SOURCE: Dellandrea, Meredith. “Stumbling on Pride.” Essays on Canadian Writing 65 (fall 1998): 187-92.

In the following review, Dellandrea regards Barney's Version as an unreliable memoir, praising Richler's examination of the “authority of autobiography and the reliability of academic truths.”

With characteristic wit, Mordecai Richler explores the limits of knowing in Barney's Version. The novel is written as a memoir. It is Barney Panofsky's version of the truth, Barney says, “about me, my three wives, … the nature of my friendship with Boogie, and, of course, the scandal I will carry to my grave like a humpback” (1). However, as he recounts the details of his past and digresses into his opinions about hockey and Canadian politics, the unreliability of his memoir is foregrounded. Barney is a flawed and troubled man who desperately desires forgiveness from and reconciliation with his loved ones, but his stubbornness and dishonesty prevent it. His attempt to...