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The Acrobats
Book by Mordecai Richler
232 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
2 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Mordecai Richler
88 books369 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 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 20, 2019
Not an easy book to read. As a matter of fact, you can get lost many times. And the story is even more unclear. A group of North American expats in Spain in the very early 50s. There're some hints at politics, even though the characters present themselves as rather apolitical, but one of them fought in Spain with the Government against the Rebels. He is the main character and is full of contradictions. The mix of people is bizarre, with a Nazi German colonel, several Spanish communists, a couple of Jews and the confused painter who is at the centre. The book is interesting but lacks substance, in my view.
Anyway, what was a discovery for me was to read about my home town before I was born. The places are memories for me and I can see the atmosphere. The action takes place during the main festivities around St. Joseph's day, when the locals set up carton statues that they burn after one week of fireworks, music, doughnuts and noise. It's a pity that in the book the day is placed not in March, but in April. The mixture of these Americans and Canadians with the locals adds some pepper to the book.
Anyway, what was a discovery for me was to read about my home town before I was born. The places are memories for me and I can see the atmosphere. The action takes place during the main festivities around St. Joseph's day, when the locals set up carton statues that they burn after one week of fireworks, music, doughnuts and noise. It's a pity that in the book the day is placed not in March, but in April. The mixture of these Americans and Canadians with the locals adds some pepper to the book.
November 18, 2014
Confused and unsympathetic. A bunch of broken, sweaty people in post-war Spain sleep around, steal money from each other, drink a lot, and commit suicide or murder or flee or are arrested by the fascist government. Meh and more meh.
January 2, 2012
Interesting to read the first novel of a great author who had not yet found his voice. Aspects of it are autobiographical and, as the author himself has said, this is very much a "young man's novel".
March 5, 2024
Written when he was but 19 years old, this is Richler's first novel, set in 1951 in Franco's Spain. There is a fairly large cast of characters for such a short novel, and as other reviewers have noted, it can be a challenge to keep straight on who is whom. The main protagonist, if there is one, is the Canadian painter Andre but his story is shadowed by several others so in effect the setting and the mood of this novel takes precedence over the characters, or perhaps one might better say that the characters serve as means to the end of setting the mood of danger and desperation. Not a great novel and certainly lacking in the humor of Richler's later works, not to mention lacking in memorable characters of the Solomon Gursky, Duddy Kravitz, or Barney Panofsky type, but an intriguing plot with some very innovative descriptive passages, in mood something like Hemmingway meets Camus.
May 12, 2017
On then hand, the writing in this book is superb. But the plot feels dated to me, sort of stuck in that postwar Jewish diaspora ennui (think Roth, Allen, Miller, Salinger, etc.). Several wandering souls converge in Franco's Spain in 1949, each trying in their own way to run away from the consequences of the war. Depressive events ensue in the midst of a public charivari.
October 18, 2020
Worth reading for Richler completists and not many other reasons. Sparks of Richler’s masterful command of the turn of phrase, but the narrative is buried in half-complete characters and ambiguous dialogue and the sparks never become full flames.
August 25, 2018
Quite possibly the worst book I have ever read.
September 2, 2014
The Acrobats is about a group of ex-patriots and and native Spaniards living in Valencia in 1954. The events take place over a few days, and switches rapidly between this set of crisply drawn characters. Some are portraits in miniature, others mere sketches or representative types. There is Andre Bennet, the twenty-something Canadian painter; Roger Kraus, the middle aged German veteran of both the Spanish Civil War and World War II; Chaim, the owner of a successful night club; Toni, a dancer in the club; Barney and Jessie, a dissolute married couple; Guillermo and Manuel, two communist counter-revolutionaries; and so on.
Valencia is described colorfully, and some of the best writing goes into developing the city as a decayed, dying place, a melting pot for the lost and the desperate, where the only hope is to somehow leave. It reads as an even more desperate place than the description of Casablanca in the film of the same name.
Andre is nominally the lead character. He is traumatized by something in his past, he is drunk much of the time, but when sober he is still behaves confusedly and even hallucinates. Because of this he is a poor choice of main character. Also, his characterization is clunky. He is self-possessed one scene, childish in another, savvy in another scene, then naif the next. This can not be explained by his mental state, this is just uncertain characterization.
A better choice for a lead character is Chaim, the club owner. A survivor, he has the Rick part. As the stories of the various characters move forward and overlap, they all intersect with Chaim and his club. He is the relatively calm center of the crumbling lives in this crumbling city.
The villain is nominally Kraus, but Richler enters into Kraus' mind also, to make us understand Kraus' motives and point of view. To Kraus, he is the hero and believes Andre is the villain. Kraus' later actions are what can be described as an early (the first?) depiction of what we today term post-traumatic-stress-disorder.
There is enough good writing and interesting story and place here to justify giving The Acrobats a read. At times the characters are too obviously symbols, and when Richler tries for a profound one-liner he stretches himself too far. But as a first novel for a great writer it is very good.
Valencia is described colorfully, and some of the best writing goes into developing the city as a decayed, dying place, a melting pot for the lost and the desperate, where the only hope is to somehow leave. It reads as an even more desperate place than the description of Casablanca in the film of the same name.
Andre is nominally the lead character. He is traumatized by something in his past, he is drunk much of the time, but when sober he is still behaves confusedly and even hallucinates. Because of this he is a poor choice of main character. Also, his characterization is clunky. He is self-possessed one scene, childish in another, savvy in another scene, then naif the next. This can not be explained by his mental state, this is just uncertain characterization.
A better choice for a lead character is Chaim, the club owner. A survivor, he has the Rick part. As the stories of the various characters move forward and overlap, they all intersect with Chaim and his club. He is the relatively calm center of the crumbling lives in this crumbling city.
The villain is nominally Kraus, but Richler enters into Kraus' mind also, to make us understand Kraus' motives and point of view. To Kraus, he is the hero and believes Andre is the villain. Kraus' later actions are what can be described as an early (the first?) depiction of what we today term post-traumatic-stress-disorder.
There is enough good writing and interesting story and place here to justify giving The Acrobats a read. At times the characters are too obviously symbols, and when Richler tries for a profound one-liner he stretches himself too far. But as a first novel for a great writer it is very good.
June 21, 2013
I am over Mordecai Richler. It's a weird thing to say about a first novel, but I kind of read his oeuvre backwards, and spent a lot of years fangirling over him, but now that I'm older, and I've read so much of his fiction, I just feel like someone should have told him he was recycling the same characters and the same plots and it was just... done.
I suppose that it was interesting to see where it all began (he was only 19 when he wrote The Acrobats) But even the story wasn't his best.
If you're looking for Richler at his finest, try Barney's Version or Solomon Gursky was Here. I give this one a pass.
I suppose that it was interesting to see where it all began (he was only 19 when he wrote The Acrobats) But even the story wasn't his best.
If you're looking for Richler at his finest, try Barney's Version or Solomon Gursky was Here. I give this one a pass.
February 17, 2012
This was an ok novel worth reading once
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews