{"id":419,"date":"2012-06-04T11:22:54","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T19:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=419"},"modified":"2012-06-04T11:22:54","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T19:22:54","slug":"barneys-version-review-on-goodreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/barneys-version-review-on-goodreads\/","title":{"rendered":"Barney’s Version– Review on Goodreads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barney's<\/a>Barney’s Version<\/a> by Mordecai Richler<\/a><\/p>\n

My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

Came to this book as penitence for shame: was talking to a friend who\u2019d either seen the movie or listened to the book on tape, and I made some dismissive, derisive comment about it, to the tune of \u201cOh, I don\u2019t much care for characters like that.\u201d I had based that summation entirely on a clip of the movie I\u2019d seen, I think on The Daily Show. My fellow interlocutor pointed out that I was being hasty in my judgment, so I agreed I\u2019d get over myself and read it.<\/p>\n

And so I read it. It took a long time. I was coming back from a not-reading-anything-jag and while at first Barney\u2019s Version<\/em> was compelling and fun, It seemed to drag a bit. But that might just have been me. I did very much like the character, after all\u2014-not that I respect him, or feel that initial judgment of him (from the film clip) was off-base. I\u2019m saying I enjoyed his confessions.<\/p>\n

For that is what Barney\u2019s Version<\/em> amounts to: an aging man gives you his side to the various stories that make up the biography of his life: as an expatriate, as a repatriated TV producer, as a Canadian, as a Jew, as a husband, widower, husband, two-timer, husband, divorcee, accused murderer, smoker of montecristos and drinker of congnacs. Barney\u2019s Version<\/em> is a modern picaresque, a rich Canadian Jewish Confederacy of Dunces<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mordecai Richler\u2019s story-telling style is subtle without being obscure, entertaining without being (too) silly. Barney manages to tell not only his own version but his enemies\u2019 version as well, and couches it all in the poor old man\u2019s encroaching dementia and his son\u2019s compilation footnotes. The reader is left to wonder what\u2019s fact and what\u2019s fiction, what\u2019s real and what\u2019s fantasy. Barney doesn\u2019t just make things up to cover his guilt, he gets things confused because that\u2019s how memory works.<\/p>\n

And in the end, the life you led is not what you did or even what you remember of it but how you remember it all. A terrible life can be lensed by a happy regard, and those torturous years on earth where maybe not so bad. Barney seems keen to find the right balance between \u201cI got better than I deserved\u201d and \u201cbut I made the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Your interpretation may vary: sign of a deep, complex, good read. For myself, I\u2019m looking forward to trying out some other Richler novels.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler My rating: 3 of 5 stars Came to this book as penitence for shame: was talking to a friend who\u2019d either seen the movie or listened to the book on tape, and I made some dismissive, derisive comment about it, to the tune of \u201cOh, I don\u2019t much care for … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Barney’s Version– Review on Goodreads”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-6L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}