Мордехай Ричлер: жизнь писателя, боровшегося с сепаратизмом в Квебеке

Mordecai Richler never went looking for trouble. He didn’t have to — trouble always seemed to find him. For all the trouble he had growing up as an English-speaking Jew in Quebec in the 1950s, enough that he chose exile in Europe, it paled compared to what he found on his return in 1972. Starting in 1960 with the first election of the Quebec Liberal party, the “Quiet Revolution” broke decades of firm conservative Catholic grip on the throat of the largely rural province, transforming it into the modern, progressive, urbanized society known today. Along with the changes in terms of religious freedom, health, education and child-care, this new freedom brought about a new movement in Quebec: Sovereignty. As vicious as Richler could be with his fellow Anglos and Jews, he reserved his most lethal literary venom for those who would take Quebec out of Canada and fracture the nation. Interpreting the rhetoric about Quebec’s “distinct society” as basically “screw you, I got mine,” the suddenly privileged citizens wanting to protect their newfound advantages, Richler largely made the switch from fiction to nonfiction, becoming a contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and The American Spectator, and a regular columnist at powerhouse Canadian newspapers The National Post and The Gazette in Montreal. He also published the essay collection “Shovelling Trouble” in 1972, followed in short order by “Notes on an Endangered Species and Others” in 1974. He also started writing children’s fiction, publishing the first book in the Jacob Two-Two series, “Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang,” illustrated by the legendary Austrian-British illustrator Fritz Wegner, in 1975. The main character is based on Richler’s youngest son, who had a habit of saying everything twice just so he could be heard in their chaotic house. The provincial election in 1976 gave Richler all the ammunition he could ever want with the first election of the allegedly left-wing and openly separatist Parti Quebecois (Quebec Party). Richler wasted no time in publishing the incendiary article “Oh Canada! A Lament for a Divided Country” in The Atlantic Monthly. Not limiting his ire to his home province, Richler, an anti-authoritarian to the core, also had no love for Canadian federalism, questioning the idea that politicians in Ottawa could really understand the needs of the entire country, especially when there were no requirements that members of parliament actually live in the constituencies they represent. Escaping again, if only briefly, Richler made his first venture into travel writing with “Visions of Spain” in 1977. Balancing politics with art, Richler published the nonfiction book “Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays” in 1978 and published his next novel, his first in nearly 10 years, “Joshua Then and Now” in 1980. An autobiographical retrospective-style novel, it follows successful writer and hated pundit, Joshua Shapiro, as he tries to make sense of his life after a major crisis, including extensive flashbacks to his childhood in Montreal. It was adapted into a film with James Woods and Alan Arkin in 1985, with Richler writing the script. Surviving mostly on journalism and royalties for a few years, Richler surprised everyone with “Home Sweet Home: My Canadian Album” in 1984, followed by the second Jacob Two-Two book, “Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur,” in 1987. The close of the 1980s would also see the appearance of Richler’s first novel in nine years, “Solomon Gursky Was Here,” in 1989, single-handedly taking on both the provincial and federal governments. An experiment leaning into historical fiction, Solomon Gursky serves as Canada’s answer to “Blackadder,” following several members of the Gursky family through major events in Canadian history. In 1991, he returned to polemical form with the bluntly titled essay collection “Broadsides,” making it clear that no punches would be pulled or quarter given. Never one to let absurdity go unchallenged, Richler sharpened his pen in the early 1990s and published “Oh Canada! Oh Quebec: Requiem for a Divided Country” in 1992. Drawing from his Atlantic piece, the book is a brutal evisceration of Quebec’s ludicrous language laws that literally dictate how large the English writing on signs can be. There is actually an entire government bureau dedicated to physically measuring signs to make sure the English is not larger than the French. The book was not well received by the separatist Francophone community; the infamous Quebec nationalist, Pierrette Venne, wanted the book to be banned. Fellow writer and nationalist activist Daniel Latouche compared “Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!” to “Mein Kampf,” demonstrating a sense of proportion that matched his ability to read the room in terms of the failed 1980 Quebec referendum. Never one to do the same thing twice, Richler followed the boat-burning intensity of “Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!” with his second book of travel writing, “This Year in Jerusalem” in 1994, before finishing off the Jacob Two-Two trilogy, “Jacob Two-Two’s First Spy Case” in 1995. Taking a bit of a break, the results were worth the wait when Richler’s final and definitive novel, “Barney’s Version,” was published in 1997 and later adapted into a film starring Paul Giamatti in 2010. At 67 years old but with no less fire in his belly, Richler also stepped back from polemic writing in 1998 with the publication of “Belling The Cat.” His final two books, “On Snooker: The Game and the Characters Who Play It” in 2001 and the posthumous “Dispatches from the Sporting Life” in 2002, focus on the gentler, more relatable joy of games. Mordecai Richler died at Montreal general hospital from complications due to cancer, his ubiquitous cigarillos finally catching up with him, on July 3, 2001. He was 70 years old.