Why i write richler

Richler was one of the people who helped get the prize off the ground four years ago. The glamour of the Giller just adds to the buzz that inevitably surrounds the appearance of a new Richler novel, an infrequent event in the last three decades. It was nine years between St. Now, the plan is to clean up some old work, finish the next Jacob Two-Two story, and start work on a new novel in four months.

Mordecai Richler. Assistant Professor, Book Publishing Toronto. Publicist Toronto. Digital and Marketing Assistant Toronto. View All. Mordecai Richler The Globe and Mail. Judged by his profile in the media and entertainment industries, no Canadian author alive or dead is as popular today as Mordecai Richler, the subject of a thick new biography Mordecai: The Life and Times by Charles Foran , an upcoming documentary Mordecai Richler: The Last of the Wild Jews , as well as the posthumous inspiration for the soon-to-be-released film adaptation of Barney's Version.

Judged by his profile on university courses that teach Canadian literature, however, Mordecai Richler barely exists. No other author so widely admired both in his day and after is less conspicuous in the emerging canon of Canadian literature - a continuing irritant his admirers are eager to redress. A quick survey shows that neither Queen's University, nor the University of Toronto, Concordia University, Dalhousie University, University of Alberta, York University, the University of Saskatchewan and Simon Fraser University name a single work by Richler in lists of texts for either undergraduate or graduate-level courses on Canadian literature.

Among the dozens of authors listed for study in the University of British Columbia's undergraduate courses in Canadian literature, Richler is mentioned only once. And the Montreal author gets equal treatment in both undergraduate and graduate CanLit courses at McGill University - appearing on only one course list on urban writing as author of The Street , a little-known volume of early stories.

But lagging academic interest is also evident in the lists of research grants given out by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council over the past dozen years. Six projects studied the comparatively little-known Toronto writer Dionne Brand. But little changed as a result, and Richler's status remains at best indeterminate. One of the reasons, according to Shearer, is the sheer diversity of course offerings in Canadian universities. The author's many non-academic fans are less reticent.

Richler couldn't avoid the conceit even when writing about an Eskimo. Richler takes time out from Atuk's story to let readers hear a thought of Atuk's discoverer, advertising executive Rory Peel, whose family name used to be Panofsky: "When I think how far I've risen above my father. In only one generation from cringing greenhorns in the slums to a relaxed, secure life in the suburbs.

Considering the non-monetary richness of life on St. Urbain Street, it's little wonder Richler was reluctant to give up his emotional attachment to it. Grinding poverty and lofty dreams sat side by side, as did unemployed Talmudic scholars and delicatessen philosophers. The local card players' hangout was owned by a communist freethinker who doubled as a bookie and vociferously rejected the biblical account of Creation.

On the St. Urbain Street that Richler loved his whole life, some sons rejected their mothers' plans for medical school in favor of shortcuts to success. Richler delighted in the neighborhood's two-bit hustlers, petty thieves and fast-talking swindlers. Duddy Kravitz's father says proudly of his perennially conniving son:. He was born on the wrong side of the tracks with a rusty spoon in his mouth, so to speak, and the spark of rebellion in him. Literary critics and Jewish leaders accused Richler of reinforcing anti-Semitic stereotypes with the characters who populated his novels.

Such criticism only had a boomerang effect. Richler treasured snubs and rejections as if they were merit badges. Instead, he was delighted to find, as he reported in the memoir "Etes-vous canadien? Pronouncing Richler a "filthy, disgusting fellow," he ordered the crew out of his house.

Richler took a similar perverse delight in the fact that the street-corner companions of his youth attributed his literary style to survival skills they mutually learned on St.