SOURCE: Richler, Mordecai, and Robyn Gillam. “Versions of the Truth.” In The Power to Bend Spoons: Interviews with Canadian Novelists, edited by Beverley Daurio, pp. 141-52. Toronto, Ont.: Mercury Press, 1998.

[In the following interview, Richler discusses Canadian politics and culture, the differences between Toronto and Montreal, and the main thematic concerns of Barney's Version.]

[Gillam]: Barney's Version plunges right in, in medias res, and there's this character who starts off with a diatribe against an enemy of his, and this is why he's writing the book, and then there's this incredible stream of reminiscences and all these tiresome little footnotes, and then the narrative starts, and he complains how everyone hates him and is trying to get even, and he doesn't seem like a very sympathetic character, but as we go through all the flashbacks and digressions and practical jokes, I felt that Barney was a very sympathetic character, and you begin to feel outrage that people think that Barney is a terrible person, and then I thought of the title and I thought, wait a minute, it's Barney's version, maybe he's making this up and he's really the awful person people say he is. Is this book about textual truth? Are you talking about a text as a truthful thing or a text as just somebody's version? Are you trying to make people think about truth?

[Richler]: That's a very reasonable and intelligent question. It's really for the reader to decide whether he's telling the truth or not. But everyone has their own version of the truth, obviously, and this is his version. Depends whether you credit him with veracity, if he's a man who tells the truth or not. It's certainly not self-serving, but I wouldn't follow it around with an explanation. There is it is. The reader has to make up his or her mind.

When someone tells you something, you should think about it, and when you read a text, for example, like the Bible …

That's full of lies as well.

Well, that's what makes it interesting.

Of course.

The idea of memory is important in the novel, and the question is whether people remember things because they can remember them, or more importantly, because they choose to. And this goes back to the difference between Barney's version of what happened in Paris, or McIver's, or Clara's, and so on. Is his memory just what someone happens to remember, or is it a deliberate editing … ?

We all edit our memories to a certain extent, and, I'm sure you know that Barney and McIver had different versions of what happened, if he was being followed or avoided … and then readers have to make up their minds … and the footnotes are there to serve a purpose.

In the beginning you wonder what the footnotes are doing, but later it becomes clear. Even though there is this objective fact of him losing his memory, you start to question—well, I forget all kinds of things, we all do.

Yes, of course.

You referred to the recovered memory racket … I don't believe in it myself; I think if something important happens to you, you remember it …

That wasn't meant to send any message.

The whole idea of memory has become really important to people in the last few years and it's being used in this way.

Well, you know, if five different people have been to a dinner party, they all have different memories of happened.

The Rashomon phenomenon.

Yes. And this is the first time I've written a novel in the first person. Kind of liberating …

Why did you decide to do that?

Well, why not? I'd never done it before. A new game to play, and it has its own rules, and its own discipline. Once you find the voice, it's a lot easier, but until you get the voice, it's … difficult. But, I think I got the voice and then it just seemed to flow.

I was completely drawn in. It was just like meeting a person; at first you didn't know what to think of him, you're a little wary of him and then … Why didn't you write a novel in the first person before?

It just hadn't occurred to me. It just didn't fit. It certainly didn't fit Solomon Gursky Was Here which had all kinds of voices and versions; I would never have been able to do it … I guess Duddy Kravitz could have been written in the first person …

A lot of writers don't think except in the first person … very solipsistic …

Well, this is the first time … I think I'll do something different next time.

Second person?

Ha ha.

I'm not sure second person really works … it's really just the first person, you're just distancing yourself.

Yeah.

In this book and elsewhere, you often put your characters on trial, literally or metaphorically … Why?

I don't know … but I must confess I've done it more than once … I just don't know; I couldn't answer that now. But it's something I've done before. I guess I'm not going to get away with it again.

Throughout the Ancient Near East and in Early Christian times, the next world is a law court and you have to plead your case and I maybe just wondered if you had some ideas like that in the back of your mind.

Well, possibly. I had a very rich religious upbringing when I was a youngster and I guess it stayed with me … but I've used it in a literal sense … but sure, we're on trial …

That's true.

I don't know about a final judgement …

But, in a sense, this is what happens to Barney …

One request. Please don't give away the ending.

You know, it was funny, but just a few days before I started reading this, I went to the Air Show and they had these water bombers there—the planes that figure in the book. You know, I'd never seen them before.

Oh, yes, oh, yes … Well, I tell you, what happened was that I was sitting out at our place on the lake one day and I saw those water bombers. That's when it occurred to me.

Oh, yes. It'd flatten you, wouldn't it?

That's right …

One of the things I like about the book is your humour, and humour is very two-edged; it's awful, and it's comic. This is, of course, what makes humour work, and what bothers people about it … This is what gives you a controversial standing with some people. Barney's not exactly a politically correct character, is he?

No.

I think he's a good person.

I think so, on balance, yeah.

Barney says, I'm not really talented, I'm not really creative, what I do isn't worthwhile, I'm not really a success, I've had a rotten life and I've done a lot of rotten things to people. But he's no worse, certainly, than most of the people he knows. And that reflects on the kind of society we live in—you believe people who toot their own horn, who say, I'm good, I'm wonderful, and it works …

It's very sad.

What do you think will get people exercised about this book?

The truth is, I never know. I really just don't know how it's going to land. You never know. It's a very tricky time; you don't know how it's going to strike. I couldn't answer that. I think some people will strongly object to it being politically incorrect … I don't know; these are such odd times.

I do think that special interest politics has a valuable role in our society, but I also think there's a tremendous opportunity for real hypocrites to get out there …

I think there might be problems with some feminists. I don't know. It's a story about a man who's truly in love with a wonderful woman, so I don't know; it's pretty difficult.

And who regrets being negative about letting her go back to work.

Right.

I guess you can't predict, but what do you think it is that bothers people about your work?

Well, in the nature of things, I'm a satirical writer, so I make fun of just about everything or anybody. I'm fair game myself. No one's obliged to applaud or approve; I'm not owed an audience or anything. I do my work as best I can, I send it out, and I wait and see what happens, but I'm not owed anything by anybody. This book ridicules so many things that some people will respond very strongly.

I can imagine people taking those letters that Barney writes to the Clara Charnofsky Foundation for Wimyn in a not very good way …

Yes …

I thought they were quite funny …

And some pillars of the Jewish community may object to that man who keeps welcoming anti-Semitic incidents, I don't know. I thought it was quite funny myself. I just don't know.

Do you think this is getting worse, or do you think that people have always reacted negatively to satire and humour?

They've always reacted negatively to some extent, but other people have obviously enjoyed it, responded with pleasure, or nobody would read my books.

I think you're practising satire out of a moral position …

Well, every satirist is essentially a moralist.

Yes, and I think you see some things in Canadian society that really bother you, in fact, maybe, outrage you.

It's not so much Canadian society; I use Canadian society because that's what I've written about, but most of it's true of American or British society … it's not that different from other western societies really.

Except maybe Quebec and that kind of thing.

Yes. But that's really in the background, Quebec.

In the book, they go and watch the Referendum, but since then, there's noise, but there's not much happening. What do you think will happen in Quebec?

I think people are getting rather bored with it all in Quebec and I really think they peaked in the last referendum …

They did really badly in the last federal election, the Bloc.

Well, it wasn't a big issue, it's deceptive. You know, Bouchard is a very intelligent man and I don't think he'll have a referendum unless he's sure of winning big, and that's very unlikely because he knows as well as anyone else that if it's 50-50 either way, it's a just a mess, and he doesn't want that. So I rather suspect that Bouchard will lead the Parti Québécois into the next election and then leave rather than be the man who lost another referendum … And without Bouchard it will sink, but still you have 30 to 35٪ of the francophones in Quebec who are hardcore separatists and whether or not one agrees with them, they've worked for thirty, thirty-five years for this dream of theirs, and there's going to be a lot of depressed people in their sixties who spent their whole adult lives working for this, so it's a very delicate situation all the same. That's a very substantial part of the population. I think we need some kind of healer in this country, and it's certainly not an office that could be filled by the dreadful Preston Manning.

I wish he'd just go away.

With the meeting of premiers, the ghost in the room was that dreadful Manning, and they had to appease Manning, who, I think, is an appalling man. Everything right-wing and ignorant in this country and all the buffoons are attracted to his manner, and they are anti-Quebec and I get sick and tired … Dreadful people.

You're lucky you don't live here in Ontario.

Well, happily, they didn't do that well in the federal election here. But I'm sure in small-town Ontario, they had a considerable following.

Basically, Mike Harris has copied the Reform Party. It's like having the Reform Party.

Yes, it's true.

Now, he's getting ready to disembowel Toronto.

Oh, Toronto is a hell of a lot better than it was thirty or forty years ago, when it was a real Orangeman's town. It's really a decent place now; a lot of Italians came here and Greeks and all kinds of people have come here—they've done a lot for the city. It's a far more enjoyable city than it ever was.

Even when I came here in 1981, it was pretty bleak. They didn't even have outdoor patios.

Or outdoor displays of food … now it's a lot more sensual and a lot more pleasing.

Still, I like Montreal better. I'd like to be able to live in Montreal, but I don't speak enough French. There's no economy there any more.

There's really been a rapid decline, which is too bad.

You mention all the empty shops in the book. That adds to the air of melancholy, because you situate the action in a time and a place.

No. It's certainly taking place in a city that's shrinking day by day.

The whole tone is very much more downbeat than the earlier novels, isn't it?

Yeah.

People these days seem interested in fiction as thinly disguised autobiography or journalism. Do you think this trend is becoming more pronounced? … I think there's tendency to see fiction in this way.

There'll be that tendency with Barney's Version because it's written in the first person.

I think, perhaps, there's a cultural failure of imagination here, and people have difficulty telling the difference … because in journalism, especially in TV journalism, you have this bleeding of categories, like fiction and documentary.

Well, there was an excerpt from this novel published in Saturday Night. I don't know how many people have said, “I read your article in Saturday Night.”

They can't tell the difference. I'll give students some sort of non-fiction piece to read, and they'll say, if it's a book, it's a novel. As if they can't figure out what the difference between them is.

As you probably know, we lived in London for twenty years and when I came back in '72, I taught at Carlton one day a week. I taught one of those suspect creative writing courses. And I interviewed students who wanted to be in the course. I was only taking fifteen kids. And I asked each one of them—what's the last novel you read?—and one of them—these were all English majors—absolutely endearing—said to me: fiction or non-fiction? I thought that was a gem.

Students don't want to do any real academic work; they just want to be entertained.

I do believe the novel should be entertaining. And I do write for the serious reader. There's a lot of literary references in this novel that I guess a lot of people won't get, but I don't care. Thirty or forty years ago you could count on your readers being educated and understanding a lot of things; you can no longer take that for granted, that people are familiar with the Bible or they've read their mythology. It's a different generation. It's not that they're not bright, it's just that it's all brought down to the lowest common denominator and when they get to university they're not educated. They have to play catch-up … university's a bit too democratic. Everyone goes to university and so the standards are lowered.

And back in high school, you're not allowed to fail anybody.

I was over here in 1961 and I was at Sir George Williams College for one term, and they were all into this, there shouldn't be marks, and I said, I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll put all your names into a hat and there'll be passes and failures and As and Bs … you take what you get. And, oh, no, no, I couldn't do that. They were quite shocked, because this was a creative writing course, which was a Mickey Mouse course, and I failed a lot of them. And they were really startled. And I said, look, I don't want you to waste your time writing, because you can't write. I'm doing you a favour.

With something like Solomon Gursky, do you get irritated with people's determination to see it not as fiction but as something else?

Well, you know, I've been around the block a few times. I no longer get as agitated about these things as I used to. So depending on my mood, I can be angry, but for the most part I just let them wash over me.

I think when people are younger they care too much.

But it's good to care …

Barney's Version is another one of those Imaginary Montreal novels. What's the next one?

I never talk about that.

Is there going to be another one, or is it going to be completely different?

I hope it'll be something completely different …

Maybe we can look forward to more of them?

My theory is that we all write one novel too many, but I don't know if I've done that yet.

I think you have a way to go.

But it's a wasting business … I'll just go on, I guess.

Do you think writing is a debilitating profession?

No, I think there's far too much self-pity about writing. We're not drafted, we all volunteer. And if I found it so horrendous, I should do something else.

You've had people criticize you for not creating sympathetic or convincing female characters … and you've said somewhere that it's difficult to do it.

I think, in fairness, there have been some. The character of Hannah in St. Urbain's Horseman, and a few others, but I've always found it difficult.

I don't think this is a big surprise. Why should you be able to do it?

Someone who does it very well is Brian Moore. He's done it very well from the very first novel, which was Judith …

I've never read any Brian Moore, actually.

Well, he's really done it remarkably well, I must say. I found it difficult.

I don't think it should be something to reproach you with. In this book, especially, with it being in the first person, I don't think it's such a problem. Everything is Barney's version; it's his version of every person.

You can also say that's a cop-out.

Yes, but artistically consistent. Perhaps Miriam came across as a little bit too idealized, but he was horrible to the Second Mrs. Panofsky.

I think she's a triumph, myself.

One of the things I love about the way you write is how you transfer spoken into written text and it actually looks funnier on the page.

Those telephone conversations went on about eight more pages each because they were so much fun to write. I looked at them and thought, look, this is really going on. I cut them back. The whole novel would come to a stop, so I really cut back.

It's funny, putting a cigar on the cover … I don't know if you have any control over what they put on the cover.

Yes, yes. They certainly sent it to me and asked what I thought and I said, that's great. The British jacket is different because initially I called the novel Barney, Like the Player Piano. And this was very difficult because a lot of people didn't understand what it meant. And someone says to him, you're like a player piano, you pick up everyone else's ideas. And, of course, in England it's called a pianola, not a player piano. Then my wife came up with this title, and I thought, fair enough.

I think it's good because it makes you think. At one point I was completely taken aback and thought, wait a minute, he could be some lying bastard. How do we know?

Well, that's good. I believe in ambiguity and all.