OBIT: Mordecai Richler has died

Subject: OBIT: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Tedham Porterhouse
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 06:17 PM

I just heard that Mordecai Richler, one of my favorite novelists, died in Montreal from cancer at the age of 70.

Montreal is only about an hour's drive from here and I go up often. Having read Richler for many years, I've always enjoyed walking the streets that he's written about.

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 06:25 PM

That's a great shock. He was one of the last of the great characters, curmudgeons, and a real Montrealer. I can't imagine him dead.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 06:29 PM

Is it just me, or are the greats dropping like flies of late????????

See ya Morty!

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: catspaw49
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 06:35 PM

PT, are we just getting old or something? Or is it possible that we truly ARE running out of great "characters?" Even in my personal life there seem to be far fewer than there was when I was a kid......not the great ones, just the local type even. I was thinking on this for a couple of reasons when I was in the hospital and your statement made me wonder if it's just the truth or just the "age?"

Spaw

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 06:40 PM

Oh, I figure while you are around, we can rest easy about the supply of great characters.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Bardford
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 06:51 PM

Aw,jeez. I've enjoyed his writing since I was a kid. I will raise a glass tonight and salute the creator of Duddy Kravitz and Jacob Two-Two. And Jacob Two-Two.
Bardford

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 10:27 PM

Here's an example of what makes many chuckle and just as many despair of the man's output (I'm a chuckler)

"On occasion, life does improve upon art. Take, for instance, the case of my novel St. Urbain's Horseman, in which a striving Duddy Kravitz is seen to be involved in more than one louche enterprise, just possibly his most dubious being the publication of a Canadian Jewish Who's Who, which he irreverently dubs The Jew's Who. Duddy calculates that anybody listed in his slapdash compendium will buy two, maybe three copies, and he cleverly demands a fee from those sufficiently vain to wish to have a photograph adorn their entry.

Now along comes the third edition of Who's Who in Canadian Jewry, a slipshod production that also bills those who wish to have a photograph included with their biography. The Who's Who in Canadian Jewry, published by JESL Educational Products in Toronto, was edited by Dr. Edmond Yehuda Lipsitz, principal of the Kitchener-Waterloo Hebrew Day School. He has kindly sent me a copy, requesting a review, and, obliging fellow that I am, I have decided to oblige.

For the most part, the entries in this catalogue are made up of doctors, lawyers, professors and entrepreneurs, many of whom profess to enjoy golfing, aerobics and tennis, and all of whom are proud of their families, which strikes me as awfully nice. The honours list is preceded by several learned essays, rich in statistics and tables.

Leo Davids, associate professor, Atkinson College, York University, Toronto, for example, offers "Table III, Jewish Endogamy vs. Exogamy and Unmarried Cohabitation in Canada's Major Cities, 1991." That is to say, a chart of those married within the faith, or those married to shiksas, or simply shacking up together without benefit of clergy. I sometimes think that sociologists are not merely indifferent to the beauties of the English language, but actively conspire against it.

In any event, just in case you're interested, there are 525 "Jew-Jew Cohabitant Couples" in Toronto, but only 400 in Montreal, which establishes, contrary to popular belief, that Torontonians are far more morally suspect (or shmutzik, as my grandmother would have said) than Montrealers.

In his introduction, Dr. Lipsitz ventures that, despite his efforts to be all-inclusive, there are those Jews who chose not to be included in such a publication due to fear of being listed in a book on Jewry. Well now, I can't say for sure if that was true of Stockwell Day (ne Dubinsky?), but he certainly hit the nail on the head in my case. Word gets out that I'm a Jew and I'm done for. Next thing I know a United Jewish Appeal fundraiser will phone to say today is Super Sunday. "Remember the Six Million. It could happen here. One day it's Haider in Austria and the next God knows who in Canada. Israel is our refuge. The only country where we can be safe."

"But Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab countries armed with missile-launchers."

"And you're too cheap to give? Shame on you."

for the most part, this is an honour roll of worthy rather than distinguished people, who deserve admiration for their community work. They seem to take turns at being designated Man or Woman of the Year and many have won a Samuel Bronfman Medal for something or other.

Edgar Bronfman, BA, LL.D (Hon.), D.Hum.Lett (Hon.), is commendably reticent about his achievements. He owns up to being Pres., Distillers Corp.-Seagram Ltd., as well as the prez of World Jewish Congress, but he does not list what I take to be his greatest accomplishment, moving billions of the family swag out of Canada without having to fork over $700- million in tax.

Bram Appel, on the other hand, obviously needy, lists a most pathetic distinction, namely his award of a 1967 Centennial Medal. My God, there were something like 50,000 of these cheap aluminum medals sent out in '67.

Even I got one, mailed to me in London. I promptly gave it to my then six-year-old son, Noah, who wore it on the top of his soccer knee stocking until it was lost somewhere in Richmond Park.

This was not a necessary book."

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 10:28 PM

I made the mistake of reading Solomon Gursky before his other books. a real masterpiece. The others are great, but I keep subconciously compairing them to Solomon Gursky was here. If you haven't read it, read it, but AFTER St. Urban's horseman etc...
He was an extrodinary writer, Larry

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 11:16 PM

At his High School reunion, he nervously (and somewhat boozedly) got up to make a speech. He obviously wanted off the podium fast, so he said that "other than the 'awful girl singers' who'd just been on (a choir perhaps?) he was glad to be there"!

I swear the audience was totally discombobulated. You could hear them start to laugh (thinking it was a joke), then go "ohhhhhhhhh..." then start to boo....then (sort of ) applaud, as he left the platform.

I'd kill to have that kind of courage......but I'd rather have friends.

Rick

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Mike Regenstreif
Date: 03 Jul 01 - 11:50 PM

I can't say that I really knew Richler well, but I met him a few times and have read most of his books; both the novels and some of the non-fiction.

My father is about five few years older than Richler and grew up in the same neighbourhood, went to the same schools, etc. as Richler so it was always a treat for me to get an insight into that world through Richler's books.

Speaking both as a Montrealer, and as someone with an MA in poli sci, I'll also say that "Oh Canada, Oh Quebec," his book on Quebec nationalism is one of the best analyses ever on the subject.

Mike Regenstreif

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: sian, west wales
Date: 04 Jul 01 - 07:29 AM

Good articles in the Globe and Mail (on-line). I particularly like what MR had to say himself when asked how he would like to see his obituary:

'Yesterday the world mourned the passing of devastatingly handsome, incomparably talented Mordecai Richler, taken from us in his prime, aged 969."

sian

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Tedham Porterhouse
Date: 04 Jul 01 - 09:17 AM

The New York Times has a lengthy obituary today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/obituaries/04RICH.html

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 04 Jul 01 - 10:52 AM

Geez, I'm afraid to open a paper or listen to a radio these days.

I studied "Duddy Kravitz" in High School. It was probably the book that made me realize that literature could be alive. His characters were real people that I could relate to, in real life situations. It was a catalyst for me. Joshua Then & Now was another wonderful book.

You'll be missed Mordecai.

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From:
Date: 04 Jul 01 - 03:35 PM

Your message has stirred many fond memories of when I was young. I came across the Incomparable Atuk in the remaindered bin at Woolworths. Just wonderful. There was this strange literary quiz where the contestants had to discuss "Blessed are the meek..." Someone says "It's Hemingway, I recognise the style..." Wouldn't that be great with Mel Brooks saying the lines. I wish I'd written to him now and said thank you.

Subject: RE: Mordecai Richler has died
From: ollaimh
Date: 04 Jul 01 - 08:38 PM

it's harder to write comedy than anything else and he was a master of comedy. joshua then and now is over looked because of the greater novel solomon gursy was here, but joshua had some of the funniest scenes i've ever read.

like when his father tries to explain to him that the lost tribes of israel were kind of like a disbanded hockey team