This was Richler's second novel and one of several pieces of fiction he wrote about the Jewish community around St Urbain Street in Montreal. It is a story of three generations in a Jewish family and the coming of age story of Noah Adler, the idealistic son of Wolf and Leah and grandson of Melech a stern orthodox Jew who controlled his family with an iron fist. Noah was once the favoured grandson of Melech, but after Noah catches Melech defrauding a peddler and brings it to his attention, a slap in the face followed, and things were never the same afterwards. Noah can no longer blindly follow Melech nor acknowledge him as the family patriarch. He sees hypocrisy all around him and seeks truths he can live by and a way of life he can respect. He finds “the cage of the Adler family” increasingly confining and uncomfortable as he attempts to pull himself from the clutches of his traditional Jewish upbringing and experience life in the world of the Gentile. Inside the ghetto he finds life a stifling prison, but he also learns that outside of it he feels empty, isolated and lonely. And as he takes on this life challenge, he finds that even though he has physically left his boyhood home, he cannot escape his roots.Noah leaves his family to attend university, supporting himself by driving a taxi cab at night and living in a rooming house. For this he is ostracized and ridiculed by his family. But he persists and soon begins an affair with Miriam, the wife of a literature professor who has befriended him and invited him into his home. And he learns an important lesson as his passion fades quickly when he discovers that the possessive love of and the responsibility for an older woman can become its own kind of ghetto. He soon discovers that his relationship with his lover Miriam has begun to duplicate the one he has with his mother. He had expected that by moving away from home something would happen that would make him a freer man. But his childhood experiences are a part of him that cannot just be sliced off so that he can ease into a new and different world. Freedom and self determination elude him, but he begins to come to some understanding of himself. As a youth trying to find the right path, he often swung too far in the opposite direction just to go against the crowd. He knows now that he was mistaken in his efforts to always be “against something”. Defining what he wants must be a positive path, bigger than rebelling and just saying “no” to something. He needs to determine what he will say “yes” to. He also begins to recognize that some of what he does, is only to incur the wrath of others. When he realizes he is drinking too much only because it horrifies his mother, he cuts down. After the death of his father, he begins conforming so much that he misleads himself before he realizes what he is doing. His sense of honour leads him to ask Miriam to marry him, although he no longer loves her. He is desperately relieved when she refuses. And when his mother Leah tries to pull him back into the “Adler cage” after his father’s death, he becomes determined not to become the man to replace the husband she so mocked. And then finally, he learns to be kind. He is respectful to his father and grandfather when he withholds a truth he discovers because he knows it would be hurtful. His kindness depends on keeping secrets, something he has figured out is the right thing to do. He has finally learned to think for himself.Although this looks like a simple tale of the experience of growing up, this is a much more complex novel. It is full of things to think about. The dialogue between family members is realistic and places you easily in the ghetto within the complex interactions of large families with their jealousies, favoured positions, childhood histories and continual jockeying to find a secure place in the web of relationships, alliances and conflicts. These scenes in particular are written with humour, insight, kindness and sarcasm and are reminiscent of many reader's own experiences. Names play an interesting role in this story. It is natural to wonder how many of the characters were were named. Wolfe, Noah’s father has a name that insinuates a tough leader, yet Wolfe is actually a quiet, meek and groveling eldest son who is afraid of his father and has accomplished little in his life. He works in his father’s scrap yard, marries against his will and fathers a child only when Melech commands it. Miriam is the “goy”, the woman outside the Jewish religion with whom Noah has an affair. Again her name is curious. Miriam is a French Canadian yet she has a very traditional Jewish name. And Melech the patriarch and grandfather’s name is also interesting. Melech means “King” in Hebrew, yet this man is no longer a man of exalted respect among his children and grandchildren. And Theo, the literature professor Noah betrays, whose name means “God” in Greek, has not even one God like characteristic. The story is also full of parallels to Mordecai Richler’s own life. He insists the story is neither autobiographical nor does it represent any real characters. But there are some remarkable similarities that are easy to find despite his protests. Richler like Noah, left home early to escape the strict confines of his religious upbringing. He too, had a falling out with his grandfather, and married outside his religion. When Richler’s father died he kept his prayer shawl in a bottom drawer just as in a similar way, Noah keeps one of Melech’s Torah scrolls after the fire in the warehouse. And although Richler always respected his Jewishness, he never embraced many of its traditions and abandoned many of the traditional practices he had been taught as a child, just as Noah does in this story. So there is lots of food for thought here.A great read about family, the nature of belonging and the painful struggle to grow up and become your true self. It explores the mythical physical, mental and social walls we must all scale in coming to our own adulthood. Everyone must learn to think for himself and take responsibility for their actions, knowing that in the process you sometimes hurt others.This book is even more enjoyable for those who lived in Montreal and experienced the places, the language and the culture referred to in the novel. A great read.On the list of the best books in Canadian Literature.
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