Barney's Version: A Novel - Hardcover

Richler, Mordecai

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701162724 ISBN 13: 9780701162726

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 1997

Synopsis

Before his brain began to shrink, Barney Panofsky clung to two cherished beliefs. Life was absurd, and nobody truly understood anybody else. Even his friends tend to agree that Barneys is a 'wife-abuser, an intellectual fraud, a purveyor of pap, a drunk with a penchant for violence and probably a murderer'. But when his sworn enemy threatens to publish this calumny, Barney is driven to write his own memoirs, rewinding the spool of his life, editing, selecting and plagiarising, as his memory plays tricks on him - and on the reader. Ebullient and perverse, he has seen off 3 wives - the enigmatic Clara, whom he drove to suicide in Paris in 1952; the garrulous Second Mrs Panofsky; and finally Miriam who stayed married to him for decades before running off with a sober academic. Houdini-like, Barney slides from crisis to success, from lowlife to highlife in Montreal, Paris and London, his outrageous expolits culminating in the scandal he carries around like a humpback - the murder charge that he goes on denying to the end.

About this title

Book Description:

The hilarious, devious and touching story of an unruly life - this wonderful new novel by the award-winning author of SOLOMON GURSKY WAS HERE, is a virtuoso performance by a master.

Synopsis:

From his Yiddish childhood in a coldwater flat on Montreal's St Urbain's Street, Mordecai Richler evokes a North-American Jewish adolescence, his family and friends, and leads us through the modern history of Zionism, the kibbutz movement, and Israel then and now. He describes the cultural melting pot of his Canadian youth - nurtured, as he was, not only on loyalty to Zionism, but also on "Tom Brown's Schooldays", Kipling, Gilbert & Sullivan, and baseball. He mixes the personal and political, combining stories about his mother struggling to make ends meet, his orthodox grandparents, Jerusalem cab drivers, and life on a kibbutz (the food is appalling!), with an analysis of modern Israel, Zionism and the dangers of extremism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0701162724
• ISBN 13: 9780701162726
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416