Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Richler, Mordecai (Vol. 185) - Thomas R. Edwards (review date 5 March 1998)

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Thomas R. Edwards (review date 5 March 1998)

SOURCE: Edwards, Thomas R. “Pulling Down the Temple.” New York Review of Books 45, no. 4 (5 March 1998): 40-1.

[In the following review, Edwards explores the role of memory and truth in Barney's Version.]

“I dislike most people I have ever met,” says the leading character of the latest of Mordecai Richler's tales about smart, ambitious Jewish-Canadian men at war with their culture. Barney's Version is wildly comic, but as with most good satire those who make fun of others also mock themselves. Richler's anti-heroes suffer from a kind of Samson complex, as if compelled to pull down the temple even though they are inside it at the time. Barney's Version. Richler's tenth novel, is as usual almost universally offensive—to both French-and Anglo-Canadians, assimilated Jews, feminists, black activists, liberals, right-wingers, the ignorant young and their querulous elders,...

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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