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Beautiful Losers
One of the best-known experimental novels of the 1960s, Beautiful Losers is Leonard Cohen’ s most defiant and uninhibited work. As imagined by Cohen, hell is an apartment in Montreal, where a bereaved and lust-tormented narrator reconstructs his relations with the dead. In that hell two men and a woman twine impossibly and betray one another again and again. Memory blurs into blasphemous sexual fantasy--and redemption takes the form of an Iroquois saint and virgin who has been dead for 300 years but still has the power to save even the most degraded of her suitors.
First published in 1966, Beautiful Losers demonstrates that its author is not only a superb songwriter but also a novelist of visionary power. Funny, harrowing, and fiercely moving, it is a classic erotic tragedy, incandescent in its prose and exhilarating for its risky union of sexuality and faith.
First published in 1966, Beautiful Losers demonstrates that its author is not only a superb songwriter but also a novelist of visionary power. Funny, harrowing, and fiercely moving, it is a classic erotic tragedy, incandescent in its prose and exhilarating for its risky union of sexuality and faith.
243 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
About the author
Leonard Cohen
240 books1,923 followersLeonard Norman Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963.
Cohen's earliest songs (many of which appeared on the 1968 album Songs of Leonard Cohen) were rooted in European folk music melodies and instrumentation, sung in a high baritone. The 1970s were a musically restless period in which his influences broadened to encompass pop, cabaret, and world music. Since the 1980s he has typically sung in lower registers (bass baritone, sometimes bass), with accompaniment from electronic synthesizers and female backing singers.
His work often explores the themes of religion, isolation, sexuality, and complex interpersonal relationships.
Cohen's songs and poetry have influenced many other singer-songwriters, and more than a thousand renditions of his work have been recorded. He has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10, 2008 for his status among the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters".
Cohen's earliest songs (many of which appeared on the 1968 album Songs of Leonard Cohen) were rooted in European folk music melodies and instrumentation, sung in a high baritone. The 1970s were a musically restless period in which his influences broadened to encompass pop, cabaret, and world music. Since the 1980s he has typically sung in lower registers (bass baritone, sometimes bass), with accompaniment from electronic synthesizers and female backing singers.
His work often explores the themes of religion, isolation, sexuality, and complex interpersonal relationships.
Cohen's songs and poetry have influenced many other singer-songwriters, and more than a thousand renditions of his work have been recorded. He has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10, 2008 for his status among the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters".
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June 24, 2018
worst day ever. thanks for all the everything, l.c.
i have tried to review this book on four separate occasions. for some reason, this is one of the most diffcult books for me to defend to others and to justify to myself.
on the one hand, it's leonard cohen. enough said.
on the other hand, i can be objective when it comes to him. dear heather is a crap album. there, i said it. i'm sorry, but the world did not need a 9/11 song from him, it is terrible terrible terrible.
on the other hand, it's leonard cohen.
you see my plight? as a piece of literature, this has a ton of failings, but the bright spots are scouring.
leonard cohen has a way with words that can annihilate me. he has a song i cannot even listen to because it takes everything i hate about myself and puts it to music, and it is an exquisite torture i can only permit myself when i am in the blackest of moods.
there are portions of this novel that i am in awe of:
it has the most devastating passive-aggressive suicide of all time, and its ultimate failure as a gesture is more powerful to me than anything i have ever read. this is not a spoiler, because that is not what the book is about.
so, what is it about? well, it is mishmash catalog of a scholar's griefs, obsessions, betrayals, recollections, and erotic fascinations. it swerves through time in a way that a more experienced novelist, someone with greater control over the long-form, could perhaps have turned into something more successful, but even with all of its flaws, it remains a favorite of mine.
cohen is not a master storyteller. he is a master wordsmith, and many of his songs operate perfectly well as poetic short stories; chelsea hotel, story of isaac, seems so long ago, nancy, but even though there are passages here that completely stop my heart,overall this book is an experimental novel that overextends itself and never becomes a novel, just a series of episodes that tie together, but doesn't add anything to the canon of great experimental novels.
so, why is it among my favorites?
he may not have the gas to be a master novelist, but as a sprinter, there is no one better with words.i wanted to include a quotation here, a passage that always makes me stuns me with its power, but i realized today that the "passage" is actually pages 57-61. and there ain't no way i am going to type all that out. but just know that he out-lolita's lolita in the "making young girls seem attractive" sense. nabokov never convinced me to become a humbert, but cohen makes some good points. more romance novelists should take their cues from his erotic finesse, because he is the only writer who has ever made me appreciate that words can be very sexy, even if i have no personal desire to go after little girls.
and with all cohen's work, the erotic is so intertwined with the spiritual, it never reads as tawdry. maybe not as classy here as some of his other erotic works, but not as grotesque as other writers with less restraint would come across.
this is a fucking mess of a review. i don't know why i even tried, except i saw this book from across the room and thought it might be time to actually try to review it. and now that i have written so much, it seems a shame to just scrap it.
whatever.
let's just call this the ramblings of a lunatic and leave it at that.
come to my blog!
i have tried to review this book on four separate occasions. for some reason, this is one of the most diffcult books for me to defend to others and to justify to myself.
on the one hand, it's leonard cohen. enough said.
on the other hand, i can be objective when it comes to him. dear heather is a crap album. there, i said it. i'm sorry, but the world did not need a 9/11 song from him, it is terrible terrible terrible.
on the other hand, it's leonard cohen.
you see my plight? as a piece of literature, this has a ton of failings, but the bright spots are scouring.
leonard cohen has a way with words that can annihilate me. he has a song i cannot even listen to because it takes everything i hate about myself and puts it to music, and it is an exquisite torture i can only permit myself when i am in the blackest of moods.
there are portions of this novel that i am in awe of:
it has the most devastating passive-aggressive suicide of all time, and its ultimate failure as a gesture is more powerful to me than anything i have ever read. this is not a spoiler, because that is not what the book is about.
so, what is it about? well, it is mishmash catalog of a scholar's griefs, obsessions, betrayals, recollections, and erotic fascinations. it swerves through time in a way that a more experienced novelist, someone with greater control over the long-form, could perhaps have turned into something more successful, but even with all of its flaws, it remains a favorite of mine.
cohen is not a master storyteller. he is a master wordsmith, and many of his songs operate perfectly well as poetic short stories; chelsea hotel, story of isaac, seems so long ago, nancy, but even though there are passages here that completely stop my heart,overall this book is an experimental novel that overextends itself and never becomes a novel, just a series of episodes that tie together, but doesn't add anything to the canon of great experimental novels.
so, why is it among my favorites?
he may not have the gas to be a master novelist, but as a sprinter, there is no one better with words.i wanted to include a quotation here, a passage that always makes me stuns me with its power, but i realized today that the "passage" is actually pages 57-61. and there ain't no way i am going to type all that out. but just know that he out-lolita's lolita in the "making young girls seem attractive" sense. nabokov never convinced me to become a humbert, but cohen makes some good points. more romance novelists should take their cues from his erotic finesse, because he is the only writer who has ever made me appreciate that words can be very sexy, even if i have no personal desire to go after little girls.
and with all cohen's work, the erotic is so intertwined with the spiritual, it never reads as tawdry. maybe not as classy here as some of his other erotic works, but not as grotesque as other writers with less restraint would come across.
this is a fucking mess of a review. i don't know why i even tried, except i saw this book from across the room and thought it might be time to actually try to review it. and now that i have written so much, it seems a shame to just scrap it.
whatever.
let's just call this the ramblings of a lunatic and leave it at that.
come to my blog!![Profile Image for Orsodimondo [part time reader at the moment].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1528452721i/10490224._UY200_CR39,0,200,200_.jpg)
September 22, 2022
COLPO DI SOLE
I set cinematografici sono luoghi di raro cinismo, permeati di spirito da caserma. Una battuta ricorrente è dire a un altro che sta facendo due film insieme: il primo e ultimo. Gran bell’incoraggiamento.
Il parallelo nasce dal fatto che alcuni critici classificano questo come il secondo romanzo di Cohen, altri invece come l’ultimo.
Leonard Cohen scrisse due romanzi, questo è il secondo. E in effetti, dopo non ce ne sono stati altri.
Li scrisse più di cinquanta anni fa – questo è del 1966, se non sbaglio.
Dopo ci sono state splendide poesie in forma di canzoni. E pochi poeti hanno scritto musica bella e immortale come la sua.
I belli e perdenti (beatiful losers) di questo romanzo sono prima di tutto A., il protagonista io narrante, innamorato di sua moglie Edith, e innamorato di F., amico amante modello, e anche amante della defunta Edith.
A. studia gli irochesi, una ragazza irochese in particolare, Catherine: forse è innamorato anche di lei, che è vissuta tre secoli prima di lui, e questo sembrerebbe renderlo perdente in partenza.
A sconfiggerlo definitivamente c’è la morte della moglie, suicida nel pozzo dell’ascensore.
Se poi ci fosse ancora qualche dubbio sulla sconfitta di A., aggiungerei che la Catherine irochese che tanto lo assorbe, Catherine Tekakwitha per la precisione, si convertì al cristianesimo, fece voto di castità, si lasciò morire di stenti, privazioni e penitenze (era solita adornarsi il girovita con una fascia di cuoio decorata all’interno con chiodi che si stringeva causando quello che è facile immaginare), in un delirio mistico e fu la prima santa vergine di quel popolo.
Lou Reed è stato un grande fan di questo libro.
In un’intervista Leonard Cohen ha raccontato di aver scritto questo romanzo nel giardino di una casetta dell’isola di Hydra nel Mar Egeo, tra rocce e fiori di campo, e lo ha definito il frutto di un colpo di sole.
In una lettera al suo editore invece scrisse che ”Beautiful Losers” è una storia d'amore, un salmo, una messa nera, un monumento, una satira, una preghiera, un grido, la mappa di una strada attraverso luoghi selvaggi, uno scherzo, un affronto di cattivo gusto, un'allucinazione, una noia, un irrilevante sfoggio di virtuosismo malato, un trattato gesuitico, una stravaganza escatologica. In breve: una sgradevole epica religiosa di incomparabile bellezza.
All’epoca mi piacque, ne apprezzai lo sperimentalismo (è un incantesimo, un rituale sciamanico, una messa, un sabba), l’uscire fuori dai binari, il non avere una vera e propria trama ma seguire illuminazioni e flusso di coscienza, l’essere visionario psichedelico e pieno di immagini come la musica che mi piaceva e che mi piace, che ascoltavo in quel periodo, e che ascolto ancora.
Ma sono contento che Cohen si sia dedicato alla musica: forse abbiamo perso un grande scrittore, ma è certo che abbiamo guadagnato un immenso musicista.
Hydra, l’isola del mar Egeo, dove Cohen scrisse il romanzo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH1XT...
THE FUTURE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkSER...
FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7vbH...
SEEM SO LONG AGO, NANCY
I set cinematografici sono luoghi di raro cinismo, permeati di spirito da caserma. Una battuta ricorrente è dire a un altro che sta facendo due film insieme: il primo e ultimo. Gran bell’incoraggiamento.
Il parallelo nasce dal fatto che alcuni critici classificano questo come il secondo romanzo di Cohen, altri invece come l’ultimo.
Leonard Cohen scrisse due romanzi, questo è il secondo. E in effetti, dopo non ce ne sono stati altri.
Li scrisse più di cinquanta anni fa – questo è del 1966, se non sbaglio.
Dopo ci sono state splendide poesie in forma di canzoni. E pochi poeti hanno scritto musica bella e immortale come la sua.
I belli e perdenti (beatiful losers) di questo romanzo sono prima di tutto A., il protagonista io narrante, innamorato di sua moglie Edith, e innamorato di F., amico amante modello, e anche amante della defunta Edith.
A. studia gli irochesi, una ragazza irochese in particolare, Catherine: forse è innamorato anche di lei, che è vissuta tre secoli prima di lui, e questo sembrerebbe renderlo perdente in partenza.
A sconfiggerlo definitivamente c’è la morte della moglie, suicida nel pozzo dell’ascensore.
Se poi ci fosse ancora qualche dubbio sulla sconfitta di A., aggiungerei che la Catherine irochese che tanto lo assorbe, Catherine Tekakwitha per la precisione, si convertì al cristianesimo, fece voto di castità, si lasciò morire di stenti, privazioni e penitenze (era solita adornarsi il girovita con una fascia di cuoio decorata all’interno con chiodi che si stringeva causando quello che è facile immaginare), in un delirio mistico e fu la prima santa vergine di quel popolo.
Lou Reed è stato un grande fan di questo libro.
In un’intervista Leonard Cohen ha raccontato di aver scritto questo romanzo nel giardino di una casetta dell’isola di Hydra nel Mar Egeo, tra rocce e fiori di campo, e lo ha definito il frutto di un colpo di sole.
In una lettera al suo editore invece scrisse che ”Beautiful Losers” è una storia d'amore, un salmo, una messa nera, un monumento, una satira, una preghiera, un grido, la mappa di una strada attraverso luoghi selvaggi, uno scherzo, un affronto di cattivo gusto, un'allucinazione, una noia, un irrilevante sfoggio di virtuosismo malato, un trattato gesuitico, una stravaganza escatologica. In breve: una sgradevole epica religiosa di incomparabile bellezza.
All’epoca mi piacque, ne apprezzai lo sperimentalismo (è un incantesimo, un rituale sciamanico, una messa, un sabba), l’uscire fuori dai binari, il non avere una vera e propria trama ma seguire illuminazioni e flusso di coscienza, l’essere visionario psichedelico e pieno di immagini come la musica che mi piaceva e che mi piace, che ascoltavo in quel periodo, e che ascolto ancora.
Ma sono contento che Cohen si sia dedicato alla musica: forse abbiamo perso un grande scrittore, ma è certo che abbiamo guadagnato un immenso musicista.
Hydra, l’isola del mar Egeo, dove Cohen scrisse il romanzo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH1XT...
THE FUTURE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkSER...
FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7vbH...
SEEM SO LONG AGO, NANCY
April 11, 2024
Oh, you really are such a pretty one -
I see you’ve gone and changed your name again.
Just when I’d climbed this whole mountainside
To wash my eyelids in the rain.
So Long, Maryanne
Enmired in the gluey morass of an impossibly down 'n out love triangle, this novel speaks volumes of the sexual revolution of the 1960's that uprooted our family values and charred the superstructure of our cultural heritage.
"Oh yeah?" says Breaveman -
"Its foundation was already rotten!"
So saying, they're off - Breaveman within an addled, lost odd trio of misfits - searching in their madcap subjective way for an oasis in the desert of nothingness.
All men shall be sailors, then,
Until the sea will free them...
Freedom they will find. But an oasis in the desert, or a life raft in the sea?
They just won't find it in ugliness.
It's an impossible achievement when they've scorched any Sacred Love in their family's priceless bequest to them. They've trashed their shared values.
They are desperate rebels. Rebels without a cause, and thus, Beautiful Losers.
Do you get it? WE are all Breaveman's and have cause to be ashamed of it.
And you know what else, fellow Breaveman's? You can't get up to heaven by doubting its presence in advance. There's no escape from where you are now until you face that fact. Our hard lives are to be endured, and faith helps.
She shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers -
Face the facts. Garbage will always be only garbage. We are a fallen race. But Faith was once our ONLY exit out of our shame until we renounced our guilt in mindless self-oblivion: we are all complicit. Work with it.
You know, I sometimes wonder if the love triangle in Losers is based on the same personal life experiences as the author's mournful song, Famous Blue Raincoat:
And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer,
What words can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you -
I'm sorry you stood in my way.
We'll never get anywhere in our endless circle of self-recrimination and loveless love and blame -
We have our inheritance.
Now we must pay for it.
I see you’ve gone and changed your name again.
Just when I’d climbed this whole mountainside
To wash my eyelids in the rain.
So Long, Maryanne
Enmired in the gluey morass of an impossibly down 'n out love triangle, this novel speaks volumes of the sexual revolution of the 1960's that uprooted our family values and charred the superstructure of our cultural heritage.
"Oh yeah?" says Breaveman -
"Its foundation was already rotten!"
So saying, they're off - Breaveman within an addled, lost odd trio of misfits - searching in their madcap subjective way for an oasis in the desert of nothingness.
All men shall be sailors, then,
Until the sea will free them...
Freedom they will find. But an oasis in the desert, or a life raft in the sea?
They just won't find it in ugliness.
It's an impossible achievement when they've scorched any Sacred Love in their family's priceless bequest to them. They've trashed their shared values.
They are desperate rebels. Rebels without a cause, and thus, Beautiful Losers.
Do you get it? WE are all Breaveman's and have cause to be ashamed of it.
And you know what else, fellow Breaveman's? You can't get up to heaven by doubting its presence in advance. There's no escape from where you are now until you face that fact. Our hard lives are to be endured, and faith helps.
She shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers -
Face the facts. Garbage will always be only garbage. We are a fallen race. But Faith was once our ONLY exit out of our shame until we renounced our guilt in mindless self-oblivion: we are all complicit. Work with it.
You know, I sometimes wonder if the love triangle in Losers is based on the same personal life experiences as the author's mournful song, Famous Blue Raincoat:
And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer,
What words can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you -
I'm sorry you stood in my way.
We'll never get anywhere in our endless circle of self-recrimination and loveless love and blame -
We have our inheritance.
Now we must pay for it.
April 11, 2019
"I don't need a reason
For what I became
I've got these excuses
They're tired and lame
I don't need a pardon, no, no, no, no, no
There's no one left to blame
I'm leaving the table
I'm out of the game
I'm leaving the table
I'm out of the game"
Leonard Cohen's last song.
Died 7 Nov 2016 in the same year Bowie and Prince died.
For what I became
I've got these excuses
They're tired and lame
I don't need a pardon, no, no, no, no, no
There's no one left to blame
I'm leaving the table
I'm out of the game
I'm leaving the table
I'm out of the game"
Leonard Cohen's last song.
Died 7 Nov 2016 in the same year Bowie and Prince died.
December 2, 2007
Okay, this book is mental, and proves Laughing Leonard not just to be the Grocer of Despair as his detractors may have unkindly phrased it, but capable of impressive rudeness and high humour. And then you get exquisite prose poems like the following, which the great Buffy Sainte-Marie extracted and made an incredible song out of. I would say that as one who profoundly believes that if there is a God he clearly has long since got bored with the human race if he ever noticed he'd created us in the first place which I doubt he did - this following piece is the only thing I ever read which might have changed my whole mind on the subject. I cannot read this without my skin tingling and my eyes forming tears out of the sheer unnameability of my emotions.
God is alive; Magic is afoot
God is alive; Magic is afoot
God is afoot; Magic is alive
Alive is afoot
Magic never died
God never sickened
many poor men lied
many sick men lied
Magic never weakened
Magic never hid
Magic always ruled
God is afoot
God never died.
God was ruler
though his funeral lengthened
Though his mourners thickened
Magic never fled
Though his shrouds were hoisted
the naked God did live
Though his words were twisted
the naked Magic thrived
Though his death was published
round and round the world
the heart did not believe
Many hurt men wondered
many struck men bled
Magic never faltered
Magic always led.
Many stones were rolled
but God would not lie down
Many wild men lied
many fat men listened
Though they offered stones
Magic still was fed
Though they locked their coffers
God was always served.
Magic is afoot. God rules.
Alive is afoot. Alive is in command.
Many weak men hungered
Many strong men thrived
Though they boasted solitude
God was at their side
Nor the dreamer in his cell
nor the captain on the hill
Magic is alive
Though his death was pardoned
round and round the world
the heart did not believe.
Though laws were carved in marble
they could not shelter men
Though altars built in parliaments
they could not order men
Police arrested Magic
and Magic went with them,
for Magic loves the hungry.
But Magic would not tarry
it moves from arm to arm
it would not stay with them
Magic is afoot
it cannot come to harm
it rests in an empty palm
it spawns in an empty mind
but Magic is no instrument
Magic is the end.
Many men drove Magic
but Magic stayed behind
Many strong men lied
they only passed through Magic
and out the other side
Many weak men lied
they came to God in secret
and though they left him nourished
they would not say who healed
Though mountains danced before them
they said that God was dead
Though his shrouds were hoisted
the naked God did live
This I mean to whisper to my mind
This I mean to laugh with in my mind
This I mean my mind to serve 'til
service is but Magic
moving through the world
and mind itself is Magic
coursing through the flesh
and flesh itself is Magic
dancing on a clock
and time itself the magic length of God.
God is alive; Magic is afoot
God is alive; Magic is afoot
God is afoot; Magic is alive
Alive is afoot
Magic never died
God never sickened
many poor men lied
many sick men lied
Magic never weakened
Magic never hid
Magic always ruled
God is afoot
God never died.
God was ruler
though his funeral lengthened
Though his mourners thickened
Magic never fled
Though his shrouds were hoisted
the naked God did live
Though his words were twisted
the naked Magic thrived
Though his death was published
round and round the world
the heart did not believe
Many hurt men wondered
many struck men bled
Magic never faltered
Magic always led.
Many stones were rolled
but God would not lie down
Many wild men lied
many fat men listened
Though they offered stones
Magic still was fed
Though they locked their coffers
God was always served.
Magic is afoot. God rules.
Alive is afoot. Alive is in command.
Many weak men hungered
Many strong men thrived
Though they boasted solitude
God was at their side
Nor the dreamer in his cell
nor the captain on the hill
Magic is alive
Though his death was pardoned
round and round the world
the heart did not believe.
Though laws were carved in marble
they could not shelter men
Though altars built in parliaments
they could not order men
Police arrested Magic
and Magic went with them,
for Magic loves the hungry.
But Magic would not tarry
it moves from arm to arm
it would not stay with them
Magic is afoot
it cannot come to harm
it rests in an empty palm
it spawns in an empty mind
but Magic is no instrument
Magic is the end.
Many men drove Magic
but Magic stayed behind
Many strong men lied
they only passed through Magic
and out the other side
Many weak men lied
they came to God in secret
and though they left him nourished
they would not say who healed
Though mountains danced before them
they said that God was dead
Though his shrouds were hoisted
the naked God did live
This I mean to whisper to my mind
This I mean to laugh with in my mind
This I mean my mind to serve 'til
service is but Magic
moving through the world
and mind itself is Magic
coursing through the flesh
and flesh itself is Magic
dancing on a clock
and time itself the magic length of God.
Shelved as 'abandoned'
December 12, 2016When I heard of Leonard Cohen's death I thought it would be the perfect moment to finally tackle Beautiful Losers. As it is written on the first page dedication, I received the book as a birthday gift in 2005. It has been sitting on my bookshelf for more than 10 years, waiting for me to give it a chance. A chance was given but I could not make it past page 50. This is the craziest shit I have ever read. Violent, sexual, nonsensical gibberish... and the obsession for Catherine Tekakwitha, the 17th-century Mohawk saint... I just can't digest that. I will leave the book unrated as I read too little to make an informed opinion.
An example of the prose so you know what you are getting into if you want to read this:
“F. once said: At sixteen I stopped fucking faces. I had occasioned the remark by expressing disgust at his latest conquest, a young hunchback he had met while touring an orphanage. F. spoke to me that day as if I were truly one of the underprivileged; or perhaps he was not speaking to me at all when he muttered: Who am I to refuse the universe?”
An example of the prose so you know what you are getting into if you want to read this:
“F. once said: At sixteen I stopped fucking faces. I had occasioned the remark by expressing disgust at his latest conquest, a young hunchback he had met while touring an orphanage. F. spoke to me that day as if I were truly one of the underprivileged; or perhaps he was not speaking to me at all when he muttered: Who am I to refuse the universe?”
Shelved as 'dropped'
November 6, 2013He sentenced me to twenty pages of boredom.
I feel about her as many of my readers must feel about pretty Negresses who sit across from them in the subway, their thin hard legs shooting down from what pink secrets. (p17)
rolls eyes
Why is it only now, years past, my prick rises up at the vision of her standing there so absurdly painted, her breasts dark as eggplants, her face resembling Al Jolson? (p18)
drops book forever
I feel about her as many of my readers must feel about pretty Negresses who sit across from them in the subway, their thin hard legs shooting down from what pink secrets. (p17)
rolls eyes
Why is it only now, years past, my prick rises up at the vision of her standing there so absurdly painted, her breasts dark as eggplants, her face resembling Al Jolson? (p18)
drops book forever
February 27, 2016
I used to have a problem with Leonard Cohen.
He gave me headache.
This has to be explained.
When I was 5 years old my mum was a teacher in a small nursery school somewhere on the mountains. Having not the money for hiring a babysitter and being myself more or less the same age of her schoolkids I was joining her on Saturdays, when my school was closed.
At that time -1987- most of the Italian radio stations were hard to catch on the mountains we were heading to.
Still, the Fiat Uno of my parents could easily cope with that problem having a -drum roll- tape recorder.
The only problem was that the one and only tape we had in the car, for reasons I would not investigate, was "The Best of Leonard Cohen".
The road was all curves and harpin bends crowded of trucks carrying gravel between Florence and Bologna, my hometown. It was early in the morning. I wanted to stay in bed. My mum insisted for making me drink milk for breakfast.
As a result of these factors: I suffered from car sickness.
And my mum was listening to The Best of Leonard Cohen.
How much I couldn't stand that tape? It's hard to tell without anger.
All the songs gave me nausea and migraine, but particularly "Hallelujah", "Hey that's no way to say goodbye" and "Famous Blue Raincoat" (it's four in the morning, the end of december...) were the equivalent of a water torture standing with my head upside down.
I think I puked a couple of times. Not that I felt guilty for that.
Anyways. It took me exactly 15 years to win over my hate for Cohen (meanwhile my parents went to see him live twice and bought a pile of his CDs), but now I can say the fellow became one of my favourite listenings. Maybe I'm just getting old, who knows?
And yet, until now I did not have the chance of reading anything of what he wrote neither poetry nor fiction.
This "Beautiful Losers" is my first paper Cohen.
And I must say it is not giving me migraine so far.
On the contrary, I am enjoying this book pretty much. Who would have said that the Quebecer minstrel was so obsessed by oral sex and Iroquois Indians? The lyrics of "Chelsea Hotel no.2" should have let me guess the first topic, though.
It's time to be fair: "Beautiful Losers" is a worth reading and its author knows how to be romantic and not trivial even while passing from Kant (Immanuel, the German philosopher) to cunt (the vulgarism for the female genitalia). Believe me: ol'Leonard does it here.
Quoting three lines of the song "The Partisan" by the same Cohen, I could summarize the plot as it follows:
"There were three of us this morning, I'm the only one this evening, but I must go on".
He gave me headache.
This has to be explained.
When I was 5 years old my mum was a teacher in a small nursery school somewhere on the mountains. Having not the money for hiring a babysitter and being myself more or less the same age of her schoolkids I was joining her on Saturdays, when my school was closed.
At that time -1987- most of the Italian radio stations were hard to catch on the mountains we were heading to.
Still, the Fiat Uno of my parents could easily cope with that problem having a -drum roll- tape recorder.
The only problem was that the one and only tape we had in the car, for reasons I would not investigate, was "The Best of Leonard Cohen".
The road was all curves and harpin bends crowded of trucks carrying gravel between Florence and Bologna, my hometown. It was early in the morning. I wanted to stay in bed. My mum insisted for making me drink milk for breakfast.
As a result of these factors: I suffered from car sickness.
And my mum was listening to The Best of Leonard Cohen.
How much I couldn't stand that tape? It's hard to tell without anger.
All the songs gave me nausea and migraine, but particularly "Hallelujah", "Hey that's no way to say goodbye" and "Famous Blue Raincoat" (it's four in the morning, the end of december...) were the equivalent of a water torture standing with my head upside down.
I think I puked a couple of times. Not that I felt guilty for that.
Anyways. It took me exactly 15 years to win over my hate for Cohen (meanwhile my parents went to see him live twice and bought a pile of his CDs), but now I can say the fellow became one of my favourite listenings. Maybe I'm just getting old, who knows?
And yet, until now I did not have the chance of reading anything of what he wrote neither poetry nor fiction.
This "Beautiful Losers" is my first paper Cohen.
And I must say it is not giving me migraine so far.
On the contrary, I am enjoying this book pretty much. Who would have said that the Quebecer minstrel was so obsessed by oral sex and Iroquois Indians? The lyrics of "Chelsea Hotel no.2" should have let me guess the first topic, though.
It's time to be fair: "Beautiful Losers" is a worth reading and its author knows how to be romantic and not trivial even while passing from Kant (Immanuel, the German philosopher) to cunt (the vulgarism for the female genitalia). Believe me: ol'Leonard does it here.
Quoting three lines of the song "The Partisan" by the same Cohen, I could summarize the plot as it follows:
"There were three of us this morning, I'm the only one this evening, but I must go on".
July 3, 2011
Everything is sacred. Nothing is profane. It is a new age concept born out in the sixties and stained with all of that decade's excesses including sex and drugs. Beautiful Losers was published in 1966.
The book jacket tells me this book is about a love triangle lived out in a hell that is an apartment in Montreal. I am not sure that is true. If this is hell, it is not Dante's hell. It is not Sartre's hell. It is a disjointed, incomplete and unfinished hell.
The Catholic Saint Kateri Tekakawitha serves as a fourth love interest and enunciation of the characters' identities and nationalism. She anchors the revolution that the characters fail to deliver. Edith is the female love interest. F is an aging Quebecois nationalist. The protagonist is a broken Canadian historian studying the plight of his country's indigenous nations. The four characters share and serve every possible permutation of sexual relationship. Eroticism figures greatly in this book.
Experimentation in live theater is fair. The audience signed up for the abuse. Literary experiments are inherently unfair because the reader probably did not know what they were in for when they picked up the book. On the other hand, the literary experiment is more courageous than the experiment executed in live performance. The author who experiments wildly risks losing his audience for all of eternity. The live performer who experiments only needs to survive the day.
Beautiful Losers is at times, expansive and at other times, indulgent and at still other times, abusive to the reader. This is not a book for the ages. It is a book of an age. Today's age of consumerism is not yesterday's age of revolution. We expect our money's worth today and are too cynical to indulge the whims of the artist.
I will not recommend you haul out the bifocals of historical context to read this book. I refuse to sentence Leonard Cohen to the boneyard of sentiment. He has too much to offer for that.
The good (great); "I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock."
The bad; "Some believe the wart will clear up. Some are of the opinion that the wart will vanish with time. Some are reluctant to consider the wart at all. There are even those who deny the existence of warts."
The ugly; "Edith Edith Edith long things forever Edith stretch on E E E octopus complexion purse Edith lips lips area thy panties Edith Edith Edith Edith Edith knew you your wet rivulets Eeeeeddddddiiiiittthhh yug yug sniffle truffle deep bulb bud button sweet soup pea split rub blood rubber knob girl come head bub bup one bloom pug pig yum one tip tongue..."(it keeps going for another estimated three hundred word-sounds).
Beautiful Losers is no longer relevant. It is, at best, a tertiary influence on today's best literature. I cannot recommend it unless you are as curious as me about the song writer Leonard Cohen. Even then, you will get no closer to his genius after completing this book.
The book jacket tells me this book is about a love triangle lived out in a hell that is an apartment in Montreal. I am not sure that is true. If this is hell, it is not Dante's hell. It is not Sartre's hell. It is a disjointed, incomplete and unfinished hell.
The Catholic Saint Kateri Tekakawitha serves as a fourth love interest and enunciation of the characters' identities and nationalism. She anchors the revolution that the characters fail to deliver. Edith is the female love interest. F is an aging Quebecois nationalist. The protagonist is a broken Canadian historian studying the plight of his country's indigenous nations. The four characters share and serve every possible permutation of sexual relationship. Eroticism figures greatly in this book.
Experimentation in live theater is fair. The audience signed up for the abuse. Literary experiments are inherently unfair because the reader probably did not know what they were in for when they picked up the book. On the other hand, the literary experiment is more courageous than the experiment executed in live performance. The author who experiments wildly risks losing his audience for all of eternity. The live performer who experiments only needs to survive the day.
Beautiful Losers is at times, expansive and at other times, indulgent and at still other times, abusive to the reader. This is not a book for the ages. It is a book of an age. Today's age of consumerism is not yesterday's age of revolution. We expect our money's worth today and are too cynical to indulge the whims of the artist.
I will not recommend you haul out the bifocals of historical context to read this book. I refuse to sentence Leonard Cohen to the boneyard of sentiment. He has too much to offer for that.
The good (great); "I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock."
The bad; "Some believe the wart will clear up. Some are of the opinion that the wart will vanish with time. Some are reluctant to consider the wart at all. There are even those who deny the existence of warts."
The ugly; "Edith Edith Edith long things forever Edith stretch on E E E octopus complexion purse Edith lips lips area thy panties Edith Edith Edith Edith Edith knew you your wet rivulets Eeeeeddddddiiiiittthhh yug yug sniffle truffle deep bulb bud button sweet soup pea split rub blood rubber knob girl come head bub bup one bloom pug pig yum one tip tongue..."(it keeps going for another estimated three hundred word-sounds).
Beautiful Losers is no longer relevant. It is, at best, a tertiary influence on today's best literature. I cannot recommend it unless you are as curious as me about the song writer Leonard Cohen. Even then, you will get no closer to his genius after completing this book.
Read
May 29, 2012thank you, mr. cohen, for making me have to get off in the bathroom of muldoon's diner in wolverine, michigan on a road trip to my mom's with my boyfriend and his parents.
May 7, 2009
Decadently filthy, obtuse and unrelenting, Beautiful Losers is characteristically unlike the Leonard Cohen of the early 1960s. Rather than the rhythmic, dulcet poetry and lyrics, the novel is of dense prose that more resembles the beat poetry of Kesey or Ginsberg, encapsulating the loose spirit and free living of the era in which it was written, having been first published in 1966.
Beautiful Losers captures two distinct historical periods and myriad tensions that threaten to tear them apart. In the first, the narrative frame of the novel, Cohen explores the relationship between three friends and lovers: the unnamed narrator, his oldest friend, F., and his wife Edith. In the second, a story-within-a-story that becomes the obsession of the three friends, he relates the historical background of the French Jesuit occupation of the Iroquois land in the mid-1600s.
Each of these periods is experiencing a great upheaval, a cultural change beset on two sides by devout opponents. The three lovers exist in a world where Montréal is civilly torn between the Anglophones and the Francophones, the English and the French, the Queen and the Québécois. Three hundred years in the past, a Mohawk girl named Kateri Tekakwitha is struggling between the heritage of her native Iroquois and the incoming Jesuits.
Both stories are paralleled by the manner in which the characters deal with the change -- through mutually assured self-destruction. Edith and F. descend further and further into a hypersexual relationship in which taboo becomes old-hat and every limit is tested. In a way, F.'s manipulation of Edith into this world of hedonism is what will eventually cause both her suicide and his death, syphilitic, in an institution for the criminally insane. The unnamed narrator, left alone without his two friends, the pillars upon which he leaned, is drawn into an obsession with Kateri, so-called the first Virgin Indian. His obsession with her virtue, however, is not in attaining it, but in defiling it, urged, as F. put it, to "fuck a Saint" just for the experience. Kateri, herself, toys with self-destruction in her own idyllic way, learning the self-flagellating nature of the Jesuits and, after being baptised, exaggerating it until she ends her own life in the name of God.
The novel is like an impossible puzzle at times, daring the reader to unravel its knotted subtext but offering no clues as to where to begin. This, itself, is a chaotic representation of the characters lost in their own desire for anarchy. Cohen's novel is post-modern fiction at its most experimental, frequently resembling what can only be described as a Pollock in words, layer upon layer of wordplay and phoneme manipulation. Brutally satirical and eerily prophetical -- at one point, in the name of a Sovereign Québec, F. blows up the statue of Queen Victoria in Victoria Square, Montréal in an act strangely foreshadowing the FLQ bombings that occurred half a decade after the novel was written -- Beautiful Losers captures the spirit of being caught between two worlds, often slipping seamlessly between English and French and between French and Iroquois. Cohen's novel blends both humour and bitter commentary that, even to a modern reader, never gets stale or loses its playful charm.
Beautiful Losers captures two distinct historical periods and myriad tensions that threaten to tear them apart. In the first, the narrative frame of the novel, Cohen explores the relationship between three friends and lovers: the unnamed narrator, his oldest friend, F., and his wife Edith. In the second, a story-within-a-story that becomes the obsession of the three friends, he relates the historical background of the French Jesuit occupation of the Iroquois land in the mid-1600s.
Each of these periods is experiencing a great upheaval, a cultural change beset on two sides by devout opponents. The three lovers exist in a world where Montréal is civilly torn between the Anglophones and the Francophones, the English and the French, the Queen and the Québécois. Three hundred years in the past, a Mohawk girl named Kateri Tekakwitha is struggling between the heritage of her native Iroquois and the incoming Jesuits.
Both stories are paralleled by the manner in which the characters deal with the change -- through mutually assured self-destruction. Edith and F. descend further and further into a hypersexual relationship in which taboo becomes old-hat and every limit is tested. In a way, F.'s manipulation of Edith into this world of hedonism is what will eventually cause both her suicide and his death, syphilitic, in an institution for the criminally insane. The unnamed narrator, left alone without his two friends, the pillars upon which he leaned, is drawn into an obsession with Kateri, so-called the first Virgin Indian. His obsession with her virtue, however, is not in attaining it, but in defiling it, urged, as F. put it, to "fuck a Saint" just for the experience. Kateri, herself, toys with self-destruction in her own idyllic way, learning the self-flagellating nature of the Jesuits and, after being baptised, exaggerating it until she ends her own life in the name of God.
The novel is like an impossible puzzle at times, daring the reader to unravel its knotted subtext but offering no clues as to where to begin. This, itself, is a chaotic representation of the characters lost in their own desire for anarchy. Cohen's novel is post-modern fiction at its most experimental, frequently resembling what can only be described as a Pollock in words, layer upon layer of wordplay and phoneme manipulation. Brutally satirical and eerily prophetical -- at one point, in the name of a Sovereign Québec, F. blows up the statue of Queen Victoria in Victoria Square, Montréal in an act strangely foreshadowing the FLQ bombings that occurred half a decade after the novel was written -- Beautiful Losers captures the spirit of being caught between two worlds, often slipping seamlessly between English and French and between French and Iroquois. Cohen's novel blends both humour and bitter commentary that, even to a modern reader, never gets stale or loses its playful charm.
Read
September 2, 2018Ovim postmodernističkim pisanijama ide ocena ili jedan ili pet, nema sredine, a kako me mrzi da (sama sebi) obrazlažem i jednu i drugu - ostaće neocenjeno.
April 19, 2008
I don't know what the hell to say about this book. So I'll talk about the feelings. Sometimes, I had to shut it because it was too nauseating. Sometimes I thought it was delicious, and disgusting. Sometimes my thoughts ran in parallel with it. At one point I declared that it was the best book in all the world because it just felt...so good.
I'll try to break it down. This was by far the strangest and most uninhibited thing that I have ever read. I felt as though I had never read a book before. Cohen wrote it when he was severely, severely depressed. Severely depressed. And I'll say it again. He was severely depressed. There's no point in trying to understand the ins and outs of the whole thing, because I just don't think you're supposed to. I'll copy-paste what it says on the back anyway...
"One of the best-known experimental novels of the 1960s, Beautiful Losers is Cohen's most defiant and uninhibited work. The novel centres upon the hapless members of a love triangle united by their sexual obsessions and by their fascination with Catherine Tekakwitha, the 17th-century Mohawk saint.
By turns vulgar, rhapsodic, and viciously witty, Beautiful Losers explores each character's attainment of a state of self-abandonment, in which the sensualist cannot be distinguished from the saint."
I don't usually talk books over with my mom, but I did this time, after I told her it was the best book ever, and she believes it's a love-hate. There's pretty much no in between. For her it was more of a hate, she is glad she read it but she has no desire to ever again. For me it was a love. I think any strong reaction is a good one; is book is provocative beyond anything I've ever seen or read. But not for the faint of heart.
I'll try to break it down. This was by far the strangest and most uninhibited thing that I have ever read. I felt as though I had never read a book before. Cohen wrote it when he was severely, severely depressed. Severely depressed. And I'll say it again. He was severely depressed. There's no point in trying to understand the ins and outs of the whole thing, because I just don't think you're supposed to. I'll copy-paste what it says on the back anyway...
"One of the best-known experimental novels of the 1960s, Beautiful Losers is Cohen's most defiant and uninhibited work. The novel centres upon the hapless members of a love triangle united by their sexual obsessions and by their fascination with Catherine Tekakwitha, the 17th-century Mohawk saint.
By turns vulgar, rhapsodic, and viciously witty, Beautiful Losers explores each character's attainment of a state of self-abandonment, in which the sensualist cannot be distinguished from the saint."
I don't usually talk books over with my mom, but I did this time, after I told her it was the best book ever, and she believes it's a love-hate. There's pretty much no in between. For her it was more of a hate, she is glad she read it but she has no desire to ever again. For me it was a love. I think any strong reaction is a good one; is book is provocative beyond anything I've ever seen or read. But not for the faint of heart.
June 19, 2014
My completely random musings on Beautiful Losers, not to be mistaken for my otherwise musings which tend to actually have some through line.
Humans are at their core all animalistic. It is society which shapes us, lacquers us, and tells us to hide those natures like a dirty little secret. This book is completely unapologetically sensual. Completely uninhibited which, amusingly, is probably why I like it so much.
There is way too many microscopic sexual definitions out there. Why is it that we, as humans, have this asinine need to categorize sexuality? Why do we have to be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, etc., etc., why can't we just refer to ourselves as sexual beings and move the fuck along?! Classification of sex or sexuality is such a ridiculous thing.
I have never been so fascinated with the sensuality and eroticism of a book before, it hasn't happened.
Now, I will say that I have also never been sexuality attracted to a 13-year-old girl nor have I had any cravings for many of the desires and cravings thought, and acted upon, in this book. That being said, the coveting of innocence is a historical absolute. There are so many examples of it in our written history that I will not even begin to list them here. Personally, I have never experienced this particular desire, nor do I necessarily agree with it, but it is in fact the most highly paid for commodity of humanity's history. Dowries, diamond rings, etc. I think, oft times that people forget the basis of desire itself, it is by definition illogical. Desires, urges, cravings, these things are not propagated by intellect. They are the animal within us.
As a 13 year-old I was much more interested in catching frogs or playing on the monkey bars than sex or my own sexuality. I was still trying to figure out why kissing was such a good idea when all it seemed to me was an awkward slimy mess, but I digress.
I enjoyed the way sensuality was written as a bodily experience not merely as an organ experience. This happens too frequently in today's society, we forget that eroticism is about more than coming or achieving orgasm (by the way, I think that term is completely stupid, I have no idea why I'm using it here. Here's your ribbon, sir, you achieved orgasm!) that it is an entire body's sensual form. In this way an ankle or wrist can be a very sensual thing.
I realize now I have yammered on at length about sexuality and sensuality when truthfully it really isn't all the book is about. It is about being uninhibited, experiencing life and the living of it.
It is spiritual and sexual and at times rather harshly disturbing.
This isn't the great American novel, I don't even fully understand why I loved it like I did. Perhaps, because it is like a bird with a broken wing: not more lovely than the other birds but no less astonishing for it's brokenness. It's raw, it's unchartered, it's messy, it's insane and it's beautiful.
Random thoughts, I warned you.
Future readers note: If the idea of uninhibited sexuality, vulgar urges or animalistic desires disturbs you on any level, this is NOT the book for you.
January 6, 2015
Man did I hate this book. I read the whole thing and I hated it the whole time.
May 14, 2020
Much like that review of Things Fall Apart that says “way too much information about yams,” this book contains way too much information about eating ass.
Read
December 23, 2021I have no idea how to rate this or review it. A lot of it is mind numbing and insane.
June 27, 2020
Although it is generally recognized that this novel destroyed Leonard Cohen's promising career as a writer, it nonetheless has interesting moments. It is my fervent hope that the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (a.k.a. l'Enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones disparues et assassinées) currently underway in Canada will consult "Beautiful Losers" as native women in this work die like flies after having been abused by white males. Cohen's novel remains as pertinent as it was in 1966 when it was published.
One of the protagonists ins none other than Kateri Tekakwitha (beatified by John Paul II in 1980 and canonised by Benedict XVI in 2012.) One has to wonder if Cohen's novel did not accelerate the beatification process which had been stalled for over 100 years. Cohen considered Tekakwitha to be simultaneously close to God and utterly mad. Cohen's view was that the spirit is healed through the coit not abstinence. In Cohen's view, Tekakwitha who died at the very young age of 24 in 1680 went too far with the Catholic practices of flagellation and fasting.
The narrator is a Jew living in Montreal in the 1960s, who has a masturbatory obsession for Kateri Tekakwitha, and has married an indigenous woman named Edith. Although Edith has been raped by a gang of young white man, it appears to be the psychological abuse from the narrator which drives her to commit suicide at age 24. Edith is then the doppelgänger of Kateri. However, unlike Kateri, Edith is rather libertine. Cohen offers long passages in which he alternates descriptions of the religious extasies of Kateri with those of Edith's vagina. Cohen's writing will be considered audacious by some and in bad taste by others.
In other to deal with the rising Quebec Independence movement, Cohen makes one of Edith's lovers a partisan of Quebec separating Canada. In one memorable passage the narrator accompanies the separatist in his car on his trip to Ottawa the federal capital where the separatist will be sworn in as a member of parliament. The two decide to jerk each othe off as they drive along causing their car to crash.
Cohen is clearly divided on the issue of Quebec seceding from Canada. He understands why the Quebecois want to have their own country but he believes that their cause is futile. Groups acquire power only to lose it. The Mohawks defeated the Algonquins but then were conquered by the French who in turn where conquered by the English.
"Beautiful Losers" is even worse than my review suggests. My dream is that the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (l'Enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones disparues et assassinées) will ban this book which can only do damage to Cohen's legacy.
J'espère que les commissaires de l'Enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones disparues et assassinées qui est actuellement en cours vont consulter ce roman pendant leurs recherches car les femmes autochtones y meurent comme des mouches. En plus, elles sont toutes des victimes des abus sexuelles ou psychologiques aux mains des blancs. Les perdants magnifiques n'a rien perdu de son actualité depuis sa parution en 1966.
Une des protagoniste est nulle autre Kateri Tekakwitha (une Mohawk béatifiée par Jean Paul II en 1980 et canonisée par Benoit XVI en 2012.) On se demande si le roman de Léonard Cohen qui a augmenté la notoriété de Kateri Tekakwitha n'a pas contribué à sa béatification. Cohen la considère en meme temps proche de Dieu et complètement folle. D'après Cohen ce n'est pas l'abstinence qui guerit les maux spirituels mais plutôt le coït; si Dieu prefere l'abstinence pour ses élus, Dieu est fou. Kateri pousse trop loin les pratiques catholiques (notamment le jeûne et la flagellation) et meurt à 24 ans en 1680.
Le narrateur du roman qui vit à Montréal pendant les années 1960 a une obsession masturbatoire pour Kateri Tekakwitha et épouse une jeune autochtone qui s'appelle Edith. Adolescente, Edith se fait violer par un groupe de jeune blances mais c'est la cruauté psychologique du narrateur qui lui pousse à s'enlever la vie à vingt-quatre ans. Edith est donc la doppelgängerin de Kateri mais contrairement à Kateri Edith est très libertine. Cohen nous donne des longs passages qui décrivent tantôt les ecstases réligieux de Kateri tantôt le vagin d'Edith. Bien des admirateurs de Cohen vont dire qui'il fait preuve de beaucoup d'audace. D'autres seront bouche-bés par le mauvais gout flagrant.
Afin d'aborder le theme de la révolution Tranquille Cohen introduit le personnage de F un politicien qui milite dans le mouvement pour l'indépendance de Québec. F est l'amant est du narrateur et d'Edith.
Dans un passage mémorable, le narrateur accompagne F à à Ottawa où F sera assermenté comme député dans le parlement Canadien. Sur l'autoroute 30 dans la voiture de F, les deux amis se passent mutuellement une poignée avant de déraper.
Sur la question de l'indépendance de Québec, Cohenn est divisé. Il a des sympathies pour les Québecois qui veulent être maîtres chez eux mais fondamentalment il croit que les indépendantistes luttent pour une cause perdue d'avance. On n'accede au pouvour que pour le perdre. Les Mohawkas ont vaincu les Algonquins. Les francais ont vaincu les Mohawks et les anglais ont conquis les francais.
Les perdants magnifiques est tout à fait execrable. Mon rêve est que l'Enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones disparues et assassinées ordonne la suppression qui surabonde en commentaires grivoises sur les femmes autochtones. Ce serait une bonne chose car ce roman ternit considérablement la réputation de Cohen.
One of the protagonists ins none other than Kateri Tekakwitha (beatified by John Paul II in 1980 and canonised by Benedict XVI in 2012.) One has to wonder if Cohen's novel did not accelerate the beatification process which had been stalled for over 100 years. Cohen considered Tekakwitha to be simultaneously close to God and utterly mad. Cohen's view was that the spirit is healed through the coit not abstinence. In Cohen's view, Tekakwitha who died at the very young age of 24 in 1680 went too far with the Catholic practices of flagellation and fasting.
The narrator is a Jew living in Montreal in the 1960s, who has a masturbatory obsession for Kateri Tekakwitha, and has married an indigenous woman named Edith. Although Edith has been raped by a gang of young white man, it appears to be the psychological abuse from the narrator which drives her to commit suicide at age 24. Edith is then the doppelgänger of Kateri. However, unlike Kateri, Edith is rather libertine. Cohen offers long passages in which he alternates descriptions of the religious extasies of Kateri with those of Edith's vagina. Cohen's writing will be considered audacious by some and in bad taste by others.
In other to deal with the rising Quebec Independence movement, Cohen makes one of Edith's lovers a partisan of Quebec separating Canada. In one memorable passage the narrator accompanies the separatist in his car on his trip to Ottawa the federal capital where the separatist will be sworn in as a member of parliament. The two decide to jerk each othe off as they drive along causing their car to crash.
Cohen is clearly divided on the issue of Quebec seceding from Canada. He understands why the Quebecois want to have their own country but he believes that their cause is futile. Groups acquire power only to lose it. The Mohawks defeated the Algonquins but then were conquered by the French who in turn where conquered by the English.
"Beautiful Losers" is even worse than my review suggests. My dream is that the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (l'Enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones disparues et assassinées) will ban this book which can only do damage to Cohen's legacy.
J'espère que les commissaires de l'Enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones disparues et assassinées qui est actuellement en cours vont consulter ce roman pendant leurs recherches car les femmes autochtones y meurent comme des mouches. En plus, elles sont toutes des victimes des abus sexuelles ou psychologiques aux mains des blancs. Les perdants magnifiques n'a rien perdu de son actualité depuis sa parution en 1966.
Une des protagoniste est nulle autre Kateri Tekakwitha (une Mohawk béatifiée par Jean Paul II en 1980 et canonisée par Benoit XVI en 2012.) On se demande si le roman de Léonard Cohen qui a augmenté la notoriété de Kateri Tekakwitha n'a pas contribué à sa béatification. Cohen la considère en meme temps proche de Dieu et complètement folle. D'après Cohen ce n'est pas l'abstinence qui guerit les maux spirituels mais plutôt le coït; si Dieu prefere l'abstinence pour ses élus, Dieu est fou. Kateri pousse trop loin les pratiques catholiques (notamment le jeûne et la flagellation) et meurt à 24 ans en 1680.
Le narrateur du roman qui vit à Montréal pendant les années 1960 a une obsession masturbatoire pour Kateri Tekakwitha et épouse une jeune autochtone qui s'appelle Edith. Adolescente, Edith se fait violer par un groupe de jeune blances mais c'est la cruauté psychologique du narrateur qui lui pousse à s'enlever la vie à vingt-quatre ans. Edith est donc la doppelgängerin de Kateri mais contrairement à Kateri Edith est très libertine. Cohen nous donne des longs passages qui décrivent tantôt les ecstases réligieux de Kateri tantôt le vagin d'Edith. Bien des admirateurs de Cohen vont dire qui'il fait preuve de beaucoup d'audace. D'autres seront bouche-bés par le mauvais gout flagrant.
Afin d'aborder le theme de la révolution Tranquille Cohen introduit le personnage de F un politicien qui milite dans le mouvement pour l'indépendance de Québec. F est l'amant est du narrateur et d'Edith.
Dans un passage mémorable, le narrateur accompagne F à à Ottawa où F sera assermenté comme député dans le parlement Canadien. Sur l'autoroute 30 dans la voiture de F, les deux amis se passent mutuellement une poignée avant de déraper.
Sur la question de l'indépendance de Québec, Cohenn est divisé. Il a des sympathies pour les Québecois qui veulent être maîtres chez eux mais fondamentalment il croit que les indépendantistes luttent pour une cause perdue d'avance. On n'accede au pouvour que pour le perdre. Les Mohawkas ont vaincu les Algonquins. Les francais ont vaincu les Mohawks et les anglais ont conquis les francais.
Les perdants magnifiques est tout à fait execrable. Mon rêve est que l'Enquête nationale sur les femmes et les filles autochtones disparues et assassinées ordonne la suppression qui surabonde en commentaires grivoises sur les femmes autochtones. Ce serait une bonne chose car ce roman ternit considérablement la réputation de Cohen.
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January 10, 2022*نفس خیلی خیلی عمیییق
این کتاب احتمالا تبدیل میشه به عجیبغریبترین، ویردترین، پرتوپلاترین، و دوباره عجیبغریبترین کتابی که خوندید.
پ.ن: نمیدونم چند ستاره باید بدم، شاید چندسال بعد دوباره بیام سراغش.
"خدا زنده است. جادو در جریان است. "
این کتاب احتمالا تبدیل میشه به عجیبغریبترین، ویردترین، پرتوپلاترین، و دوباره عجیبغریبترین کتابی که خوندید.
پ.ن: نمیدونم چند ستاره باید بدم، شاید چندسال بعد دوباره بیام سراغش.
"خدا زنده است. جادو در جریان است. "
April 17, 2014
Leonard Cohen has always charmed the socks off of me. Beautiful Losers is stunning, intimate, crass and hugely insightful.
October 8, 2014
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Cunts are a forest of pricks where saints and seekers exchange dirty luminescent fluids in microscopes of madhouses stitched together, and shattered, and stitched together again by tidal sways in the eternal machinery of the ever-loving Mothers.
Inspired farrago? Result of not wearing a hat in the hot Mediterranean sun? Masturbation fantasy of beatitude? Hippy dipshit revolutionary nonsense failing to revolutionize? Jews for Jesus dream of Heaven?
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph indeed! Is it ok if I read this to my liking Mr. Cohen? Thought so. Let's make a virgin of this slut.
This is a biblical porno starring Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in which all sexual and political and spiritual energies are conspiring to canonize the Blessed Catherine Tekakwitha, to elevate the feminine in a legendary retelling of the Assumption of Mary and of all tortured brides.
It begins (beyond the confines of the book) in unity in the tripartite interior of the narrator in an implied infantile sexual satisfaction – Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as one, all orifices lubricated and plugged and sliding – then fragments into a controlled farrago of a whatever-the-fuck menage a trois with Joseph devastated by Jesus' dominating fling with Mary and Jesus and Joseph jerking each other off in loving chastity and higher education, then transiently unifies in the wasp waist of an hourglass… to then flow again back into fragmentation beyond the confines of the book.
But why is Joseph constipated?
Because he is looking for Salvation, and Salvation is not the object here, Sainthood is. Saviours aren’t what’s wanted or needed, for Saviours transcend the game, remove us from it. What’s wanted are Saints who emanate from the power of the Saviour, but who stay with the game, who burrow in the filth and pain and beauty, tortured by it and scarred, made ugly. What’s wanted are Saints who lovingly stare down Death, roll around in the sheets with Death, and who are eventually made beautiful through their intimacy with Death, dying into the world, not away from it. There is no ultimate Resurrection, only a new Spring to be pounced upon and reveled in, let the shadows come when they may.
Jesus goes mad with compassion and transcendental craziness.
Mary is ruined by pricks.
And Joseph shits and survives, sustained by the Blessed Catherine Tekakwitha in huge cycles of feminine spirals (Goethe’s Realm of the Mothers) and all-enveloping wombs masquerading as cunts birthing a simultaneity of all times as Mary in her transcendent loveliness brought on by ruin ascends and descends sharing her blessed juices wrung from flesh with all the beautifully wretched seekers in the spartan tree houses of the world.
Cunts are a forest of pricks where saints and seekers exchange dirty luminescent fluids in microscopes of madhouses stitched together, and shattered, and stitched together again by tidal sways in the eternal machinery of the ever-loving Mothers.
Inspired farrago? Result of not wearing a hat in the hot Mediterranean sun? Masturbation fantasy of beatitude? Hippy dipshit revolutionary nonsense failing to revolutionize? Jews for Jesus dream of Heaven?
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph indeed! Is it ok if I read this to my liking Mr. Cohen? Thought so. Let's make a virgin of this slut.
This is a biblical porno starring Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in which all sexual and political and spiritual energies are conspiring to canonize the Blessed Catherine Tekakwitha, to elevate the feminine in a legendary retelling of the Assumption of Mary and of all tortured brides.
It begins (beyond the confines of the book) in unity in the tripartite interior of the narrator in an implied infantile sexual satisfaction – Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as one, all orifices lubricated and plugged and sliding – then fragments into a controlled farrago of a whatever-the-fuck menage a trois with Joseph devastated by Jesus' dominating fling with Mary and Jesus and Joseph jerking each other off in loving chastity and higher education, then transiently unifies in the wasp waist of an hourglass… to then flow again back into fragmentation beyond the confines of the book.
But why is Joseph constipated?
Because he is looking for Salvation, and Salvation is not the object here, Sainthood is. Saviours aren’t what’s wanted or needed, for Saviours transcend the game, remove us from it. What’s wanted are Saints who emanate from the power of the Saviour, but who stay with the game, who burrow in the filth and pain and beauty, tortured by it and scarred, made ugly. What’s wanted are Saints who lovingly stare down Death, roll around in the sheets with Death, and who are eventually made beautiful through their intimacy with Death, dying into the world, not away from it. There is no ultimate Resurrection, only a new Spring to be pounced upon and reveled in, let the shadows come when they may.
Jesus goes mad with compassion and transcendental craziness.
Mary is ruined by pricks.
And Joseph shits and survives, sustained by the Blessed Catherine Tekakwitha in huge cycles of feminine spirals (Goethe’s Realm of the Mothers) and all-enveloping wombs masquerading as cunts birthing a simultaneity of all times as Mary in her transcendent loveliness brought on by ruin ascends and descends sharing her blessed juices wrung from flesh with all the beautifully wretched seekers in the spartan tree houses of the world.
July 3, 2008
I read this in college, at about the same time as I first gave "Songs Of Love and Hate" a spin.
!?!
It's sort of strange to think of it now, having these two bizarre (not a word I take lightly) and manaical texts as my introduction to Sad-Eyed-Lenny of the Lowlands.
I'm now a huge fan and I can't shake the magic spell of his music no matter how hard I try to (I don't try very hard). His music puts me in a trance-state, he's a first run songwriter and a poet with real skill: a unique voice, an excellent sense of silence in a poem, imagery, and a uniquely wry and deadpan take on things.
This book is fucked...up, though. I'm all about perversion, and I'm not offended or freaked-out so much as startled and bedazzled by the amount of erotic craziness going on here. My memory might not serve me but I'm pretty sure I decoded it well enough.
The writing takes off and keeps up a furiously steady pace throughout. There's many long lyrical passages here which are going to be well-taken if they find themselves in the right hands.
this one's a firecracker. Very strange, very odd, very exhuberant.
I'm fairly certain that the love triangle in the story is related to (at the very least, if not the same) the one depicted in heartbreaking, haunting cadences in "Famous Blue Raincoat". I think there's some kind of documentary evidence to back this up somewhere.
October 27, 2023
Strati di sporcizia mi devo mondare dal corpo dopo la lettura di queste 300 pagine sgradevoli, sporche, blasfeme, masochiste, di queste urla tese, da una cella imbottita, verso l’eternità, nella notte più assoluta.
L’urlatore, un noto esperto di irochesi (popolazione di nativi americani), si ritrova a dover fare i conti con il suicidio di sua moglie e la morte del suo migliore amico F. Abbandonato alla solitudine più nera, invoca Catherine Tekakwhita, un’irochese vissuta nel 1600, pronta a sostituire Edith, la moglie suicida, in un escalation di erotismo sacrilego che sembra essere una roulette russa tanto per il protagonista quanto per il lettore.
La scrittura di Cohen è puro virtuosismo tecnico: sperimentale, postmoderna, poetica, sempre in lotta con se stessa e con i pensieri degradanti di questo sciamano allucinato; è una scrittura così frammentaria da far pensare inevitabilmente alla musica: un parafrasare scollegato, insensato, emotivo e inconscio. E siamo nel ‘66
Un mix acerbo tra Puttane per Gloria e i Seven Dreams di Vollmann (V. che riprenderà proprio la figura di Catherine nel secondo volume dei S.D.), un libro estremo, spinto fino all’eccesso, assolutamente imperfetto: la mappa oscura di un cervello distorto.
Ma quanto amo gli autori che si sbilanciano. Mai indifferenti, sempre estremi.
L’urlatore, un noto esperto di irochesi (popolazione di nativi americani), si ritrova a dover fare i conti con il suicidio di sua moglie e la morte del suo migliore amico F. Abbandonato alla solitudine più nera, invoca Catherine Tekakwhita, un’irochese vissuta nel 1600, pronta a sostituire Edith, la moglie suicida, in un escalation di erotismo sacrilego che sembra essere una roulette russa tanto per il protagonista quanto per il lettore.
La scrittura di Cohen è puro virtuosismo tecnico: sperimentale, postmoderna, poetica, sempre in lotta con se stessa e con i pensieri degradanti di questo sciamano allucinato; è una scrittura così frammentaria da far pensare inevitabilmente alla musica: un parafrasare scollegato, insensato, emotivo e inconscio. E siamo nel ‘66
Un mix acerbo tra Puttane per Gloria e i Seven Dreams di Vollmann (V. che riprenderà proprio la figura di Catherine nel secondo volume dei S.D.), un libro estremo, spinto fino all’eccesso, assolutamente imperfetto: la mappa oscura di un cervello distorto.
Ma quanto amo gli autori che si sbilanciano. Mai indifferenti, sempre estremi.
January 14, 2009
Leonard Cohen often makes me cry. I sat on the floor of a bookstore with my hair streaming rain and collecting the smells of coffee and ink and read his book of poetry, Stranger Music, almost cover to cover, mostly in tears. I heard his words in my head long before I remembered he sometimes sang them; I like his voice, and forget to like his music.
This book was strange - at first I wanted to hate it, to be bored by the leaping into the past and the Algonquins and the endless fucking and wailing and madness. I wanted to get tired with page after page of the interiors of a broken man and his bouncing, syphilitic friend. I didn't. Instead, I stayed up nights, marveling at further evidence that the world is exactly as beautiful and perverse as I often suspect it to be; wondering at the bravery and small kinks that make relationships what they are.
Whole pages would trundle on before I'd realize I'd read something remarkable, that I was holding my breath. I'd skip back and look for its beginning, like chasing a thread through a darkened closet to find a sweater quietly unraveling itself. I filled pages of my journal with passages carefully copied word for word. Personal, messy, often not at all a truth that I would claim, sometimes exactly what I would have wanted to say or think or feel, if I'd had the chance or had realized sooner.
What begins as a self-congratulatory, self-destructive exercise in some kind of parallel universe of writing ends as something gentle and lovely, something delicate and whole. I was impressed.
"People sneeze, F., that's all, don't make such a damn miracle out of it, it only depresses me, it's a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too."
This book was strange - at first I wanted to hate it, to be bored by the leaping into the past and the Algonquins and the endless fucking and wailing and madness. I wanted to get tired with page after page of the interiors of a broken man and his bouncing, syphilitic friend. I didn't. Instead, I stayed up nights, marveling at further evidence that the world is exactly as beautiful and perverse as I often suspect it to be; wondering at the bravery and small kinks that make relationships what they are.
Whole pages would trundle on before I'd realize I'd read something remarkable, that I was holding my breath. I'd skip back and look for its beginning, like chasing a thread through a darkened closet to find a sweater quietly unraveling itself. I filled pages of my journal with passages carefully copied word for word. Personal, messy, often not at all a truth that I would claim, sometimes exactly what I would have wanted to say or think or feel, if I'd had the chance or had realized sooner.
What begins as a self-congratulatory, self-destructive exercise in some kind of parallel universe of writing ends as something gentle and lovely, something delicate and whole. I was impressed.
"People sneeze, F., that's all, don't make such a damn miracle out of it, it only depresses me, it's a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too."
July 5, 2021
Then F. said, "But that's the only way you value it - when it falls on you from out of the trees you think it's ROTTEN FRUIT!"
Woke up at 5:28AM from a "bad" dream... the taste of fear still lasts at 7:41AM now! I started the book back in 2015 and it's a long meandering reconcile with the book after 6yrs!! I still recall some preceding/ following moment when I stopped reading the book! And everytime I read the words from F., umm... the reaction now varies across a spectrum: from violently triggered off to a little sad...!
Well, even for a Cohen-lover this book might bring unexpected surprises - and not sth that one might expect! It explodes like a loud firecracker with surprises, awe, desperation, terrific visions, beauty, and grotesque ugliness. However, it's one of the most beautiful, poetic, and majestic creations from Leonard where he let himself flow and didn't allow himself to STOP!!
I really love his concept of humans as "ordinary eternal machine" - This orgy towards love, death, betrayal, desire, lust, ambition - is woven together in such a wonderful mesh that it's hard not to look back and see, and absorb, and let oneself disappear completely ...
Would conclude with Patti Smith's beautiful poem "Wave" :
"No, it's ok.
Oh no, i'm always doing
Something's always happening to me
Yeah. well. i'll be seein' ya.
Goodbye. bye."
Woke up at 5:28AM from a "bad" dream... the taste of fear still lasts at 7:41AM now! I started the book back in 2015 and it's a long meandering reconcile with the book after 6yrs!! I still recall some preceding/ following moment when I stopped reading the book! And everytime I read the words from F., umm... the reaction now varies across a spectrum: from violently triggered off to a little sad...!
Well, even for a Cohen-lover this book might bring unexpected surprises - and not sth that one might expect! It explodes like a loud firecracker with surprises, awe, desperation, terrific visions, beauty, and grotesque ugliness. However, it's one of the most beautiful, poetic, and majestic creations from Leonard where he let himself flow and didn't allow himself to STOP!!
I really love his concept of humans as "ordinary eternal machine" - This orgy towards love, death, betrayal, desire, lust, ambition - is woven together in such a wonderful mesh that it's hard not to look back and see, and absorb, and let oneself disappear completely ...
Would conclude with Patti Smith's beautiful poem "Wave" :
"No, it's ok.
Oh no, i'm always doing
Something's always happening to me
Yeah. well. i'll be seein' ya.
Goodbye. bye."
January 15, 2023
ერთ-ერთი ყველაზე უცნაური წიგნია, რაც კი ოდესმე წამიკითხავს. ვერ ვიტყვი, რომ ყველაფერი გავიგე (სავარაუდოდ, ეგ არც იყო საჭირო ან სულაც შეუძლებელია), მაგრამ როცა კი თხრობის შეშლილ ტემპს ფეხი ავუწყე, რაღაც წარმოუდგენლად პოეტურ, სევდიან, სექსუალურ, სასაცილო და მისტიკურ აბსურდში გადავეშვი.
კოენის, როგორც მუსიკოსის, თავგადაკლული მსმენელი არასდროს ვყოფილვარ, მაგრამ მათთვის, ვისაც მისი მუსიკა გამორჩეულად უყვარს, განსაკუთრებით საინტერესო იქნება ამ წიგნის წაკითხვა და სრულიად განსხვავებული ლეონარდ კოენის გაცნობა.
"ჩვენი სიყვარული არ მოკვდება. ისტორიიდან ამოვიზარდე, რომ მეთქვა. ერთმანეთს შევინარჩუნებთ ორი მამონტის მსგავსად, მოახლოებული გამყინვარების ხანის კიდეში, გულწრფელ თამაშში გართულები, ერთმანეთს ეშვებით რომ მიეჯრებიან. ჩვენი ქვიარი სიყვარული ჩვენი კაცობის ხაზებს მყარად და სუფთად შეინარჩუნებს, განსხვავებულ საქორწინო სარეცლებში საკუთარი თავების გარდა, არავის ჩავაწვენთ და ჩვენი ქალებიც საბოლოოდ შეგვიცნობენ".
კოენის, როგორც მუსიკოსის, თავგადაკლული მსმენელი არასდროს ვყოფილვარ, მაგრამ მათთვის, ვისაც მისი მუსიკა გამორჩეულად უყვარს, განსაკუთრებით საინტერესო იქნება ამ წიგნის წაკითხვა და სრულიად განსხვავებული ლეონარდ კოენის გაცნობა.
"ჩვენი სიყვარული არ მოკვდება. ისტორიიდან ამოვიზარდე, რომ მეთქვა. ერთმანეთს შევინარჩუნებთ ორი მამონტის მსგავსად, მოახლოებული გამყინვარების ხანის კიდეში, გულწრფელ თამაშში გართულები, ერთმანეთს ეშვებით რომ მიეჯრებიან. ჩვენი ქვიარი სიყვარული ჩვენი კაცობის ხაზებს მყარად და სუფთად შეინარჩუნებს, განსხვავებულ საქორწინო სარეცლებში საკუთარი თავების გარდა, არავის ჩავაწვენთ და ჩვენი ქალებიც საბოლოოდ შეგვიცნობენ".
November 26, 2007
Oh Leonard, how I love you, but do not so-much love this book. Again, I am letting myself be lazy and file it away to finish in another era, but from what I have read so far, I need to be in more of a sitting-on-a-dirty-rooftop-in-the-rain-drinking-whiskey-and-smoking-cigarettes -sort-of-mood before I can fully appreciate what you've got to offer here.
I love the poems Man, and I love the lyrics, (and I especially love the club, E & C) and though pieces of it are absolutely stunning, I am not so sure that I love this novel.
But not to fret, Old Friend; catch you later when the barometer drops.
I love the poems Man, and I love the lyrics, (and I especially love the club, E & C) and though pieces of it are absolutely stunning, I am not so sure that I love this novel.
But not to fret, Old Friend; catch you later when the barometer drops.
January 21, 2017
one of the worst pieces of literature I have ever read.
May 21, 2015
f
R
e
E
J
A
z
Z
Добре че обичам free jazz. Иначе книгата сигурно щеше да ми е съвсем непоносима. Тя е като издивяващите музиканти на сцената, които или те вбесяват с изчанчеността си, или и ти отнасяш с тях във free-то. Затова еднакво приех отзивите за тази книга с една звезда и с пет звезди. Тройката тук е скучна. Истински са крайностите.
„Ние се родихме заедно и в своите целувки изповядахме копнежа си да се родим отново. Лежахме прегърнати, всеки от нас учител на другия. Търсехме конкретния тон на всяка конкретна нощ. Опитахме се да разчистим статичното електричество, докато страдахме от подозрението, че статичното електричество е част от тона. Аз бях твоето приключение и ти беше ��оето приключение. Аз бях твоето пътуване и ти беше моето пътуване, а Едит беше нашата свещена звезда. Това писмо се ражда от любовта ни, подобно на искри между дуелиращи се шпаги, на дъжд от трески след удари от цимбали, на ярки зрънца пот, пълзящи през средата на силната ти прегръдка, на бели пера, които хвърчат във въздуха около обръснати петли бушидо, на писъка между две приближаващи се локви живак, на атмосферата от тайни, която витае край деца близнаци. Аз бях твоята загадка и ти беше моята загадка, и ние с радост осъзнавахме, че загадката е нашият дом. Нашата любов не може да умре. Аз идвам от историята, за да ти кажа това. Като два мамута, преплели бивни в разгорещена спортна схватка на прага на настъпващата ледена епоха, ние се пазим взаимно. Нашата педалска любов пази очертанията на мъжествеността ни твърди и чисти, затова всеки от нас допуска в брачното си ложе единствено себе си и жените ни накрая ни опознават.“
Ако приемем, че има нещо общо между трите книги на изд. "Парадокс" (от вътрешната страна на обложката на настоящата книга има снимки и текст за „Mall“ (Е. Б.) и „Московиада“ (Ю. А.), другите две ми харесват истински. В „Красиви неучдачници“ е прескочена моята граница (може би критериите ми за „отвъд“ са наличието на физическо нараняване, психическо (само)разрушение, показ на физиологичните нужди, зависимост от наркотици, намеса на деца в сексуален контекст).
На моменти писането ми изглеждаше като наркотично бълнуване (части от стр. 69-71 „миниатюрен перископ от жена чужденка изгубен тунел никой мъж никога не може да разгадае излез излез от женския океан менструално светилище яйцеферма загадъчни полози излез излез от там където аз никога не стигам от дълбоките хлъзгави материи от задъханите гористи падини от сивите обширни стридоподобни дълбини на момичедушата далеч далеч амазонски секс контрол изплувай изплувай насам…“ ), на моменти като съзнателно и целенасочено изливане на книга-бунт срещу новите икономически, обществени и чисто личностни неприемливости в САЩ през 50-те и 60-те.
„О, Език на нацията! Защо не се изкажеш? Не виждаш ли какво стои зад всички тийнейджърски реклами? Само пари ли? Какво всъщност означава „привличане на тийнейджърска аудитория“? А? Погледни всички онези тринайсетгодишни крака, проснати на пода пред телевизора. Дали е само за да им продават зърнени закуски и козметика? „Мадисън Авеню“ гъмжи от колибри, които искат да пият от тези малки оскъдно окосмени цепки. Привличайте ��и, привличайте ги, костюмирани автори на рекламни стихотворения. Умираща Америка иска някоя тринайсетгодишна Абишаг да затопли леглото ѝ. Мъже, които се бръснат, искат да изнасилват малки момичета, но вместо това им продават обувки на високи токове. Сексуалният хитпарад се пише от бащи, които се бръснат. О, гърчещи се от педофилско сладострастие офиси на деловия свят, навсякъде усещам болката на посинелите ви топки! Тринайсетгодишна блондинка лежи на задната седалка на паркирана кола, прокарва пръст в найлонов чорап по пепелника на вратата, другият ѝ крак е стъпил на мъхестата стелка, има трапчинки на бузите и само намек за невинно акне, а коланът с жартиери е благопристойно неудобен; в далечината греят луната и няколко полицейски лампи; дълбоките ѝ гащички са влажни от прогимназиалния бал.“
Основната тема – сексът. Може да е било революционно в средата на шейсетте книга да изобилства от полови органи и всевъзможни телесни „продукти“. Но оттогава сигурно доста подобни са изписани. Самото „пред телевизорите“ ми напомня за други времена – сега телевизията се смята едва ли не за наказание, когато на някой тийнейджър баща му му е взел компютъра и телефона заради лоши оценки примерно.
Малко по-скучни ми бяха историческите части (но например глави 42 и 46 от тях ми харесаха) за Ирокезката Дева. Може би защото спорните йезуитски времена са ми неприятни колкото сексуалните извращения. Но възприех историята на Катери Текакуита като контрапункт на обсебването от секса до болестно състояние.
„Аз се прокашлях, за да прочистя легендарното си гърло. Избрах една обемиста книга, откровено написана, съдържаща описания на различни автоеротични практики, с които се развличат хора и животни, цветя, деца и възрастни, както и жени от всички възрасти и култури. В нея се съдържаха следните теми: „Защо съпрузите мастурбират“, „Както можем да научим от мравояда“, „Незадоволени жени“, „Аномалии и еротизъм“, „Техники на мастурбация“, „Свобода на жените“, „Генитално бръснене“, „Откриване на клитора“, „ Клуб по мастурбация“, „Женски метал“, „Девет гумички“, „Галене на тялото“, „Уретрална мастурбация“, „Индивидуални експерименти“…
(И по-нататък вече противни садистични и педофилски заглавия, както и самите сцени, които не мога да препиша тук, тъй като е трудно да се подбере параграф без полови органи с жаргонните им имена; признавам – много добър преводач.)
vs
пълното отричане от „плътското“ :
„Бичували се до кръв. Пълзяли с голи колене през снега. Вдовици се заричали никога да не се омъжват повторно. Млади омъжени жени давали обет, с който се отказвали от повторен брак, ако съпрузите им умрат. Женени двойки се разделяли и обещавали да живеят като брат и сестра.“
Изобщо темата за религията (ако условно приемем, че на Коен изобщо му минава през ума това тежко понятие „тема“) през погледа на автора: „Така Катрин станала жигосана робиня на Иисус.“ И смесването на всичко: „… докато службата не е друго освен Магия, която се движи през света, а умът пък е Магия, носеща се през плътта, а плътта пък е Магия, танцуваща върху часовник, а времето пък е магическото продължение на Бог.“
По-чужди ми бяха и въпросите за историята и „идентичността“ на Канада, повече се случва за САЩ да чета. Но бях доволна вниманието ми да бъде насочено и към тази страна.
„Англичаните постъпиха с нас така, както ние постъпихме с индианците, а американците постъпиха с англичаните така, както англичаните постъпиха с нас. Аз поисках отмъщение за всички…“
„Любими“ (не е най-точната дума) глави от частта на разказвача – 38, 39, 40.
„Любими“ от писмото на Ф. – може би все пак за ходещия вибратор – токова нещо не съм виждала… (т.е. чела).
Не зная всичкото това между тримата герои любов може ли да се нарече, но беше доста мъчително. Уж става въпрос за доставяне на удоволствие. Но всички просъществуват и завършват в някакво самоизтезание. Съвсем различно ми беше усещането при тройната/четворната любов в “Енигма“ (А. К. Рос). Просто за Ленард Коен в тази книга важи „заветът“:
„…не бъди магьосник, бъди магия.“
(P.S. Непоносимо ми е и минута да слушам ЛК като музикант.)
July 13, 2023
შენც გაგიმარჯოს, დამპალო.
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