Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Richler, Mordecai (Vol. 185) - Kerry McSweeney (review date winter 1998)

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Kerry McSweeney (review date winter 1998)

SOURCE: McSweeney, Kerry. “Endgame Tap-Dancing.” Canadian Literature 159 (winter 1998): 188-90.

[In the following review, McSweeney offers a stylistic and thematic examination of Barney's Version.]

If old age is a shipwreck, as Charles de Gaulle claimed, then Barney Panofsky, the sixty-seven year old narrator of Mordecai Richler's latest novel, is already on the rocks. A successful producer of schlock (Canadian-financed films and Canadian television series), Barney's mid-1990s life consists of too much single-malt scotch and too many cigars, bar talk, channel surfing, health worries, and sour reflections on his wife of thirty years having left him, on the decline of Montreal and its hockey team, on friends and enemies, and on himself. Although not a writer, he is prompted by the mendacious memoir of a contemporary to set down his “version” of his adult life. The result is a rambling...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Rachel Feldhay Brenner (essay date 1989)
   2. Robert Fulford (review date 21 June 1992)
   3. Rick Marin (review date 6 July 1992)
   4. Harold M. Waller (review date 13 July 1992)
   5. Paul Delany (review date 20 August 1992)
   6. Andro Linklater (review date 26 September 1992)
   7. Barry Cooper (review date December 1992)
   8. Ada Craniford (essay date 1992)
   9. David Rieff (review date 30 October 1994)
   10. J. B. Kelly (review date 19 December 1994)
   11. Edward Alexander (review date January 1995)
   12. Geoffrey Wheatcroft (review date 22 January 1995)
   13. Norman Ravvin (review date winter 1996)
   14. D. J. Enright (review date 5 September 1997)
   15. Francis King (review date 4 October 1997)
   16. John Bemrose (review date 13 October 1997)
   17. Mark Schechner (review date 29 December 1997)
   18. Kerry McSweeney (review date winter 1998)
   19. Gene Lichtenstein (review date 25 January 1998)
   20. Mark Steyn (review date February 1998)
   21. Thomas R. Edwards (review date 5 March 1998)
   22. Meredith Dellandrea (review date fall 1998)
   23. Mordecai Richler and Robyn Gillam (interview date 1998)
   24. Steve Brzezinski (review date winter 1999)
   25. Branko Gorjup (review date winter 1999)
   26. Angela Robbeson (essay date winter 2001)
   27. Anthony Wilson-Smith (essay date 16 July 2001)
   28. Benoit Aubin (essay date 16 July 2001)
   29. Mark Steyn (essay date September 2001)
   30. Brian Bethune (review date 24 June 2002)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright