#4 - The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

Duddy Kravitz is the first book I've read that has not been on the list. It was a pick for an English project on a "Canadian author". I first jumped for Margaret Atwood, the Reach for the Top staple (and the fill-in answer for any unknown guess), but she was snagged by a wily Grade 10. So I went with my second pick of Mordecai Richler.

If you're one of those people who are "in the know" (and by in the know, I mean you still watch Disney Channel daily), Mordecai Richler is well known for his series of children's literature, the Jacob Two-Two books. It turns out he also writes real literature, with a distinctly differeny slant. And that slant is...

Jewish. Oy gevalt, is this book seeping with Semitism. The dialogue runs just like a Saturday Night Live sketch featuring two old Jewish men, except that counts for every last character in the book! The rhetorial questions (What is this, an inquisition? Would it hurt to be more relaxed?), the random bursts of Yiddish, and the money grubbing - OH the money grubbing. Every stereotype you can imagine is reinforced and reproven.

Duddy Kravitz is a wonderful character. Having a look at my list, the first 6 books are all character studies. Oedipus "The King", "Call Me" Ishmael, Jay Gatsby, Duddy Kravitz, Don Quixote, and Jane Eyre. The two most similar are Gatsby and Kravitz. They're both seemingly "BTO"s, they have some dangerous amounts of hubris, and they both (almost) have a noble goal in mind. But Kravitz does it in a way that can only be seen as a workhorse idealism. Gatsby sits and imagines the world where you can have the good life. Kravitz is out there bustling around to make it happen. You root for him every time he gets an impossible deadline, have that sense of "will he, will he?" and every time he does.

Which is what makes his fall from grace so much harder to bear. For although he is making this dream happen, and in perspective it's an amazing feat, he just slowly loses focus and drifts down. Even in his final success it is bitter-sweet beyond belief, and even the faint hope given back to us is no respite.

The book was a modern one (finally) with a rapid plot and a lovely theme. Each character WAS a character, and although he didn't have the imagery and precision of Melville or Fitzgerald, he rings true just the same.

9/10