The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is the fourth novel by
Canadian author Mordecai Richler . It was first published in
1959 by André Deutsch , then adapted to the screen Plot and
setting The novel is set mostly in Montreal , during the 1940s.
The city is old, dirty, crowded and divided into sections based
on ethnicity and religion. There are poor districts, like St.
Urbain Street, and there are wealthy districts, like Westmount .
Parts of the story also take place in the Laurentian mountains ,
in the resort town of Ste. Agathe and surrounding areas. The
novel focuses on the young life of Duddy Kravitz, a poor Jewish
boy raised in Montreal, Quebec. Family, friends, lovers and
teachers all contribute to Duddy's burgeoning obsession with
power and money — desires embodied in the possession of land. As
a child, Duddy learns from his grandfather that "a man without
land is nobody," and Duddy comes to believe land ownership to be
life's ultimate goal and the means by which a man is made into a
somebody. Duddy begi