author cleverly succeeds in presenting material that we need to know in order to comprehend what follows in a matrix of accumulated knowledge.In fact, when I asked Yanofsky what was his primary objective in writing the book, he indicated that he wanted the book to be about the writing life, about its vagaries and its ups and downs, of which there are many. He wanted to write about things like bitterness and jealousy, things that writers don't usually tackle in their work.Nonetheless, at the end I have to admit that I was still left scratching my head. Was Richler purposely playing the role of a complicated and extreme character, which he knew the majority of people would not be able to bear? Was this all a good marketing ploy? Some of his characters were pretty "gutsy" as well as slick, and I would not put it past Richler to emulate them, or perhaps they emulated him? However, as I never per

Books on Mordecai Richler have been, and will be, done. Few, if any, will meet the standard set by this excellent study of Canada's greatest writer. A mainstream biography would likely fuss over whether the child Mordecai was disappointed in the gifts received on his fifth birthday. Others, deeming themselves profound, would delve into hidden, likely unconscious and more likely apocryphal, layers of the person's subconscious. Yanofsky, emulating his subject's ambition to remain "an honest witness", presents his own, lively and valid account of Richler's life as a writer. Given Richler's power of language this is no small enterprise. Yanofsky is even plagued by dreams of his subject, waking his wife in the middle of the night to discuss them. From the beginning, this is an engaging account, keeping the reader captive to the final page.Yanofsky's subtitle says much about this book. As a young man, Richler had strong ambitions to be a noted writer. Yet what he wrote managed to offend nearly everybody. They were his relatives and his neighbours after all. In the post-Holocaust era, portraying Jews as anything less than heroic was viewed as hostile. Richler didn't target his peers, he merely portrayed them. He found stories in unlikely places and circumstances. And there were different stories everywhere he looked - "no two flats have the same history" - expresses how he saw St Urbain. He respected individuals even as he depicted them realistically. However, as he discovered, few enjoy being stripped naked in public. Yanofsky admits that Richler himself "would likely hate" this book. It isn't wholly adulatory, and treats Richler as he treated St Urbain's residents - clearly and factually. The underlying theme is Richler's expression of his Jewish roots. Writing in the years after the European Holocaust, he moved readily into the growing realm of North American "Jewish writers". If Yanofsky fails at all in this book, it is here. Not just because Richler eschewed much of his Jewishness, but because he became the foremost voice in relating the life of his neighbourhood - "this is what it's like, where I live". Richler's aim was to explain to the world in a raw, intense, but non-accusatory way, the Jewish community's life. That community, nearly as cohesive, could be found in many urban centres in North America. Many, mostly young men, struggled to escape - Duddy Kravitz the archetypal example. In another part of the city it might be a Dominic or Dimitrious. Richler's focus on his community keeps Yanofsky rightly constrained. Yet Richler's audience was far wider than merely his contemporaries - and remains so. Regrettably, Yanofsky relates that "Richler studies" are fading. If that's so, his book should do much to revive them. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]