The word “game” defines both the genre of Richler’s novel and his creative method. Richler gravitates towards tragic farcical writing, the novel is written in the best traditions of Anglo-American literature of laughter - it is no coincidence that the author became the winner of the prestigious Canadian award named after the remarkable humorist and humor theorist Stephen Leacock. Richler-Panofsky has a sense of humor for every taste—catchy, sophisticated, “black.” "Barney's Version" is replete with witticisms, jokes, puns, evil and apt caricatures, reads like a "modern comedy", demonstrating an extensive gallery of modern capriccios - tricksters, crooks, zhuirs, drunkards, corrupt politicians, resourceful businessmen, graphomaniacs, bribed investigators and lawyers, eccentrics, madmen, extremists.