To truly appreciate "Barney's Version" for all its multiplicity of levels, a familiarity with its author's life is essential. Mordecai Richler was born January 27, 1931. William Shatner was born March 22, 1931. Both went to Baron Byng High School in Montréal. "Barney's Version" is a show business autobiography, albeit about a fictional person drawn from Richler's own life (as do his other books) with its "wink and a nod" inclusion of his high school friends discreetly (but transparently) fictionalized. As a repeated dilemma in "Barney's Version," the protagonist struggles with sexual victimization perpetrated by women in his life (except for one) starting with Barney being deflowered by a high school teacher -- a Catholic woman obsessed with Jews and overwhelmed by hatred of Jews, who resolves that since Jews are the damned, screwing young boys was righteous as a cancellation of sins. "Barney's Version" and "The Horseman of St. Urbain Street" as well as "Duddy Kravitz" recount a successful Hollywood actor "from the neighborhood." Logically, equestrian Shatner provided the basis of the title character in "The Horseman of St. Urbain Street." Query the odds this public school teacher deflowered Shatner, too?All of Mordecai Richler's novels deserve a read. They plow the same lush Canadian soil. In the final analysis, "Barney's Version" is about growing up as a minority figure in Canada; it speaks to that more than onset of Alzheimer's Disease. Proper mention should be made for the literary principle of amplification. This may be the first fictional work where, more than simple cognitive declination, a character has Alzheimer's. Despite decades of loyal sexual restraint, cognitive impairment cost him his marriage. Comparison could be made to Shakespeare's King Lear, but Barney's children come through for him. Also, more than a class-conscious poor boy succeeding to middle class wealth, Barney is a Canadian worldly figure. Consistent name dropping bootstraps the show business bio's veracity painting a clear contrasting impression this protagonist is "real." Richler's comments on those popular culture giants of his day are too delicious to go unmentioned. The challenge is to absorb what he says in the "mirror" about being an outsider in the U.S.A., or the U.K., or anywhere a predominant society "tolerates" any ethnic subculture.For all of that, Richler's fiction polarizes his readership and loses commercial value inasmuch as average Protestant and Catholic Canadians have near zero interest in Jews. Without the brilliant performances of Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman, the movie version would not have achieved its artistic height. Sadly and similarly, South Asians and East Asians immigrants to Canada today have their own second generation Canadians and still the predominant society has benign disregard for minority protagonists' stories. If readers can understand the redolent Yiddishkeit, the non-mainstream nature of the story, and absorb the delightful complexity, this vibrant, masterful work of literature deserves reading because it speaks to universal truths.