Just so damned cool, not in the self-conscious, phony way, but secure about itself, confident, sexy. A great place to spend the college years...

Sorry to be nitpicky but there's a typo in this article.

Michel Tremblay's amazing play is "Les Belles-Soeurs", not "Souers" as written above.

(or "Les Belles-Sœurs" to be precise)

I'm homesick all of a sudden.

Thank you for correcting "Les Belles Soeurs," we have changed it accordingly.

Having enjoyed 5 Montréal winters (1976-81), let me say that the season of snow is more than just a grim endurance test that must be passed in order to earn the erotic awakening of spring! Winter is cross-country skiing and tobogganning in Mount Royal Park....clomping around in clunky, felt-lined, toasty-warm Sorel boots....weekend trips to the Laurentians....and March sugaring-off parties among the maples! Vive l'hiver!

Homesick too! Moved to Ontario, but Montreal is where the heart is.

Reading this piece and the letters attached gives me a bit of a shiver. My children and grandchildren still live in Mtl suburbs. I lived in and around Mtl for about 20 some yrs.

So many crazy memories popup for me. I lived there as an unhappy married man, a mixed up separated man and a never successful enough businessman. I lived in a nice semi-detached half way up Westmount Mountain and enjoyed that time most of all.

I even remember sharing the Cafe de Paris in the Ritz Carlton Hotel with Mordecai and his wife one fine Fall lunch time. I recall that I sort of envied the way he was hosted by the waiters and Maitre d'. So long ago!

Montreal today you can have. I live in Vancouver now.

No more Richler. But Schwartz's on the Main I miss. I can still smell the aroma of grilling steaks, hot smoked meat, french fries and the crowd on the stools and cramped tables and the lineups at the door, whatever the season!

And taste the martinis at Chez Georges! Enough useless nostalgia!

I quite like Montreal. Mind you being I am not biased since I am from the Quebec City. ;)

I never fail to visit Montreal when I head home for a visit. My Scottish wife insists on it. She loves its vibrancy and the incredible choice of restuarents.

I have been to this glorious city at least a dozen times, each visit being more meorable than the last. The literature of the city is a true glory. Poetry doesn't stand in very well for a travel guide, but that should not let the readers of this fine piece ignore the likes of A.M. Klein and Irving Layton.

A few years ago, Slate published a set of pieces by Gary Shteyngart on a trip to Montreal to tread the same ground as did Mordechai Richler. It was a hoot.

Gosh. The more I write the more I want to go.

I lived in Montreal from 1999 to 2003 and let me tell you, McGill: You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I found you.

That city is number one on the list of places that should be wiped off the map without mercy.

And, yes, I am now going to walk right out of this library where I am currently using the computers and never come back. I am also never reading salon again.

Thanks for ruining my fucking day.

Montreal is over.

"Thanks for ruining my fucking day".

Ah, the venom! Such bitterness can only follow a disastrous love story, or some great personal humiliation. Wouldn't we all like to hear what happened to Thomas Garman in Montreal between 1999 and 2003?

"wiped off the map without mercy"? If Montreal were wiped off the map, you might as well shut down the whole country and call it a mistake.

This guy's vituperation for the place is almost comically bizarre.

It's too bad Garman has publicly vowed never to read Salon, on top of banning himself from the (university?) library where he had access to a computer. I guess we'll never hear his story.

In case you you do take a peek, Garman, Montreal's not "over". You just didn't get it.

Mike Gordon

Anyone who can't squeeze a good time out of Montreal must have a serious redwood up their butt.

I've lived in Montreal for two years now and my only regret is that I didn't move here sooner.

What an exciting, vibrant city, with just the right mix of American capitalism, European socialism, and Quebecois liberalism.

For years I had considered moving here (from Boston) but was worried the day-to-day life wouldn't live up to the glitz, and I'm happy to say the life on the ground is even better.

Lovely nostalgia, but I can't say I recognize my own city when I read this piece. If Montreal is a jewel, then Bezmozgis is revealing just one of its many, many facets, and a limited and historical one at that.

Yes, there are still elements of Richler's and Cohen's words that are still alive in this city, but less and less as the years go by. Yes, one could embark on that literary tour, but it seeking out traces of those semi-fictional, by-gone motifs, one would overlook so much of what makes today's Montreal interesting.

And I can't help but chuckle at Bezmozgis' quintessential Ontario kids' reaction to our image as Canada's "Sin City"... kinda like locals watching tourists looking for thrills in NYC on 42nd St. or in Amsterdam in the redlight district.

I just think Quebecers are less hypocritical about what exists in every Canadian city: eating, drinking, drugs, sex, fun, games, etc. No shame is required, but yes, if it's illegal, you still might get caught... c'est la vie!

Just married and unable to afford the Paris honeymoon we desired, my new bride and I hied ourselves to Montreal instead. We have since made it to Paris, and Montreal did not suffer by the comparison.

On top of all the other attributes noted in the article and my fellow readers, I must add Le Canadiens to the list of things that make Montreal great. (In fact, to this day we place our replica Le Coupe Stanley atop our television each playoff season.) I will concede that perhaps it is mere jealousy, as Chicago followers of the miserable Blackhawks, but if you are a fan of the sport you really must see the Habs in action in Montreal!

We are looking forward to our next visit -- perhaps this fall -- for the food, music and hockey.