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The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
 
 
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The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz [Paperback]

Mordecai Richler (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)

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Book Description

March 1, 1999
From Mordecai Richler, one of our greatest satirists, comes one of literature's most delightful characters, Duddy Kravitz -- in a novel that belongs in the pantheon of seminal twentieth century books.

Duddy -- the third generation of a Jewish immigrant family in Montreal -- is combative, amoral, scheming, a liar, and totally hilarious. From his street days tormenting teachers at the Jewish academy to his time hustling four jobs at once in a grand plan to "be somebody," Duddy learns about living -- and the lesson is an outrageous roller-coaster ride through the human comedy. As Richler turns his blistering commentary on love, money, and politics, The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz becomes a lesson for us all...in laughter and in life.


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Editorial Reviews

Review

The Washington Times It is time to recognize Mr. Richler as one of North America's most powerful novelists.

Chicago Tribune A rasping humor pervades the book....It burgeons with its special talent and a vulgar vitality.

The Washington Times A fast-moving, entertaining, and bawdy novel.

Los Angeles Times Funny in the biting, subversive manner of Joseph Heller and Philip Roth.

Minneapolis Star Tribune Duddy Kravitz [is] Richler's most famous creation.

The New York Times Book Review Richler has been praised for his clear-eyed vision and his realistic style.... The total effect is as brash and blatant as a sports car rally -- and as suggestive of power.

Alfred Kazin It comes off brilliantly.

From the Inside Flap

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is the novel that established Mordecai Richler as one of the world?s best comic writers. Growing up in the heart of Montreal?s Jewish ghetto, Duddy Kravitz is obsessed with his grandfather?s saying, ?A man without land is nothing.? In his relentless pursuit of property and his drive to become a somebody, he will wheel and deal, he will swindle and forge, he will even try making movies. And in spite of the setbacks he suffers, the sacrifices he must make along the way, Duddy never loses faith that his dream is worth the price he must pay. This blistering satire traces the eventful coming-of-age of a cynical dreamer. Amoral, inventive, ruthless, and scheming, Duddy Kravitz is one of the most magnetic anti-heroes in literature, a man who learns the hard way that dreams are never exactly what they seem, even when they do come true. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Pocket Books (March 1, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0671028472
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671028473
  • Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.2 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #136,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

29 Reviews
5 star:
 (14)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars a sad/funny look at an over-achieving flim-flam man (boy), December 12, 2002
By 
lazza (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) - See all my reviews
Mordecai Richler is certainly one of Canada's best novelists. His caustic sense of humour, his self-deprecating look at life, and his sometimes thinly disguised autobiographical stories are always memorable. Imagine Joseph (Catch-22) Heller being from Montreal and you have Mordecai Richler.

Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is one of Richler's earlier and better known (..thanks to the 1970s film adaptation) works. The story centers around a young Jewish teenager (Duddy), a very abrasive and aggressive boy, striving to make money in order to buy land (thinking, like his grandpa, that if you don't own land you ain't nuttin'). So Duddy gets into a strange, and hilarious, film-making business. His pushy and obnoxious behaviour both appalls and endears everyone he meets; I too was appalled and endeared. By the end of the book I felt I knew (but didn't like) Duddy.

While I did enjoy 'Duddy Kravitz' I have to say it certainly isn't Richler's best effort. I suggest Barney's Version, written some 30 years later, which demonstrates the author's abilities at his peak.

Bottom line: an endearing story of a lost youth in Montreal circa 1950. Fondly memorable.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An Exilerating Novel, June 30, 2000
By 
David Earl Bruhn (Honolulu, HI, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Paperback)
This book is fast paced, vulgar, funny, and human. The world of Duddy Kravitz--an extraordinary Jewish teenager in Montreal in the 1940's--may sound very far removed from our lives, but very few things I have read have struck me as being so irresistably recognisable as life. It would be to deny yourself an immense pleasure not to read this book. Certain chapters are as classic as things we remember from great 19th century literature.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars ..., that's all the band could play..., January 28, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book.

While the first two or three chapters are not really needed in the novel, I found the character of Duddy Kravitz repulsive but strangely satisfying as a character. Cliched my ass. Okay, Max, Jerry Dingleman and Lennie are cliched, but you also get Virgil the epileptic, John Friar the Americommunist filmmaker, Yvette the "Girl Friday" who holds Duddy's land for him, and of course, you have the anti-Semitic Scot Mr. Macpherson. Sure it may sound cliched, but this was written 40 years ago. Cliches have come from this line of writing.

I may be a masochist but it's FUUUN to see Kravitz screw and be screwed. And Richler knows how to write a book. In my opinion, it may be nothing new, but at least it's nothing bad.....

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
WHAT WITH HIS WIFE SO ILL THESE PAST FEW WEEKS and the prospect of three more days of teaching before the weekend break, Mr. MacPherson felt unusually glum. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
man without land, health handicap
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Uncle Benjy, Boy Wonder, New York, Urbain Street, Duddy Kravitz, Auntie Ida, Hugh Thomas Calder, Jerry Dingleman, Rabbi Goldstone, Aunt Ida, Bernie Altman, Cuckoo Kaplan, Mel West, Hilltop Lodge, Irwin Shubert, Max Kravitz, Dominique Street, Mount Royal, Park Avenue, Schnorrer's Day, Simcha Kravitz, Cadet Corps, Fletcher's Cadets, God's Little Acre, Leonard Bush
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