A few months ago I happened upon one of his essays in an anthology, and having heard of his success, I was surprised to find that the writing didn't do the trick for me at all. "1944: the Year I Learned to Love a German" describes the impact of literature- specifically the novel All Quiet on the Western Front- on Richler's progression into adulthood. The premise is auspicious enough, but I found that, for one thing, the essay simply doesn't know what it wants to be. What calls itself a persuasive piece presents as an autobiography, dabbles in politics, and ends up reading like a glorified book review (not unlike the ones I used to publish on my Goodreads account when I was 13.)
In fact, the whole essay seems to be written through the lens a 13-year-old. And there's a reason for that: each of Richler's personal anecdotes take place when he's a pre-teen.
I understand what he was trying to do. He wrote his adolescent self as narrow-minded and egotistical in an attempt to set up a discernible transformation after he reads All Quiet on the Western Front.
And I think it could have been effective, except that there wasn't an after to compare to his before. None of his anecdotes clearly exhibit the fully matured version of himself that he claims to have achieved, and his coming of age story loses its potency because his character never really comes of age. All that to say, the whole essay comes across as juvenile, and I unintentionally read it through the voice of the ignorant persona he established in the first paragraph and never revised.
Even after 13-year-old Richler reads the groundbreaking novel that supposedly revolutionizes his life, his transfiguration of the mind, so to speak, ends up a downgrade. Or at least not an upgrade.
He starts out as a self-centered, conceited kid, and spends the first third of the essay making pompous reference after pompous reference to non-fiction texts, which I'm sure were efficacious for Richler's more well-read audience, but went straight over my head.
Then after he reads All Quiet on the Western Front, he says "I grasped for the first time that I didn't live in the center of the world." Excited at the prospect that the essay's atmosphere would finally become more altruistic, I continued to the next sentence: "Of course, this wasn't my fault, it was my inconsiderate parents who were to blame."
He goes on to blame his parents that he lives in an unimportant country, is left-handed, and isn't the top of his class. He blames his parents that he isn't in the center of the universe, as if those three factors were significant enough to keep him from it. If reading the book that changed his life marks the climax of Richler's journey of self-discovery, then his revelation just doesn't have the transformative quality he was so clearly going for.
And if you're having trouble understanding how All Quiet on the Western Front has anything to do with his anguish at living in "an unimportant country," then join the club.
On top of all this, the essay's thesis is contradictory and hypocritical. Richler's main point can be summed up with something along the lines of: 'this book has taught me to be less self-important, and now that I have read it, my self is so much more important.'
I find that, in general, Canadian novelists came across with a similar air, because they had to pave a way for themselves. Especially in Richler's time, Canadian literature went through somewhat of an identity crisis. I mean, British lit went back for centuries, and there were so many Great American novels, but Canadian authors hadn't established a distinct voice. And so, instead of writing for the sake of writing, I get the sense that they were self-consciously and inorganically attempting to write distinctly Canadian literature.
Just like how "nothing ruins a conversation like saying 'let's have a conversation,'" nothing ruins authentic Canadian writing like saying 'let's be authentic Canadian writers.'"
"1944: the Year I Learned to Love a German" even illustrates this crisis. Before Richler reads the novel, he procrastinates by daydreaming. He says: "I organized a new baseball league for short players who didn't shave yet, appointing myself the commissioner, the first Canadian to be so honored."
Yes, this is likely nothing more than a playful gesture at his childlike interests, but if you replace his 'baseball league' with creative writing, and 'short people who didn't shave yet' with unestablished authors, Richler's teenage fantasy perfectly illustrates what I imagine he was going through as a Canadian novelist at the time.
And, after a weak essay Richler concludes with an even weaker ending. Rather than throwing in one last take away line to leave readers contemplating, he uses his last words to throw in two more seemingly arbitrary book suggestions, leaving his unrelenting praise of All Quiet on the Western Front to feel ultimately unresolved.
Richler's egocentric, autobiographical take on a book review made the whole piece feel like an advertisement. But as he puts it himself: "Writing that doesn't advertise itself is art of a very high order."
It certainly is of a high order: one that I personally don't think Richler achieved, which is why "1944: the Year I Learned to Love a German" didn't work for me.
Very well written 👍👍👍
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