THE SATIRICAL, UN-PC VIEW FROM NORTH OF THE BORDER

Author: By Robert Taylor

Date: SUNDAY, December 21, 1997

Page: E2

Section: Books

Meet Barney Panofsky, Mordecai Richler's mercurial comic creation, who sets an astringent standard of political incorrectness in present-day Canada.

Enlarging his views anent McCarthy, he ventures: ``My problem is, I had considerable respect for the Hollywood Ten as people, but not as writers of even the second rank. That driven bunch invested so much integrity in their foolish, guilt-ridden politics that they had none left for their work. Tell me, did Franz Kafka need a swimming pool?''

``Barney's Version'' is the apologia pro vita sua of its hero, a fleet-footed marital tap dancer. Clara, Number One Wife, (1950-52), belonged to a batch of Montrealers who adorned the postwar expatriate scene in Paris; she did gloomy nonfigurative paintings, wrote cryptic poetry, and adopted a bohemian lifestyle (though, as Barney remarked, ``It would help if you bathed occasionally''). That fidgety, neurotic Clara should wed bibulous Barney, a natural-born entrepreneur, rather than an artist, doesn't seem in the cards. Neverthelss, despite the odds, they marry. Tragedy ensues. Subsequently, Clara's art and sullen craft attain posthumous recognition, and her life filters into exemplary myth ``as a feminist icon, beaten on the anvil of male chauvinist insentience.''

Wife Number Two (1958-'60), always called The Second Mrs. Panofsky rather than given a name -- in fact, none of Barney's wives has a last name -- is a quintessential JCP (Jewish Canadian Princess). Returning to Montreal, Barney launches a tacky TV production unit, Totally Unnecessary Productions, which will thrive and make him rich. The Second Mrs. Panofsky promises faux-genteel respectability; their marriage, however, gets off on the wrong foot because (a) the wedding date conflicts with a crucial game of the Stanley Cup playoffs -- the Canadiens bulk large in these pages, since Barney is a fan who reads The Hockey News over breakfast; (b) Barney's father, Izzy, a rough-hewn veteran detective, regales his cultivated new in-laws with tales of police brutality; and (c) the groom, dancing with the bride at the reception, glances past her shoulder and is smitten by love at first sight. Miriam (Wife Number Three, 1960- ) has to believe it, a giant leap of faith, when Barney abandons the party and follows her home.

In ``Barney's Version'' Richler brings off one of the most difficult feats of a satirical novelist -- winning the affection of the reader for a character who is a world-class vulgarian. Barney is very, very funny. His lubricious fantasies about his grade-school teacher and his jokes about diverse sacred cows aren't constructed on mechanical foundations; they spring out of his irrepressible character. A self-made man whose formal education consisted of playing snooker at the Mount Royal Billiards Academy, he is nevertheless a sophisticated reader. His literary hero, Samuel Johnson, provides a suitable precept for any occasion, whether it concerns the barflies at Barney's favorite watering hole or the award of the Governor General's fiction prize to McIver, a rival from Paris days, which prompts Barney to send him the good Doctor's poem, ``The Vanity of Human Wishes.''

The dominant voice of the novel is Barney's, taken from the manuscript he left behind following his commitment to a nursing home. He tends to forget or confuse dates, so occasional footnotes supplied by his son and editor, Michael, correct his factual errors. Thus the story's two voices act in counterpoint -- Barney's expansive, ironic, and brusque, and Michael's dry, short, and measured. Barney fears he's losing his memory (which indeed proves the case) so he's forever trying to recall the names of the Seven Dwarfs, the author of ``The Man In the Grey Flannel Suit,'' and what they call the thing used to strain spaghetti (a colander).

Michael, however, receives his most strenuous workouts as a footnoter whenever hockey appears in the plot (``Actually it was Pulford who scored first, at 4:27, assists Armstrong and Brewer. Bonin scored at 9:56, assisted by Henri Richard and Harvey, and Geoffrion scored at 19:26, assisted by Backstrom and Johnson.''). He's also useful as a device to comment upon scenes where Barney's version is deliberately ambiguous. Did Barney murder his best friend, Boogie, whom he discovered in bed with The Second Mrs. Panofsky? Had he told the truth at the trial, which was presided over by Mr. Justice Euclid Lazure, who had flirted with fascism ``as a sensitive young Outremont fop'' and marched among the throng that streamed down the Main in 1942, smashing plate-glass windows in Jewish shops and chanting, ``Kill them! Kill them!''?

Often Barney's day begins with an outrage he's read about in the newspaper. The ``tongue police'' have been at it again, measuring signs to make sure the English lettering isn't a quarter-inch larger than the French. A woman in California has splashed her significant other with rubbing alcohol and set him on fire upon discovering that he had eaten her chocolate bar. A music teacher, 41, has been charged, 12 years after the fact, with seducing boys, then aged 13 to 15, in a youth orchestra. For the satirist there is never a dearth of material. Still, ``Barney's Version'' isn't totally satirical, particularly in the afterword, where victims of Alzheimer's disease receive compassionate portrayals. Mordecai Richler's wonderful comic novel, his 10th, depicts a world askew but not without a moral compass.