Customer Reviews

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Penguin Modern Classics)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.....

I chose to read this book for several reasons: least importantly, I had to choose a topic for a school project; I learned to read with the aid of Mordecai Richlers "Jacob Two-Two" books, so I had a fondness for his style of writing; I lived in Montreal for eight of my eighteen years; perhaps most importantly, I read it because I had heard it was not a book to be missed. I was not disappointed.

Duddy Kravitz is ambition personified, an almost unbelievably driven young man. As all the other reviews say, he casts aside decency, friendship, and something akin to love to achieve his stated goal. The thrust of the story, however, or at least my own understanding of it, is that Duddy never realizes what he has done. Small flashes of emotion show through sometimes, but they are almost ruthlessly surpressed. It's almost as if he thinks that to be human is to be weak.

Duddy succeeds, because he can do nothing else. The price extolled by his own ambition is great, though, and it hurts intensely to realize that he doesn't even recognize what he has done.

Rough, well-written, and well worth reading.

It was my New Years Resolution to read more "literature" especially by Canadian authors. I am ashamed to say that I have managed to get this far through life without reading anything by this someone who is widely regarded as one of Canada's greatest man of letters.

This is Richler's cautionary tale about the evils of greed and unrestrained ambition. This topic has been explored by a countless other writers but seldom with as much skill as that displayed by Mr. Richler.

The main character is both repugnant and fascinating to watch. I can't recommend this enough.

This is a good book, whether you have seen the movie or not. As a point of reference, I have read all of Richler's major works and a few of his early novellas.

Modecai Richler (1931 to 2001) grew up in Montreal and that city is the setting for many of his stories - but not all. Many of his novels are about Jews living in Canada and Britain post WWII.

He is best known for his tales of life in and around St. Urbain Street. That is an area of three story buildings or walk up row houses located just east of the mountain in Montreal, and north of the commercial center of the city. At one time this was the center of Jewish immigrant life. Many Jews coming to Montreal started there but then moved on to Outrement, Hamstead, and other districts. His father was a scrap dealer and he graduated from a heavily Jewsih high school, Baron Byng High School, which has other famous alumni including William Shatner of Star Trek fame. Some of the local establishments such as Schwartz's Deli on St. Laurent are still in business. He uses much of those biographical experiences in the book.

His break out novel is the present novel Duddy Kravitz which is still a great read whether you have seen the movie or not. Also, I like his last book, Barney's Vision, which is probably his most balanced and best written piece of work. That novel lacks the edge and drama of Duddy Kravitz. Along the way, he experimented with different themes and the use of sex in the plots, and usually he did that with a lot of humor.

The present book has a very strong set of characters including Kravitz, his father Max, brother Lennie, the "boy wonder," Duddy's girlfriend Yvette, and his assistant Virgil. The basic story is about the life and motivation of a young man left with no mother at an early age, and left with both a weak father and brother, and who both lack ambition. He has a lot of energy and drive and is considered to be a "Jew boy on the make" by most other characters in the book. We follow his quest to break out of his working class background. Richler uses the same Kravitz character in small parts in later novels.

Many of his critics claim that he re-cycles his characters and deals only with one topic, but in general his books are far from the predictable.

This is a great read.

Written by a two-time recipient of the Governor General's Award, The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz is a searing classic novel about the hidden costs of discounting the welfare of others in pursuit of one's dreams. Desperate to escape Montreal's Jewish ghetto, Young Duddy Kravitz lives by his grandfather's maxim that "a man without land is nobody", and he lies, cheats, and steals in his voracious pursuit of property. Even though his magnetic charisma sustains his business presence, he soon learns that the realization of his dream is not all he expected it to be. Originally written in 1959, The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz rings more strongly true than ever in today's materialistic and greed-fueled society. Narrated by award-winning actor Paul Hecht, this audiobook version was originally broadcast on CBC radio. 4 CDs, approximately 4.5 hours, abridged.

OK here's the deal. Duddy is not a good guy but the reader loves him because he is a human being and if he turns out sour and crazy it is only becasue those more fortunate than he have taken advantage of him. Duddy responds to the cards that society hands out by playing them as best he can. Richler is an incredible writer. His characters and dialogue have so much richness, so much reality. This is a book about Montreal and all the politics and culture-clash that occur between its upper-class Jews and Gentile and the lower class Jews and Gentiles. The old Jews and the young Jews, the college kids and the working kids. The French canadians and the anglo-phones, etc. There are very few women in this book, but Duddy has a very small field of vision when it comes to women, so the POV is true to the character. I love this book.

The story is about Duddy Kravitz and his determination to become a "somebody" by doing whatever it takes. This St. Urban Street boy follows blindly under one value, the only value, he receives from his childhood - a man without land is nobody. Duddy schemes and dreams to acheive his own property, not afraid to exploit others along the way for his own ends. This book portrays the evils of great ambition as Duddy's success is also his downfall in life. His lost of love and other means cost him greater than any money can buy.

This novel was fast moving, interesting and realistic. If it wasn't for the disappointing ending (to me at least) I would have given it 5 stars. The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravits has a theme we all can relate to, but it doesn't lack humour. Very good.