Brownstein: Searching for Mordecai Richler, from Paris

Elise Bronsart just had a culinary experience the likes of which she never experienced in her native France: she devoured a Wilensky Special, that famed, highly addictive amalgam of fried salami and bologna and cheese on a warmed, mustard-coated bun, served on a napkin — never on a plate and never with a knife and fork. 

“Frankly, I found it to be quite tasty and enjoyable,” Bronsart concedes. “That’s quite a unique place, certainly different from anything I’ve seen in Paris.” 

With her two-person crew, Bronsart is a film director on a mission in Montreal, but not related to the city’s famed, cholesterol-laden delicacies.

Over 21 years after his death, Bronsart is on another mission: to seek out Mordecai Richler’s favourite haunts in the city and environs and to touch base with those who knew him in order to get some insights into one of the most colourful and controversial local legends and, unarguably, one of the greatest novelists ever to emerge from this dominion.

Bronsart has been in Montreal this week shooting the documentary for the Franco-German public-TV channel Arte. Her team has scoured Richler’s Mile End roots, including, among other pit-stops, Wilensky’s and the rival bagel emporiums, and has visited the Laurentians summer getaway of his youth in Ste–Agathe, also immortalized in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. 

And now Bronsart has come to one of Richler’s most frequented watering-holes, Winnie’s on Crescent St., to speak to a few of us who drank with him but who also knew better than to ever talk to him about his books. Chat about the Habs and politics was permissible. Sitting in the corner of the front bar, Richler was at his best bantering/battling with the likes of Nick Auf der Maur, Richard Holden and Gordon Atkinson — all since deceased. 

To those he didn’t know or didn’t want to know, he could come across a tad curmudgeonly.

“I just find that Richler was such a fascinating character,” Bronsart says. “I figured the best way to know more about him and his work was to learn a little more about the world he came from.” 

Bronsart’s timing is, curiously, opportune, coming in the same week as the Quebec election. Richler achieved infamy of sorts in certain quarters here with his writings on Quebec politics in The New Yorker, taking shots at power-brokers and language laws. Suffice it to say, Richler wouldn’t have been amused with recent inflammatory CAQ talk about immigration — being from an immigrant family — and the increasing isolation of anglos and allos in the run-up to the election. 

“It was just by chance that we came here to do this shoot around the election. We were also doing pieces on Michel Tremblay and Xavier Dolan here. It’s part of a series on local artists from Montreal.

“But my interest in Richler has much more to do with his novels and from where he got his inspirations. I find his work funny and intriguing yet also quite touching,” notes Bronsart, a huge fan of his Barney’s Version. 

On hand for this evening’s reminiscences and filming are Richler’s preferred bartender, Margo MacGillivray; his close friend John Aylen, who, apart from his many other endeavours, handled his publicity — such as it was; former CBC-TV producer and documentarian Stephen Phizicky; Pierre Anctil, the recently retired professor and writer who never met Richler but who is a leading authority on Montreal Jewish culture — despite not being Jewish; and myself. 

“I’m sure (Bronsart) had no prior knowledge of the election here,” Anctil says. “Like many from France, they might not have even been aware that there is a provincial government here or are aware of the various laws. But the reality is that Richler never took on easy subjects relating to politics here. As such, he wasn’t always loved among francophones. 

“I am a total fan of his novels. They were formidable. But I was not a fan of his polemical writings, which I found excessive.” 

Richler, who succumbed to cancer at 70, was a most complex figure. As much as he alienated many francos with his views in The New Yorker, he was not always so loved by some members of the Jewish community for showcasing its foibles. Fact is, he was an equal opportunity satirist. 

“Humour is a means of talking about pain,” Aylen says. “People are always critical of people who put a critical focus on their world. We’re seeing that happening now in Quebec, where you’re not allowed to criticize the conventional wisdom. 

“But Richler was, ultimately, a most moral man. He hoped the same societal values he held dear would prevail. He was disappointed by the way people acted. That’s the result of being an idealist and a romantic. You criticize the things you love at your own peril, and he criticized the things that he loved at his own peril. I miss him profoundly — as a friend.”

His cynicism notwithstanding, Richler was very much a family man, endlessly devoted to his wife Florence and his offspring, Daniel, Noah, Jacob, Emma and Martha.

Last words go to mixologist MacGillivray: “He may not have been loved by all, but he was a champ to those who knew him best. The moment he died we lost so much.” 

bbrownstein@postmedia.com

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