- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Black Spring Press Ltd; New edition edition (26 Mar 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0948238194
- ISBN-13: 978-0948238192
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.6 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 903,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Beautiful Losers
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘A fantasied eroticism which is wildly funny…An exciting book.’ Sunday Times
‘The literary counterpart of “Hair” on the stage and “Easy Rider” on the screen.’ Daily Telegraph
‘The most vivid, fascinating and brave modern novel I have read.’ Michael Ondaatje
‘Gorgeously written…one comes out of it having seen terrible and beautiful visions.’ New York Times
‘Brilliant, explosive, a fountain of talent…James Joyce is not dead…he lives under the name of Cohen…writing from the point of view of Henry Miller.’ Boston Herald
‘Fuses sexuality with spirituality…mystical and profane, poetic and obscene…an invitation to play Russian roulette with a phallic pistol.’ Kirkus Reviews
‘Cohen assaults the reader with words, images, pyrotechnics and love. It’s a raging, poetic, highly personal and eminently readable book.’ Toronto Star
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.Product Description
Combining spirituality with intense eroticism, wild and surreal humour with deadly serious intent, BEAUTIFUL LOSERS revolves around four characters - a husband, a wife, their ambiguous mentor, and a mythic seventeenth-century Irquois virgin. The lives of the couple and their friend, F., are bound together by love, sex and a lunatic spirit of experimentation, their relationship a tangle of jelousies, obsessions and affections. Cohen's brilliant and controversial book is characterized by a voice which is quite unique - lucid, tormented, nonchalant and wry. The result is not just an extremely funny novel, but an incredibly original and explicit examination of friendship, sex and spirituality.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I loved it back then
I read Beautiful Losers and Favourite Game in the 1960s when I was in my twenties. I thought it expressed something profound -though for the life of me I can't remember what. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Michael Gover
(:
the book was worn and old and looked read (:
and arrived on time
and arrived on time
Published on 5 April 2010 by Ms. K. A. M. Graham
Pages fell out.
The story is fine but the actual book is falling a part and I am only part way through.
Published on 18 Sep 2009 by C. Mcnicholl
yawn
After 8 years of being subjected to Leonard Cohen (courtesy of my husband) I have come to like his music. I saw the book on Amazon and thought It might be intriguing reading. Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2009 by Hazel Price
Mostly nonsense
Leonard Cohen was 33 when he released his first album. Before that he had published several volumes of poetry and two novels: "The Favourite Game" (1963) and "Beautiful Losers"... Read more
Published on 3 Sep 2009 by Guardian of the Scales
Cohen's majestic and poetic Masorah.
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... Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2001
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