Review: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
From a literary perspective, Richler’s style is relentless, employing very little environmental description, choosing instead dialogue that scintillates. He cements plot with sharp, keen characters, an elegantly simplistic language. There isn’t a scene, a phrase, a word out of place here.
From an entertainment perspective this a rocketing good read, with a beginning that seems slow to start and then suddenly launches off into the nervous, fidgeting, finagling world of huckster-Duddy. You detest his crass and insouciant behaviour. You weep for him when his tender underbelly is revealed. You are right there in the seedy world of 1950s Montreal.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz will now have a place in our permanent library here at The Old Stone House.