A wonderful but challenging book
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An astonishing novel, flawed but vital, by the Poet Laureate of Gloom, Leonard Cohen. Those familiar with the Canadian singer-songwriter's work will recognise many of the themes running through 'Beautiful Losers' - love, loss, death, sex, religion and wry humour. However, the explicitness of the material and the language may deter those who expect 'Suzanne'-styled characters to flit in and out of the proceedings. It is a challenging work; there is no plot to speak of, while the three main characters consist of the narrator, an unidentifed friend known as 'F', and the narrator's wife Edith.
We increasingly learn of the complexities of the three-way love triangle. Edith and 'F' are both dead by the start of the novel, leading the damaged narrator to is corruptness, sex is redemption, and death is the ultimate breakdown in communication. The dark poetry of this book, sprinkled lovingly on Cohen's songs, makes 'Beautiful Losers' a kind of cross between 'Last Exit to Brooklyn', 'Ulysses', and Frederico Garcia Lorca. A young Bob Dylan at the height of his fame once wrote a free-form novel, 'Tarantula'. It wasn't very good. By contrast, 'Beautiful Losers' both illumniates and expands the inherent themes in the music of Leonard Cohen, and is in itself a literary triumph.
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Cohen's majestic and poetic Masorah.
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This book illustrates what we always suspected of the author. That his humour is ubiquitous. Amongst the truly wierd, springs this poetic laugh in the face of the "nothing special", which is all life, from the imaginarilly organised to the raggedly free and gloriously wasted. Can we see here the beginning of Mr. Cohen's Buddhist aesthetic adventure or maybe just another bend in the river? I think so. For example. Can it be long before his wonderful design for motorised, plastic, priapic aviation is fulfilled by one of our underused aviation manufacturers? In the name of just doing it, I think not. It may already be in a store near you. If you're on a re-visit to this nerveless breakdown of unconscious thinking out loud, then you might recall the feelings. They might be different on this occasion and in the future. For what its worth, I recommend the trial with all the errors.
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The work of an artist and poet
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I brought to this book a whole lot of baggage with regards, Leonard Cohen : The Singer/Songwriter. I was expecting dispair wrapped in a crispy shell of depression. I'm glad to say I was wrong, rarely have I read a book that felt like it was answering real questions. It's not a book to give Grandma for Christmas but buy it and read it for yourself ...
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Rapturous disection of the human heart.
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Published in 1966, Cohen's Beautiful Losers is yet to be surpassed in terms of energy. The heart felt lyricism of this novel veers towards the insane - as well it should given the subject matter. The exploration of a saint's life, thrown together with the narrator's sense of bewilderment and wonder at the chaos in his own heart and the crueller chaos of the world in which he lives are thrown together into a stew of sex and devotion. Though involving Jewish, Christian and Native American traditions, this is a humanist liturgy of the highest order.
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