by M G Vassanji
What legacy did he leave behind? There are his numerous columns and articles, among which are important, thoughtful, and provocative contributions. He was always witty, at times hilariously so, and his satires held up a mirror to some of the absurdities of contemporary life, especially those pertaining to Canada. But perhaps he wrote too many, too quickly of these later in his life. They brought him an enthusiastic following even among those who would not read his fiction. How they will hold up in the future is anybody’s guess. The numerous anecdotes told about him might well become part of a lasting legend. But it is his novels, in the pursuit of which he made the long journey out and back, that should ultimately count as his great legacy, and the conflicted modern Canadian story that was his own life. Through the novels he broadened the cultural scope of Canadian fiction; he brought to it an exuberance it had not seen, with his vernacular, his wit, his indomitable though often tortured characters. Duddy Kravitz, Solomon Gursky, Jake Hersh, Joshua Shapiro, and Barney Panofsky—these will live on in the narrative and the imagining of Canada.
SOURCES
Books and Articles by Mordecai Richler
Richler, Mordecai. The Acrobats, 1954 rpt. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2002).
——. Son of a Lesser Hero, 1955 rpt. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2002).
——. A Choice of Enemies, 1957 rpt. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2002).
——. Conversation with Nathan Cohen. Tamarack Review 2, Winter 1957, p. 6.
——. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, 1959 rpt. (Toronto: Penguin, 1959).
——.Home Sweet Home, 1960 rpt. (Toronto: Penguin, 1985).
——. “The White Americans,” The Spectator, April 7, 1961.
——. “This Year in Jerusalem,” Maclean’s, August 11, August 25, and September 8, 1962.
——. The Incomparable Atuk, 1963 rpt. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989).
——. Cocksure (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1968).
——. The Street, 1969 rpt. (Toronto: Penguin, 2007).
——. St Urbain’s Horseman, 1971 rpt. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001).
——. Shovelling Trouble (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972).
——. Notes on an Endangered Species (New York: Knopf, 1974).
——. “Leaving School,” Illustrated Companion History of Sir George Williams University (Montreal: Concordia University, 1977).
——. Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978).
——. Joshua Then and Now, 1980 rpt. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989).
——. Solomon Gursky Was Here (New York: Knopf, 1990).
——. Broadsides (Toronto: Viking, 1990).
——. Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! (Toronto: Penguin, 1992).
——. This Year in Jerusalem (Toronto: Knopf, 1994).
——. Barney’s Version (Toronto: Knopf, 1995).
——. Belling the Cat (Toronto: Knopf, 1998).
——. “Return to Ibiza: A Memoir.” Unpublished. Mordecai Richler Fonds, University of Calgary.
——. “The Rotten People.” Unpublished. Mordecai Richler Fonds, University of Calgary.
Mordecai Richler Papers. Special Collections, University of Calgary Library.
William Weintraub Papers. For Richler-Weintraub, and Moore-Weintraub correspondence. Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library, Montreal.
Concordia University (formerly Sir George Williams College) Archives, Montreal.
Other Sources
“A Pogrom in Galicia,” The New York Times, April 21, 1918.
Anonymous. “Nite-Cap: a blemish on college due to closeness: one reporter’s view,” The Georgia, February 20, 1950, 13(17), p. 5.
Athill, Diana. Stet (London: Granta, 2000).
Bloom, Harold. ed. Philip Roth (Broomall, Pa.: Chelsea House, 2003).
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Available at: http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/literature.
Craig, Patricia. Brian Moore. A Biography (London: Bloomsbury, 2002).
Gopnik, Adam, ed. Mordecai Richler Was Here (Toronto: Madison Press Books, 2006).
Kramer, Reinhold. Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens, 2008).
Lessing, Doris. Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography (London: HarperCollins, 1997).
Moore, Brian. “An Irishman in Malibu.” Interview. Available at: www.laweekly.com/art+books/books/an-irishman-in-malibu/6888/?page=6.
National Film Board of Canada. Ted Allan: Minstrel Boy of the Twentieth Century (Montreal, 2002).
Posner, Michael. The Last Honest Man: Mordecai Richler (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2004).
Rosenberg, Leah. The Errand Runner (Toronto: John Wiley, 1981).
Rosenthal, Herman, and S.M. Dubnow. “Hasidim, Hasidism.” Available at: www.jewishencyclopedia.com.
Roth, Philip. Goodbye, Columbus, 1959 rpt. (New York: Vintage, 1997).
——. The Counterlife (New York: Vintage, 1986).
——. The Facts. A Novelist’s Autobiography (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1988).
——. Patrimony (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991).
Royal, Derek Parker. Philip Roth: New Perspectives on an American Author (Westport, Ct: Praeger, 2005).
Sampson, Denis. The Chameleon Novelist: Brian Moore (Toronto: Doubleday, 1998).
Schoenfeld, Joachim. Shtetl Memoirs: Jewish Life in Galicia Under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in the Reborn Poland 1898–1939 (Hoboken, New Jersey: Ktav Publishing, 1985).
Singer, Isaac Bashevis. Satan in Goray, 1955 rpt. (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1979).
Solecki, Sam. ed. The Selected Letters of Jack McClelland (Toronto: Key Porter, 1998).
Weintraub, William. City Unique, Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and 50s. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1996).
——. Getting Started (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001).
Wrobel, Pyotr. “The Jews of Galicia under Austrian-Polish Rule, 1867–1918.” Available at: www.jewishgen.org/Galicia/html/Jews_of_Galicia.pdf.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful to Florence Richler for putting up with yet more interviews and queries, and for giving permission to quote material from the Richler Archives; and to Michael Levine for his generous assistance and clarifications throughout the writing of this book. I would also like to thank Jack Rabinovitch, Noah Richler, and David Staines for their reminiscences, John Ralston Saul for suggestions, Maya Mavjee for her interest, and Diane Turbide for her timely assistance. And finally, Nurjehan, for putting up with much endless chatter about M.R. and for reading the manuscript.
I would also like to express my appreciation to the University of Calgary Library, Archives and Special Collections; the Concordia University Archives; and the McGill University Library, Rare Books and Special Collections, for access and permissions; and especially to Appolonia Steele, Marlys Chevrefils, and Nancy Marrelli.
I have benefited greatly from two books on Richler, Reinhold Kramer’s Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain, particularly for its exhaustive bibliography, and Michael Posner’s The Last Honest Man: Mordecai Richler, for its extensive interviews. William Weintraub’s Getting Started: A Memoir of the 1950s is an invaluable, generous, and fascinating account of literary friendships involving an important chapter in the history of Canadian literature, and he deserves the thanks of all interested in the subject. Without his preserved letters and commentaries, much would have been lost.
CHRONOLOGY
1902 Moses (Moe) Richler is born in Poland.
1904 Shmaryahu Richler arrives in Montreal.
1905 Leah (Lily) Rosenberg is born in Poland.
1912 Jehudah Rosenberg arrives in Toronto.
1919 Jehudah Rosenberg arrives in Montreal.
1924 Lily Rosenthal and Moses Richler are married.
1931 Mordecai Richer is born on January 27 in Montreal.
1944 Lily and Mo
e’s marriage is annulled.
1948 Mordecai Richler graduates from Baron Byng High School; he is admitted to Sir George Williams College.
1950 Richler departs for Europe in September.
1952 He returns to Montreal in September.
1953 Richler goes to London with Cathy Boudreau in August.
1954 His first novel, The Acrobats, is published in the spring. He and Cathy are married in August.
1958 Richler and Boudreau are separated in the summer.
1959 The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is published in the fall.
1960 Mordecai Richler and Florence Wood return to Canada in March and are married in Montreal in July.
1961 The Richlers return to London in the spring.
1967 Moses Richler dies; Mordecai returns to Montreal for the funeral.
1972 The Richlers return permanently to Canada.
1974 Richler and his mother, Lily, stop speaking.
1992 Richler goes to Israel for the second time. He publishes Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! on the Quebec crisis.
1995 In the fall, Richler publishes his final and eleventh work of fiction, Barney’s Version, which wins the Giller Prize.
1998 He undergoes major surgery.
2001 Mordecai Richler dies on July 3 in Montreal of cancer.