The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, The
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai RICHLER was published in London and Boston, 1959, and Toronto, 1969. Duddy Kravitz is a brash Jewish Montréal kid determined to make it - whatever "it" is, whatever "it" takes. Acting on his grandfather's maxim that a man is nothing without land, Duddy schemes and dreams to develop his first brainstorm, a lakeshore property in the Laurentians. Duddy is an attractive figure, bursting with chutzpah, but he is also driven to exploit others in his drive to succeed.
Watch an excerpt from the Canadian movie classic The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. From YouTube.
Richler frames Duddy's initiation within a pungently satiric sendup of Jewish and WASP middle-class gentility as seen from the sharp-eyed, tough-minded St-Urbain Street perspective that has become one of Richler's trademarks. Duddy's eventual triumph is also his downfall, costing him more in lost love than he will ever realize in money.
Richler's most popular novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz has been translated into French as L'Apprentissage de Duddy Kravitz (Elisabeth Gille-Nemirovsky, Paris, 1960; Jean Simard, Montréal, 1976). A movie was made in 1974 and Duddy made his stage debut in Edmonton in 1984.
Mordecai Richler, author
(photo by Martha Kaplan)
Author NEIL BESNER
Links to Other Sites
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Click on the "Videos" tab to view clips from the classic Canadian film "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz." From the Festival de Cannes website.
Mordecai Richler's homecoming
Watch a 1975 CBC Television interview with Canadian author Mordecai Richler, who discusses his life, work, and affection for his old Montréal neighbourhood. See also additional radio and television clips on Richler. From the CBC Digital Archives.
Face to Face: The Canadian Personalities Hall
"Face to Face" features outstanding Canadians whose ideas and contributions have transformed this country. Click on the photos in "Meet the Personalities" to see their biographies. From the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Coming soon: Much more Mordecai
A news story about renewed interest in the works of iconic Canadian writer Mordecai Richler. From thestar.com.
Review Essay: Richler's Biographies
A review of Charles Foran's "Mordecai: The Life & Times" and other biographies of popular writer Mordecai Richler from canlit.ca.
Mordecai Richler writes the literary scandal of the season
A video of a 1992 CBC News story about the controversy that greeted the publication of Mordecai Richler's non-fiction work "Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!"
The Dominion government's advertisement asked for volunteers "able to read and write either the English or French language" with "good antecedents" who were good horsemen...
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