Friday's Forgotten Books: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler

the book, published in 1959 in London and Boston, in 1969 in Toronto



the movie, 1974, Richard Dreyfuss' first leading role! And many unknown Canadians in minor roles!

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is Mordecai Richler's fourth novel. From The Canadian Encyclopedia:

Duddy Kravitz is a brash Jewish Montréal kid determined to make it - whatever "it" is, whatever "it" takes. Acting on his grandfather's maxim that a man is nothing without land, Duddy schemes and dreams to develop his first brainstorm, a lakeshore property in the Laurentians. Duddy is an attractive figure, bursting with chutzpah, but he is also driven to exploit others in his drive to succeed.

I spent a lot of time cringing while I read this book and while I watched this movie. Because Duddy does selfish things to get ahead. Selfish things which turn into horrible things as the novel progresses. That said, I couldn't put the book down.

A snippet from the book:

To a middle-class stranger, it is true, one street would have seemed as squalid as the next. On each corner a cigar store, a grocery, and a fruit man. Outside staircases everywhere. Winding ones, wooden ones, rusty and risky ones. Here a prized lot of grass splendidly barbered, there a spitefully weedy patch. An endless repetition of precious peeling balconies and waste lots making the occasional gap here and there.



Richler (1931-2001) grew up in working-class Montreal during a time of anti-Semitism. He used this setting (around St. Urbain's Street in the 1930s and 40s) in many of his books. Richler was prolific and controversial. He wrote everything from children's books (the Jacob Two-Two series which you must read) to novels to essays to political satires to screen plays. He left Canada for London, England for a while, then returned because he was worried "about being so long away from the roots of my discontent" and because he missed ""blizzards, hockey, smoked-meat sandwiches." He won TWO Governor-General's awards: St. Urbain's Horsemen (1971) and Cocksure (1968)

Mr. Richler said he wanted to write one book that would continue to be read after his death. He more than succeeded.

Hop over to pattinase's blog for links to other posts for Friday's Forgotten Books. Thanks, Patti, for spearheading this!


http://www.northernstars.ca/Writers/richler_bio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordecai_Richler
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0000256