Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler

        In the opening pages of Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler, the titular narrator struggles to come up with the word for a pasta strainer: colander. It’s not the only thing he struggles to remember. As he recounts his life and the history of his three wives, he routinely gets details wrong. Timelines are off; dates don’t align; certain facts are missing, suspect, or unverifiable. It makes a colander the perfect symbol for a failing memory. As much as we try to retain, our memories leak out.

Luckily for us, one of Barney’s sons adds footnotes to correct the record, which, incidentally, is what Barney is trying to do. There’s a mystery at the core of the text: what happened to Barney’s friend Boogie? We find out early on that Barney was accused of his murder, put to trial, but has clearly escaped mostly unscathed (although one of his ex-wives most assuredly does not believe him.) The rest of the book is a slow unravelling of Barney telling his side of the story, in which he continually professes his innocence.

Barney isn’t an easy person to believe. He makes assertions that are clearly incorrect, repeatedly shows himself to be a mischievous rabble rouser with a penchant for sending fake letters, and admittedly lies in his initial testimony to the police. He’s also misogynistic and racist in that 1960s literati way. 

In the moment, there appeared to be a lot of ‘fluff’ to the book—scenes that did not really contribute to the overarching narrative of the book, but to Richler’s credit, the different arcs culminate beautifully. The book is structured around Barney’s different wives. The first wife, Clara, is part of a thriving 1960s expat arts and literature group in France. Others warn Barney of her being unstable but he pursues a relationship anyway. I feel like Richler captures the rebellious spirit of the writers at the time and lampoons (through Barney) the experimental poets of the period. In the tumultuous whirlwind of Barney’s first marriage, we see Clara give birth to a baby who, by its skin colour, is revealed to be Boogie’s child. Then, a tragic fallout and sequence of events sees Clara deceased by suicide. After her death, her art work takes on a new significance and Barney helps to ensure that it is published and exhibited; as it turns out later on, he was donating all the funds—an amusing and surprising turn given his record of misogyny and bias against women’s art.

In the second section, Barney recounts the story of his second marriage to a woman he consistently refuses to name. This section was probably my least favourite, but it still culminates beautifully. Barney narrates how he fell in love with his third wife the night of his second wedding; he tries to run away with her and leaves his wedding to be with her. It doesn’t work out at the time, but it’s a wonderfully romantic (and terrible) moment. Barney then proceeds to woo her over years.

This is where things get wild. I apologize if this review is reading more like a summary, but the plot is so wonderfully crafted that all of the pieces need to be lined up before seeing it all come together. Not wanting to be with his second wife, Barney concocts a plan with his lawyer to get her to agree to a divorce. Essentially, the lawyer will pay to have someone sleep with Barney so that his wife can catch them in flagrante delicto. They talk through the specifics of the plan and then when Barney returns home, everything works out beautifully for him—he arrives to find his second wife in bed with (who else but) Boogie as he recovers from his drug addictions. This gives Barney the ground to leave her and pursue Miriam. His second wife leaves immediately and then he is left alone with Boogie. This is where the record gets uncertain because Barney and Boogie are left alone together—and Boogie is never seen again.

Barney admits to certain things in his version. He explains how he wanted Boogie alive so that he could have a witness that agrees to Barney’s account and thereby justifies the divorce on Barney’s terms. Remember, though, Barney has reason to hate Boogie for having slept with both of his wives. When Boogie, feeling used, says he wants to have a swim to think about the situation, Barney tells him he’s too drunk to swim and shoots a gun above his head to scare him into staying.

However, when police come investigating, there are all kinds of details Barney cannot account for. For instance: why does he have rough hands? He suggests to the police it’s because he was digging Boogie’s grave—as a joke, surely, but… He confesses to shooting Boogie in the chest and cleaning up all the blood, but that’s also a joke…right? Richler crafts the voice so wonderfully that it creates dramatic tension: Barney is always sarcastic and joking and so the truth becomes more obscure. This, combined with the fact that he can’t remember the dates and details make him an unreliable witness. Even worse: in his old age he develops Alzheimer’s.

The entire closing sequence of the book is simply fantastic. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful and terrible all at once. We can watch Barney’s descent into worse and worse Alzheimer’s. Details become even more unreliable and obscured. It’s heartbreaking when he starts to piece details together and realize that he has Alzheimer’s and when he’s truly at his worst, he can’t even clothe himself properly. He goes for dinner with Miriam after a prolonged estrangement (did I mention that he cheated on her and she left him?) and the disconnect between his own belief of how things will play out and the reality is tragic. He’s convinced that they can reunite; he gets flashes of their first meeting; he thinks they’re still married. It’s really rough and I loved it.

In a moment of lucidity, Barney is able to recollect the details of what happened the night of Boogie’s death and reaffirms his innocence. He explains what happened but admits that there was a detail he left out before. As it turns out, the fight was not so amicable. Boogie, a friend he has long professed to admire, actually has harsh words about Barney’s wives, particularly Clara. He says that Clara dying was the best thing she could have done for her career and, after almost four hundred pages, we finally get a redemptive moment from Barney, who defends her honour. This adds to the tension of the mystery; it’s one more reason for him to kill Boogie—although his body was never found.

As a comedic work, Barney’s Version works reasonably well. As a dramatic work, I’d argue, it works even better. The character and voice of the text is so finely wrought and the storyline is so finely crafted that it feels so satisfying when everything comes together in the end. Even the epilogue has something to offer that allows the audience to reconsider the rest of the story. Even to the last page there are revelations about Boogie’s unsolved disappearance. Despite all the ambiguity, the ending was extremely satisfying.

Due to a friend’s recommendation, I had been intending to read Barney’s Version for years and I’m so glad I finally got to it. It was well worth the read and I finally understand why it’s a sort of CanLit classic. Like Barney, I’m sure I don’t remember all the details, but the broad strokes are enough to solidify itself in my memory as a really positive, worthy reading experience.

Happy reading!

How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm

Andreas Malm’s book won’t actually tell you how to blow up a pipeline—and, to all the corporations and governments reading this, I assure you: I am not going to blow up a pipeline. That being said, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is certainly a provocative title that drew me in. The text is less of a how-to manual and more of a book of philosophical and political theory. Offered as a short primer, it is a defence of taking action in a world in desperate need of it.

Andreas Malm essentially makes the case that typical liberal reactions to climate catastrophes is not leading us to the kinds of change that are necessary in order to save the planet and human life as we know it and that “radical” alternatives are necessary. Demonstrations, protest signs, and letters aren’t cutting it. Running parallel to Rob Nixon’s “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor,” Malm makes the case that corporations and governments are actively killing people through their ongoing inaction and active facilitation of environmental destruction. By allowing polluters to continue polluting, so runs Malm’s argument, it is a form of mass murder.

How To Blow Up A Pipeline makes the case that our typical climate action is ineffective. Our “demonstrations” and “protests” do nothing to shift policy. Our impassioned speeches are not moving the needle for any of the people out there causing the most pollution. There are times when environmental movements and animal liberation movements can rely on peaceful protest to gain public trust and generate conversation, winning hearts and minds, but sitting by peacefully is not putting any pressure on the pollution industry to change.

As an alternative, and at least implicitly referencing The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, Malm encourages violence. Recognizing that violence against people is generally unpalatable for garnering support for a movement and that it would lose the moral high ground by doing so, Malm’s main tactic essentially shifts towards violence against property. He references a project in which air was let out of tires for high-polluting vehicles. It’s an inconvenience that consumers need to consider and that puts pressure to change consumption behaviours. I might make the case now that we’re seeing similar kinds of destruction against Tesla (although they’re supposedly the eco-friendly option…).

Reconstructing the argument could be done through a series of syllogisms and in the moment, it was pretty persuasive. The objection might be raised that property destruction would do more harm than good for average consumers, but the reality is that we cannot allow the status quo to persist. We need to make it inconvenient and undesirable for people to pollute.

Nor can we revert to despair. Malm challenges the hedonistic laissez-faire of some intellectuals that feel none of the direct impacts of climate change. If it is too late to make a change, it is still not acceptable either to throw our hands up in the air and shout that we might as well enjoy our final days and pollute as much as we please. Malm refers to intellectual figures like Jonathan Franzen who asks that since it’s too late, why should we deprive ourselves of the same joys other polluters get to have? Of course, Malm rejects this self-serving philosophy.

Malm suggests that every revolt has been put down by the defeatists. Yet, there is still a political function for hope: “Hope is not a door, but the sense that there might be a door somewhere. [...] Hope is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.” People voice a common objection to controversial situations: “If only people had protested peacefully, change could have happened.” Malm shows how the objection falls flat and refers to all kinds of historical precedents where change only happens when there are strategic, active interventions. Some may protest peacefully, of course, but the real changemakers are the ones who actively dismantle the system by force.

And thus we are here. A world in need of fewer pipelines and more action. May the book serve as a kick in the pants and the light of a fuse.

Happy reading!

Take the Long Way Home by Jon Claytor

        There seems to be an increasing canon of autobiographical works presented as graphic novels, and Jon Claytor has now added his own entry with the Take the Long Way Home, a story about traveling across the country and back for an artist’s retreat.

The art style is more or less sketchy and unfleshed out in a free and breezy way with some special attention played to the natural world and the view from the dashboard. It’s pretty inviting. The story, also, is pretty sketchy. It’s a series of vignettes that does not really have much of a consistent build towards a climax. It’s a road trip where we stop in various cities, check in with families members and friends, and then move on. The main dramatic tension of the text is Claytor’s struggles with alcoholism and the moments that he thinks he might take a drink or dreams that he has.

As a result, the book is more like a series of loose threads handled with an engaging style but also tact. For instance, Claytor finds out that he has a long lost brother that he has never met; his kids are extremely invested in finding him—but that’s, maybe, the subject of another book. Similarly, he finds out about his parents and a number of “characters” have wild backstories, but he suggests it is not his story to tell.

There’s a kind of beautiful tenderness to the book that is worth noting. Early on, Claytor recounts his challenges with alcoholism and attempted suicide and it gives the pages that follow a heartbreaking kind of quality. The book is, on the whole, pretty uplifting. There are so many personal connections and the book works as a celebration and gift for those special relationships in his life. If there is a climax, I would make the case that it is as Claytor returns home and reflects on the people he has learned from, spread out over six pages with four portraits each interspersed with thoughts from the drive.

The personable nature of the book is really endearing. The phone calls home have a special sincerity and a clear appreciation for quiet moments. In one scene, Claytor calls his children from Kamloops. He calls his children “turkeys” and they call him “pops” and they are “reading about zombies.” Meanwhile, the family dog has a thought bubble as he sleeps that says “I’m a happy dog” (199). It’s really cute, but one of the best things about it is that when he calls he just listened to them turn pages.

I also really liked the interactions between animals that he imagines. There’s a sequence with wolves where one of them confesses to the other that he tried to be a badass lone wolf but the truth is that he’d rather spend time together. It’s a beautiful exchange: “You and me? Together?” / “Forever!” and then a full-page illustration that has the two wolves side by side with the caption, “Now, let’s go fuck shit up! Like the badass wolves we are” (163). There are also interactions with birds, bears, and rabbits, which take on a symbolic significance, as well.

Overall, Take the Long Way Home is a lovely journey full of that introspection and sincerity of expression that makes up for the seeming deficit of plot. I liked it. It felt truly personal and a book built for connection.

Happy reading!