I just finished reading Solomon Gursky was Here by Mordecai Richler. I didn’t read it when it was first published. In fact, this is the first of Richler’s books I’ve read. How is it I bypassed every novel by one of Canada’s best writers? I have no explanation and throw myself on the mercy of the court. I had been reading Charles Portis and was happy to read yet another of his works but I happened to be in a bookstore and I had a few minutes and I do like looking through the shelves more or less randomly – when I came face to face with a whole section of Richler’s work.

I came home with Gursky and immediately started in on it. It was admittedly a slow start. This is an epic novel. It covers a significant chunk of history – of this country – of a century – of a family and it’s presented in bits and pieces. As well, it shifts around in time. I’m saying that this novel didn’t grab me by the throat right away. Neither did it give me cause to reject it. I began reading it in stops and starts, a chapter here, a chapter there. As I became immersed in the Gursky’s and all the history around them, and in the character of the drunken failed writer Moses Berger, I found myself needing to know more and more and more.

Richler takes us all over the place, from the Franklin expedition to Jewish Montreal to a salmon river on the east coast to Saskatchewan. He weaves a complex if somewhat lumpy tale of family, politics, lust and greed. The characters are flawed, sometimes badly flawed and that makes them come to life all the more. Moses is a wreck but he’s a brilliant, obsessed wreck, and the characters are interwoven ingeniously.

Solomon Gursky was Here is a lot of book to take in the first time. I think I’d like to digest this one for a while, maybe a year or two, and then go in again, armed with my memory of the first read, to consider the details without the burdon of needing to know what happened.

Excellent read.