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Hunting Tigers Under Glass
A collection of essays and reports.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
Mordecai Richler
90 books377 followersWorking-class Jewish background based novels, which include
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
(1959) and
Saint Urbain's Horseman
(1971), of Canadian writer Mordecai Richler.
People best know Barney's Version (1997) among works of this author, screenwriter, and essayist; people shortlisted his novel Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989) for the Man Booker Prize in 1990. He was also well known for the Jacob Two-two stories of children.
A scrap yard dealer reared this son on street in the mile end area of Montréal. He learned Yiddish and English and graduated from Baron Byng High School. Richler enrolled in Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University) to study English but dropped before completing his degree.
Years later, Leah Rosenberg, mother of Richler, published an autobiography, The Errand Runner: Memoirs of a Rabbi's Daughter (1981), which discusses birth and upbringing of Mordecai and the sometime difficult relationship.
Richler, intent on following in the footsteps of many of a previous "lost generation" of literary exiles of the 1920s from the United States, moved to Paris at age of 19 years in 1950.
Richler returned to Montréal in 1952, worked briefly at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and then moved to London in 1954. He, living in London meanwhile, published seven of his ten novels as well as considerable journalism.
Worrying "about being so long away from the roots of my discontent", Richler returned to Montréal in 1972. He wrote repeatedly about the Jewish community of Montréal and especially portraying his former neighborhood in multiple novels.
In England in 1954, Richler married Catherine Boudreau, a French-Canadian divorcée nine years his senior. On the eve of their wedding, he met Florence Wood Mann, a young married woman, who smited him.
Some years later, Richler and Mann divorced and married each other. He adopted Daniel Mann, her son. The couple had five children together: Daniel, Jacob, Noah, Martha and Emma. These events inspired his novel Barney's Version.
Richler died of cancer.
People best know Barney's Version (1997) among works of this author, screenwriter, and essayist; people shortlisted his novel Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989) for the Man Booker Prize in 1990. He was also well known for the Jacob Two-two stories of children.
A scrap yard dealer reared this son on street in the mile end area of Montréal. He learned Yiddish and English and graduated from Baron Byng High School. Richler enrolled in Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University) to study English but dropped before completing his degree.
Years later, Leah Rosenberg, mother of Richler, published an autobiography, The Errand Runner: Memoirs of a Rabbi's Daughter (1981), which discusses birth and upbringing of Mordecai and the sometime difficult relationship.
Richler, intent on following in the footsteps of many of a previous "lost generation" of literary exiles of the 1920s from the United States, moved to Paris at age of 19 years in 1950.
Richler returned to Montréal in 1952, worked briefly at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and then moved to London in 1954. He, living in London meanwhile, published seven of his ten novels as well as considerable journalism.
Worrying "about being so long away from the roots of my discontent", Richler returned to Montréal in 1972. He wrote repeatedly about the Jewish community of Montréal and especially portraying his former neighborhood in multiple novels.
In England in 1954, Richler married Catherine Boudreau, a French-Canadian divorcée nine years his senior. On the eve of their wedding, he met Florence Wood Mann, a young married woman, who smited him.
Some years later, Richler and Mann divorced and married each other. He adopted Daniel Mann, her son. The couple had five children together: Daniel, Jacob, Noah, Martha and Emma. These events inspired his novel Barney's Version.
Richler died of cancer.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 30, 2014
This is an older collection of his work and some essays feel charmingly anachronistic, complete with Harry Truman jokes and commentary of 1950's UK movies I've never seen nor heard of. The essays on Norman Mailer are excellent, though, and the essay about conflicting feelings on a trip to Israel could have been written last year. He's enough of a gifted wordsmith that the whole book is worth a read.
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December 16, 2020It is important that richler upheld a secondary title to refer to the writings herein to be "essays and reports" because it takes the obligation off of the notion of an old school "essay" and permits the writer to let the words take him wherever they take him. Many of the chapters I am waiting for that traditional essayist finale, where the writer takes the several strands of thoughts written, ties them together onto a balloon and let's the essay float off. Here he just tells you what he thinks with no moral, no real intention behind the words aside from the transfer of information.
Richler is a wordsmith of the rarest breed, even with the passage of time which takes away some of the subtlety of his wit due to anachronistic references. He also eminates a style which is not as primary in today's landscape, that of the Jewish person on the offensive. It is a common theme of certain writers of the 40s to 70s to be unapologetically Jewish, pushing it to the forefront as a means to combat the more ferverent antisemitism they came across during that era in the west. Saul Bellow is another example of this style.
Nonetheless a good read and a reminder that there are still a few richler novels I have yet to read.
Richler is a wordsmith of the rarest breed, even with the passage of time which takes away some of the subtlety of his wit due to anachronistic references. He also eminates a style which is not as primary in today's landscape, that of the Jewish person on the offensive. It is a common theme of certain writers of the 40s to 70s to be unapologetically Jewish, pushing it to the forefront as a means to combat the more ferverent antisemitism they came across during that era in the west. Saul Bellow is another example of this style.
Nonetheless a good read and a reminder that there are still a few richler novels I have yet to read.
December 24, 2021
14 years or so after his first published novel, Richler's writing is showing a marked improvement so much so that his criticism re other writers and novels in one of these essays is on point and the irony of literary criticism from an author who struggled to find his form can be set aside for the time being. Yes, Mordecai I agree with you on Mailer's "American Dream".
Other essays which stand the test of time are his brief thoughts on travelling in Israel in 1962, big business in the Catskills providing all inclusives for tourists, screen writing and it's attendant pitfalls which is probably still relevant today. Some more localised essays for Canadians namely small town hockey team "Trail Smoke Eaters" playing in the 1963 World Ice Hockey Championships in Stockholm, Expo 67 in Montreal which was meant to introduce Canada to the world.
All in all, while somewhat dated, it's still a collection worth perusing and reading today.
Other essays which stand the test of time are his brief thoughts on travelling in Israel in 1962, big business in the Catskills providing all inclusives for tourists, screen writing and it's attendant pitfalls which is probably still relevant today. Some more localised essays for Canadians namely small town hockey team "Trail Smoke Eaters" playing in the 1963 World Ice Hockey Championships in Stockholm, Expo 67 in Montreal which was meant to introduce Canada to the world.
All in all, while somewhat dated, it's still a collection worth perusing and reading today.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews