Word: richler
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...Saul Bellow had remained in Quebec, Mordecai Richler would be Canada's second best Jewish novelist. That would be nothing to agitate a stick at. Most of Richler's 10 novels, which include The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and St. Urbain's Horsemen, are inspired comedies about Montreal's Jewish community, of which the author, now 66, remains a member...
...writer's close, conflicted ties to his birthplace give his work its special flavor, not to mention its distinctive sense of the not quite familiar. Richler's raffish characters could be from New York, Chicago or Los Angeles, except that they are nuts about hockey, spice their conversation with French as well as Yiddish and have legal access to Cuban cigars...
...bumptious codger Barney Panofsky of Barney's Version (Knopf; 368 pages; $25) is more than a familiar Richler hero. He is the author's fullest expression of the type: a pleasure-loving scoundrel with a generous romantic streak and a gift that can turn schmoozing into literature. Barney makes his sizable living producing Canadian-content TV series like McIver of the RCMP ("big on bonking scenes in canoes and igloos"). He calls his company Totally Unnecessary Productions, a name that flaunts his self-loathing but, more important, pre-empts the scorn of his artistic betters...
...signs have been there for some years. In the '70s, the Canadian writer Mordecai Richler tried to rent a tuxedo in Hollywood for the Oscars and, he later wrote, confronted "rack upon rack of outrageous evening wear. Purple velvet, ruffles, suede." Richler described what happened when he asked if the store had such a thing as a conventional black tuxedo:"'Yes, certainly,' the tailor said, bringing something out of the back room. 'And now tell me, sir, will you be wearing high heels...
...novel comes to the U.S. trailing clouds of glory. On Oct. 16 A.S. Byatt's Possession won the Booker Prize, Britain's most ballyhooed and prestigious literary award, for the year's best novel, beating out works by such well-known nominees as Brian Moore, Beryl Bainbridge and Mordecai Richler. Three days later, in Dublin, Byatt picked up the Irish Times/Aer Lingus international fiction prize. The take from both awards added up to about...