Solomon Gursky Was Here

"Solomon Gursky Was Here" is a novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler first published Viking Canada in 1989. It tells of several generations of the fictional Gursky family, said to have been inspired by the Bronfmans, who are connected to several disparate events in the history of Canada, including the Franklin Expedition and rum-running.

Some fans and critics have cited this as Mordecai Richler's best book, and in terms of scope and style it is unmatched by his other works. The tale centres around Moses Berger, an alcoholic failed writer who is obsessed with Solomon Gursky, the brother of Bernard and Morrie and absent from the family empire after a fatal plane crash. Perhaps it was his disappointment with his own father that put him on the trail of Solomon, a character as strong-willed as he was mysterious.

Moses follows a zigzagging line through time and place, with further narrative leapfrogging provided by the achronological documents Moses finds in his quest: from 19th century London to the Arctic Circle to the familiar confines of 20th century Montreal, and more. The art of weaving each scene and storyline together into a coherent whole calls up an image of Richler mapping a massive time-line on his living room wall. The story, like other of his works, runs like a salmon on a hook, then dances on the water, only to plunge unseen again into deep, cold water. Many of the background stories are mysteries in their own right.

After fleeing legal proceedings, Solomon is reported dead in an airplane crash, leaving Moses to sort fact from fiction and life from death. In laying out the kaleidoscope of consistently ambiguous truth, Richler writes himself into the role of the raven, the trickster, and one follows his trail of mischief with unflagging interest.

Richler pulls off a tale which is, in spite of being riddled with characters whose banal defects eclipse their successes, intensely interesting. The narrator's personal struggle, a struggle made vicarious through his self-appointment as the Gursky family biographer, is spiced with a refreshing frankness and competence in his moments of clarity.

What marks this novel from others in the Richler canon is not only the breadth of locations and time, but also the threads of magic realism, reminiscent of Garcia Marquez. The Jewish ghetto of Montreal, and a sense of rage boiling under the surface of each character are present here as in Richler's other books. But by allowing omen and myth to intrude, even guide the plot, he has successfully risked making it more memorable.

To put a moral to the story is difficult--this is no fable--which is part of what makes it such a good story. Surely, the novel is strewn with the undeserving rich and the corruption thereof. Many of the characters are callous and self-indulgent at their best and murderously infantile at their worst, but one can't help extending admiration to them for their struggle--especially to the title character and his chronicler, Moses. One gets pulled in, one feels the same itch that they need to scratch. Somehow what they do seems, if not always morally justifiable, true to their natures. Therefore, their actions are necessary in the way that the foolishness of the Trickster in Native American tales is necessary, and in the way that the telling of his tales is also necessary: they, and Richler's novel, are what they are in order to challenge what is unworthy and unyielding.