Belling the Cat: Essays, Reports and Opinoins [Hardcover]

Mordecai Richler (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 340 pages
• Publisher: Random House of Canada Ltd; First Edition edition (1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0676971520
• ISBN-13: 978-0676971521
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,519,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Filled with delightful sarcasm, November 22, 2001

By 

Eric Zboya (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Belling the Cat: Essays, Reports and Opinoins (Hardcover)

When I was in high school I was pretty well forced to read Mordecai Richler's "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (at the time the only book I've ever read by him) and I couldn't care less about about it (I was a kid, what do you expect). But now that I'm older, Richler's works are delightful to read; as they are very "fresh" and stick out from the cliched garbage that now infest the stands at your local bookshop.
Belling the Cat, to me, is one of Richler's finest. Here we begin to understand what kind of man Richler was . . . a man full of humility and humor, though very sarcastic (though many of you would already point that out after reading "Barney's Version"), and never taking life too seriously. But nevertheless, he was a man with thoughts and ideas and was not afraid to give the world a little taste.
Belling the Cat was, is, a book composed primarily of essays and thoughts in "The World According to Richler". He touches upon subjects such as Sexual Harassment, his travels, including Germany, South Africa, and Egypt (properly entitled Egypt's Eleventh Plague, which, according to Richler, is tourism), sports, Canadian politics, and Woody Allen, to name a few. He even gives the reader a taste of his own "unpopular" success as an author in the introductory chapter entitled, "Writing for the mags", going from one book signing to the next with no turn out.
It's true that Mordecai Richler never succeeded to stardom like so many of the trashy authors that are out today, but regardless, isn't that what true authors and true literature is about?
Once you get into Richler's mind-frame and see the world he saw through his own eyes, Belling the Cat will bring you to laughter many times over.