Research Catalog

Barney's version : a novel / Mordecai Richler.

Title
Barney's version : a novel / Mordecai Richler.
Author
Richler, Mordecai, 1931-2001
Publication
New York : Vintage Books, 2010.

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextRequest in advance PR9199.3.R5 B37 2010Off-site

Details

Additional Authors
Panofsky, Michael
Description
417 p.; 21 cm.
Summary
Barney Panofsky smokes too many cigars, drinks too much whiskey, and is obsessed with two things: the Montreal Canadiens hockey team and his ex-wife Miriam. An acquaintance from his youthful years in Paris, Terry McIver, is about to publish his autobiography. In its pages he accuses Barney of an assortment of sins, including murder. It's time, Barney decides, to present the world with his own version of events. Barney's Version is his memoir, a rambling, digressive rant, full of revisions and factual errors (corrected in footnotes written by his son) and enough insults for everyone, particularly vegetarians and Quebec separatists. But Barney does get around to telling his life story, a desperately funny but sad series of bungled relationships. His first wife, an artist and poet, commits suicide and becomes--a la Sylvia Plath--a feminist icon, and Barney is widely reviled for goading her toward death, if not actually murdering her. He marries the second Mrs. Panofsky, whom he calls a "Jewish-Canadian Princess," as an antidote to the first; it turns out to be a horrible mistake. The third, "Miriam, my heart's desire," is quite possibly his soul mate, but Barney botches this one, too. It's painful to watch him ruin everything, and even more painful to bear witness to his deteriorating memory. The mystery at the heart of Barney's story--did he or did he not kill his friend Boogie?
Subjects
Genre/Form
  • Humorous fiction
  • Novels
Processing Action (note)
  • committed to retain
Contents
Clara -- The second Mrs. Panofsky -- Miriam.
ISBN
  • 9780307476883 (pbk. : alk. paper)
  • 030747688X (pbk. : alk. paper)
LCCN
^^2010006313
OCLC
  • 540643983
  • SCSB-10941148
Owning Institutions
Harvard Library