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Barney's Version

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Barney's Version

By: Mordecai Richler
Narrated by: Graham Abbey
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About this listen

Barney Panofsky - Canadian expat, wily lover of women, writer, television producer, raconteur - is finally putting pen to paper so he can rebut the charges about him made in his rival’s autobiography. Whether it’s ranting about his bohemian misadventures during the 1950s in Paris, his tumultuous three marriages, or his successful trashy TV company, Totally Unnecessary Productions, he quickly proves that his memory may be slipping, but his bile isn’t. But when he’s charged with the murder of his own best friend - caught in bed with the second Mrs. Panofsky - Barney’s version of things might not be enough to keep him out of trouble.

©1997 Mordecai Richler (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Biographical Fiction Genre Fiction Jewish Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction World Literature Biography Fiction Comedy
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A sprawling epic of a book - this is one man's long and very checkered life, according to him. The book takes us from his Jewish immigrant roots through his bohemian days in Paris to his enormously successful career as a TV producer of pap, to his descent into Alzheimer's. Similar in scope to William Boyd's Any Human Heart, it is a book that takes you on an amazing voyage around someone else's world. It is also very funny. It is beautifully written (in non-linear form, Barney's memories take him all over the place) and it is very well read.

Pleased be warned, Barney is a complex character and a product of his time so he is not the least bit right on. But he's a wonderful character nonetheless.

A wonderful listen - Richler at his best

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I would have given Graham Abbey 5 stars for his otherwise excellent narration if he asked any random Jewish person how to pronounce the Hebrew and Yiddish words that Richler freely uses throughout the book. Abbey mispronounces almost every one of them which might be forgivable if the story weren’t written in the first person. Hearing a very Jewish Barney refer to pigs as shazzerim instead of chazzerim with a guttural ch as in Scottish loch, sounds ridiculous. Non-Jews can enjoy Abbey’s narration but his mispronunciation of Hebrew/Yiddish words and expressions will drive most Jews crazy - as it did me.

The story is very good. Jumping around in time is not my favourite literary device but it works well here. Barney is a thoroughly unlovable character.

Narration needs a Jewish editor

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