Mordecai Richler`s Solomon Gursky Was Here
Solomon Gursky Was Here is an epic novel spanning nearly a century and a
half, from the mid 1800's to 1980's. It is the story of the obsession of
Moses Berger, a Rhodes scholar turned alcoholic, with Solomon Gursky, the
charismatic son of a poor immigrant. Solomon, with his brother Bernard and
Morrie, built the massive liquor empire of McTavish industries. Moses is
attempting to write a biography of Solomon, which becomes his life's work.
Through his investigations the complex story of five generations of Gurskys
is revealed. The eldest is Ephraim, Solomon'scriminal, perpetually
scheming grandfather. Ephraim, is constantly associated with the raven, he
escaped imprisonment in ...
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and his re-incarnation as Sir Hyman Kaplansky, in
conjunction with his family and their exploits. Every character in this
novel is in some way corrupt or failure. Moses is an alcoholic who did not
live up to his potential; Bernard is a greedy self-centered bastard;
Solomon is a cheat, when it comes to gambling, women and anything else you
can think of. Richler, through this exaggeration of corruption and
failure, is satirizing the idea that Canada is a second rate nation. One
character, in conversation with Moses, once said:
"Canada is not so much a country as a holding tank filled with the
disgruntled progeny of defeated peoples. The French-Canadians consumed by
self-pity; the descendants of Scots who fled the Duke of Chamberlain; Irish
the famine; and Jews the black hundreds. Then there are the peasants from
the Ukraine, Poland , Italy and Greece, convenient to grow wheat and dig
out ore and swing the hammers and run the restaurants, but otherwise to be
kept in their ...
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and demanded that he be given the mail upon it's
arrival, to open it in private. When the package from "the New Yorker"
arrived, L.B. opened and read it in private, then later invited Moses into
the room. L.B. proceeded to tell Moses that he also had been rejected by
"editors who print crap, so long as it is written by their friends, but who
couldn't tell Pushkin from Ogden Nash."(P. 132). Moses later learned that
the magazine had accepted his story and had sent it back requesting a few
small revisions. He, supposedly, ha d written back saying "'the New
Yorker' regularly prints crap so long as it is written by their friends,
they couldn't tell Pushkin from Ogden Nash, and he was ...
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"Mordecai Richler`s Solomon Gursky Was Here." Essayworld.com. October 28, 2007. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mordecai-Richler-s-Solomon-Gursky-Here/73422.
"Mordecai Richler`s Solomon Gursky Was Here." Essayworld.com. October 28, 2007. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mordecai-Richler-s-Solomon-Gursky-Here/73422.
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