Since Duddy's childhood, his father, Max, had told him stories about Jerry Dingleman, the local "Boy Wonder" whose rags-to-riches story is canonical among the residents of St. Urbain Street. It was first published in 1959 by André Deutsch, then adapted to the screen in 1974. However, it's certainly up there as an accomplishment, if not exactly a pleasure. His questionable tactics and actions don’t go unchallenged by the author or the other characters, but it never veers into a preachy moral fable. Duddy is one of Richler's great anti-heroes, and because he is so thoroughly that, it makes him difficult to write about. In order to do so, he knew no bounds. Duddy is left to show the movies seven days a week while still trying to oversee movie production at the same time. I am not sure what to say about it. The main character is about as “anti-” as a hero gets, and yet I couldn’t help but root for him to get his land and become a somebody.
My favourite thing about Richler is that he expands my practical vocabulary: thanks to him, I can exhort friends to "Be a mensch! Yes, he's a conniving user of people, but you end up rooting for him too. They fall into love. We’d love your help. As he ages, Duddy never loses his drive to make money, and in his final appearance in Barney's Version, Duddy is in his 60s and is financially successful. But I was doing something Canadian, see? The main character is about as “anti-” as a hero gets, and yet I couldn’t help but root for him to get his land and become a somebody. "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" is a movie that somehow manages to be breakneck and curiously touching at the same time. There were a few redeeming moments, but most of the time I just wanted to strangle Duddy... in fact, my feelings for Duddy alternated between wanting to strangle him and t. This book is fast paced, vulgar, funny, and human. An entertaining coming-of-age, North American immigrant tale, with a well drawn, lovably roguish, morally wobbly protagonist. "Duddy Kravitz: From Apprentice to Legend. There can only be one thing more miserable than someone who reaches his goals by trampling on others, and that is to find out after all the trampling... that you are no success story after all. I love them. His nemesis, like Samson, is a woman. He falls in with the "wrong crowd" (this group would be wrong in any era and culture) and invents himself as an amateur gangster. When we meet him, he's a sixteen-year-old Jewish kid from Montreal whose mother is dead and whose father drives a cab and does a little part-time pimping to send the older son through medical school. When Duddy hears of the last bit of land around the lake he's dreaming of possessing going up for sale, he exhausts his few remaining contacts for money but still comes up short. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published with which Richler creates a fascinating (realistic, albeit despicable) character. Max is singing the praises of Jerry Dingleman (Henry Ramer), the local “Boy Wonder” who escaped Montréal's Jewish ghetto and became rich. He becomes a nobody... with land! Maybe it's the Saul Bellow territory...young man on the make, etc; cast of spivs and strivers; the smell of fried liver. I love getting lost in a story taking place in the city my grandparents knew and lived in. "Neither Jekyll nor Hyde: In Defence of Duddy Kravitz. Most people also said he was a complete and utter asshole. Yvette finds out and tells Duddy's grandfather, who is embarrassed and unhappy with the way Duddy has obtained the land.
Mordecai Richler was a Canadian author, screenwriter and essayist. A few chapters in on audio, those asshole vibes were starting to gather force in the story, so I read the plot summary on Wikipedia and decided to bail. This book is fast paced, vulgar, funny, and human. To this end he hires Friar, a blacklisted (in the United States, for his communist tendencies), alcoholic, avant-garde filmmaker. It’s shocking to me that this novel was published in 1959. Having no communication with the outside world, Duddy loses his clients, and is thus forced to declare bankruptcy and to give all his possessions over to the state (except for the land, which was all in Yvette's name due to Duddy's being considered a minor). Duddy Kravitz has grown up hearing about the Boy Wonder. There were a few redeeming moments, but most of the time I just wanted to strangle Duddy... in fact, my feelings for Duddy alternated between wanting to strangle him and then laugh at him.
Uncle Benjy takes a dim view of Duddy's commercial ambitions, seeing them as avaricious and crass. Their relationship is strained: Uncle Benjy, a wealthy clothing manufacturer with socialist sympathies, has always favored Duddy's brother Lennie, who wants to become a doctor. Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | Website | Tumblr.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is the fourth novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. And I'm not even Jewish! As a child, Duddy learns from his grandfather that "a man without land is nobody," and Duddy comes to believe land ownership to be life's ultimate goal and the means by which a man is made into a somebody. It's a story of ambition and greed, with a hero that will stop at almost nothing (by the movie's end, Duddy has succeeded in alienating the girl who loves him, has lost all his friends, has brought his grandfather to despair, and has paralyzed his most loyal employee). He loved Montreal and he is preaching to the choir with me, because I am crazy about my city as well, and I wish I could have seen it at the time "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" takes place, the post-WWII era when hockey players didn't wear helmets but everyone wore hats. ", I can call my girlfriend a "shiksa", I can refer to anyone other than myself as "you white people".
I was more disappointed in this book than I expected.
This is a story of ambition run amok - a precocious upstart trying to satiate his obsessive perception of success. Duddy returns to Montreal and starts a company to produce bar-mitzvah films. It’s not what you achieve but how you achieve it...salutory ending. The jewish community was the predominant culture in non-french speaking quarters of Montreal and this self-contained quarter of the city had rules and procedures not found anywhere else during that era.
The ways in which he finally succeeds in driving her away, the ways in which he makes himself miserable before he is even twenty-one, are played against his own series of get-rich-fast schemes (during which he not only succeeds in meeting the real Boy Wonder but even unknowingly smuggles heroin over the border for him). This theft also prompts Yvette and Virgil to move out of the mansion and forbid Duddy to ever see them again. He's become a "somebody". To see what your friends thought of this book, Richler writes about Montreal the way Dickens writes about London: as if the city was a character. A few months later, Virgil, an epileptic (a fact known to Duddy when given the job), experiences a seizure while driving, crashes the vehicle and is subsequently paralyzed from the waist down from his injuries. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. He stumbles upon a beautiful and secluded lake while out with his soon-to-be lover and "Girl Friday" Yvette. But in the end, Richler doesn't oversimplify: Duddy's neither good nor bad, he's complicated. It’s not that this is a bad book. His father, Max spoke with great pride when telling these stories about him. Start by marking “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” as Want to Read: Error rating book. Duddy took advantage of everyone in his way as his quest for money and land consumed him. I want to see the movie starring Richard Dreyfuss. That Richler is able to combine these ethical questions, social commentary, a really deeply layered family drama, and a lot of humor into a single narrative, and make it look so easy, is astonishing. By the time he's twenty, he's something. In order to do so, he knew no bounds. I can't say it's my absolutely favourite Mordecai Richler - Solomon Gursky Was Here is probably that. This is the first of several books by Canadian authors in my formative growing-up years. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. And he's right. Yvette, blaming Duddy for the accident, takes Virgil to Ste. Duddy Kravitz has grown up hearing about the Boy Wonder. Duddy forms a movie production company (Dudley Kane Productions, inevitably), hires the director, and produces films of bar mitzvahs. Pressed for time and desperate to claim the last piece of his empire, especially knowing Dingleman has expressed interest in the land and has the money for it, Duddy resorts to forging a cheque from Virgil's chequebook to acquire the outstanding money. Caveats for those not yet familiar with Richler: he's over the top. Nothing would or could stop him in his quest for money and power. It feels just as unflinching and edgy as something that would be published today. I love getting lost in a story taking place in the city my grandparents knew and lived in. A Jewish kid growing up in Montreal during world war two, in a motherless family and mostly left to his own devices, Duddy Kravitz is basically a decent human being, deep down inside, somewhere I’m sure there’s a modicum of decency.
“A boy can be two, three, four potential people, but a man is only one. The story tells the tale of Duddy Kravitz, a young jewish boy growing up in Montreal during and after World War 2. The jewish community was the predominant culture in non-french speaking quarters of Montreal and this self-contained quarter of the city had rules and procedures not found anywhere else. In the end, Duddy can't even afford bus fare. Back in Montreal, Duddy rents an apartment and an office for himself and Yvette and, as the plots of land around the lake he's dreaming of possessing go up for sale, his Laurentian land empire grows.
Meanwhile, Uncle Benjy finds he has a terminal illness. I was a bit confused, after the fact, as to how Duddy managed to transport ten pinball machines in two cars.
The real gangsters don't care for this, but because Duddy can reinvent himself at will, he escapes many trials and near-death experiences. The movie's a sort of Canadian "What Makes Sammy Run?" I love descriptions of the streets before the skyscrapers were built, and I love the occasional mention of a landmark that I see regularly on my walks. It takes flight about page one hundred and the altitude keeps climbing. In the wake of his brash single-mindedness he leaves the detritus of his actions: the teacher's disabled wife who dies trying to get to the phone with Duddy at the other end delivering a crank call, an epileptic friend, put behind the wheel of a delivery van by Duddy, who suffers a tragic accident, a devoted girlfriend, taken advantage of to the extreme, and on and on.
A born entrepreneur, Duddy immediately sees that the lake has tremendous potential as the future site of a summer resort.
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