Montreal is a city of contrasts: biting cold
winter follows sweltering summer, concrete high-rises border lush, sprawling
parks, la langue Française clashes with the English language, and rampant corruption makes news
headlines alongside the city’s proliferation of social justice movements. Writer
Mordecai Richler and musician Leonard Cohen, through their tumultuous personal and professional lives, personify the contrasting sensibilities of Montreal’s
schizophrenic arts community. Both Jewish, Montreal-born, and wildly successful,
the two artists have had distinctive impacts on the city’s art community, and
have spawned vastly different legacies.
Mordecai Richler followed an unlikely path to
literary success. Born in 1931 in Montreal’s middle-class Jewish neighborhood,
the Mile End, Richler’s family was of modest means. He attended Concordia
University, then Sir George Williams College, for English but failed to
complete his degree. His relationship with his family was turbulent, and he
ceased communication with his mother altogether later in life. At 19 he left
Canada for Europe and spent twenty years living in France, Spain and London
before returning to Canada. Upon his return he found himself disenchanted with
the political circumstances which had become the everyday reality of life in
Quebec and Montreal, and considered the effects to be ruinous of the city he
held such a deep affection for. As a result, much of his later work was
dedicated to critiques and commentaries on provincial and federal politics.
Richler’s personal life is the subject of his novel, Barney’s Version, as well its 2010 screen adaptation of the same
name. Married twice, it was with his second wife that Richler had several
children and produced the bulk of his literary work, going on to receive, among
a swath of accolades, three Governor General’s Awards.
In itself conflicting, the breadth of Richler’s
work consists of novels, news articles, screenplays and children’s books, which
elicited an array of responses from his Montreal and Canadian audience.
Divisive and controversial, he was critical of Quebec nationalism, Canadian
nationalism, the Anglophone community, the Catholic community and the Jewish
community; in effect, he was successful in drawing the ire of almost every
minority group in Quebec. In a scathing article published for the New Yorker,
Richler decried the Quebec separatist movement, inciting strong opposition to
his work and even an onslaught of hate mail and personal threats. He was often
misrepresented by critics in the media and he was, to an extent, demonized
within the province as an anti-Quebecker, sexist, self-hating anti-Semite. Some
of his more controversial written work was banned by the Bloc Quebecois, only fuelling
Richler’s zeal
for sparking political discourse. An article for The Gazette describes gaffs
that Richler became known for, such as lobbying the Quebec government for the
creation of a “Twice as Much” bylaw, which would require that French be spoken
at twice the volume of English, or the creation of the “Unpure Wool Society”
which awarded a “Prix Parizeau” to distinguished Anglophone writers in Quebec.
Antics such as this further cemented his reputation as anti-Quebec nationalist,
and served to discredit his literary work – today, few Canadian universities
teach Richler’s novels despite their popularity (Barber), indicating that his
divisive tactics had lasting consequences for his status in the literary community.
Deriving his foundations from the same literary
community, Leonard Cohen’s tumultuous journey from burgeoning poet to world-famous
musician is just as fascinating as the volume of his work is impresssive. In
contrast to Richler, Cohen was born in 1934 to a successful, upper-middle class
family in Montreal’s affluent Westmount neighborhood. Upon obtaining a BA from
McGill University, he had already built a reputation for his poetry, much of
which was dedicated to his father who died when Cohen was nine. Continuing to
write poetry and novels, he chose to live a hermetic lifestyle with his lover
at that time on Hydra Island in Greece. Over time, following mixed reviews of
his written work, Cohen shifted his focus to songwriting although he was later
awarded the Governor General’s award for a subsequent poetry publication. His
commendable string of lovers, battle with depression, relationship with Judaism
and later Buddhism, and belief in social justice were some of the major
influences that formed the basis for Cohen’s songwriting; surely, it is the
depth and expanse of subject matter in his work that has allowed him to transcend
such a breadth of demographics and establish the massive following that he has
today.
Cohen’s popularity can be attributed to the
capacity of his work to relate to a diverse audience. Even in his formative
years, his poetry was well-received by critics, securing him his reputation as
a respectable artist within Canada. Outside of literary circles, Cohen appealed
to a variety of musical tastes. The song “The Partisan” related to those
oppressed by war; it was later associated with the Polish solidarity movement,
and contributed to the antiwar theme in Cohen’s work. Topics addressed in his
music spanned the oppression of the gay community in the United States, his
personal desolation, romantic successes and failures, political injustice, and religious
experiences. He became known for his unique sound and style, setting him apart
from contemporaries in the folk genre. Cohen is a member of the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame and the recipient of a Grammy Award, yet he has been praised for
his humility and true dedication to the artistic process – just this week he
received the Glenn Gould Prize for his lifetime of work, and dedicated the
$50,000 in prize money to the Canada Council for the Arts (CBC News). One of
Canada’s most prized cultural icons, Leonard Cohen has built an enduring
musical and literary legacy, and his work will continue to influence and
inspire for generations to come.
Both undeniably brilliant and demonstrably
successful, both political and complex, these artists exist on opposite sides
of a rift between Montreal and wider Canada’s cultural palate and tolerance for
controversy. While Cohen’s antiwar, social justice stance strikes a chord with
Quebec’s political sentiments, Richler’s political tack, though honest, served
to alienate him from his domestic audience and stigmatize his work within
Montreal’s art community. Richler’s pugnacious political pieces continue to
incite Francophone/Anglophone tensions from beyond the grave and his
literature, although widely read and critically acclaimed, has been snubbed by
many leading Canadian academic institutions. Cohen on the other hand is held up
as an example of the pride of Quebec, especially Anglophone Quebec, and is
lauded for his lifetime of achievement. What this hugely divided opinion of
these men illuminates in the Canadian and Quebecois cultural psyche is a
limited, conditional tolerance for dissent. Both artists cherished the quality
of authenticity in their work, yet it was Cohen’s diplomatic crusade for social
justice and not Richler’s audacious criticisms of government that ultimately succeeded
in winning the favor of the Canadian audience.
Works Cited
Bauch,
Hubert. “Mordecai Richler was no friend of Quebec’s Political Class”. The Gazette 30 Jun. 2011. Web. 17 May
2012.
Barber,
John. “Why Mordecai Richler isn’t being studied in Canadian universities”. The Globe and Mail 22 Dec. 2010. Web. 17
May 2012.
CBC News.
“Leonard Cohen donates $50K from Glenn Gould Prize”. CBC News 15 May 2012. Web. 17 May 2012.
