Solomon Gursky Was Here

by Mordecai Richler

WINNER OF THE 1990 COMMONWEALTH WRITERS PRIZE, SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 1990

Since the age of eleven Moses Berger has been obsessed with the Gursky clan, an insanely wealthy, profoundly seductive family of Jewish-Canadian descent. Now a 52-year-old alcoholic boigrapher, Berger is desperately trying to chronicle the stories of their lives, especially that of the mysterious Solomon Gursky, who may or may not have died in a plane crash.

A rich, irreverent and exuberant comic masterpiece from the author of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and St Urbain's Horseman.

• ISBN10: 0394539958
• ISBN13: 9780394539959
• Publish Date: 7 April 1990
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Alfred A. Knopf
• Edition: Us ed.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 413
• Language: English

Reviews

[clementine]

This is my first foray into Mordecai Richler's adult fiction. I'm not sure why, but I wasn't expecting to enjoy it - perhaps because being assigned a nearly 600-page novel in the last few weeks of my degree is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. However, I ended up actually quite enjoying it, mostly for the reason that people seem to dislike it: I'm a huge fan of multiple interlocking narratives, most especially if they aren't presented chronologically. Others have found the book difficult to follow, but I don't think it was too bad. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, especially in the Gursky family tree - it took me awhile to really get a grasp on how everyone was related to one another. But I don't generally have a hard time keeping track of complex, non-chronological narratives.

I also loved the revisionist approach to Canadian history, another criticism of the book. I believe Margaret Atwood called it sacrilegious (blasphemous? something quite damning) to have Ephraim Gursky on the Franklin Expedition - but then, Atwood used the expedition very differently in her 1991 short story "The Age of Lead". Regardless, I thought it was like a delightful game of Where's Waldo? to spot Ephraim and Solomon all across history.

I liked the writing style as well - acerbic, direct. Not that I'd expect any differently of a Montreal writer. I know I mentioned just the other day that I prefer texts with characters who I can relate to, but I thoroughly enjoyed Solomon Gursky despite the fact that there really isn't a single likeable character in the whole thing. I suppose a good, well-told tale can triumph for me once in awhile.