leonardcohenforum.com

Dylan wrote:Hi Linda,

It's impossible to get any of Leonard's novels or poetry collections in bookstores here. I don't know why.

I do have Stranger Music. I've had it for a while and read something from it most days.

Dylan

I had no problem getting either of the novels, nor Stranger Music, in the UK. Try Borders. They have a bookstore in Birmingham's Bullring Centre, but I don't know if anywhere else in the UK.
They had to order Beautiful Losers for me, but Stranger Music and The Favourite Game were on the shelves. I haven't tried for the individual poetry books yet.

Waterstones - normally a fantastic bookshop - had nothing, and couldn't even order. I imagine Borders stocks it because it's an American company. (I suppose America has to be good for something... )

Tchocolatl wrote:I like your critic Fljotsdale!

I just have a reserve with your two last sentences. The novel is written using the narrator as a lense the lector is seing through, but the narrator, this is not the author.

I'm not saying the protagonist is Cohen. However, for a person to be able to write like that, they have to have intimate awareness of their own most deeply hidden baseness.
Everyone has truly vile bits inside them. When they rise up into consciousness we smother them virtually at birth and pretend such shocking thoughts and desires never entered our heads and hearts. We keep them in our mental cellar with the trapdoor locked and heavy weights on top, but sometimes a fragment escapes and we panic until we have it trapped again.
I'm not saying Cohen has ever experienced anything in Beautiful Losers, but he will have read a lot of stuff, seen stuff on newsreels... had bits of himself recognise some of that stuff as present in himself... and thus, when writing Beautiful Losers, he was exposing himself, not merely the protagonist.
And I think some bits of it may be personal experience, as well.

Whatever... he is an amazing writer, isn't he?

I have found abebooks.co.uk really useful in getting hold of Leonard's out-of-print works. They list stores from the USA and Canada as well as Europe and Australia.

Ln, you can come back to charge again and again to try to have me align in order of what you think the order is, only this will end with you telling me I am argumenting, I guess.

I repeat for me "fuck" does not mean "rape". "coit" does mean "fuck". But "coit" does not mean necessarily "rape". So your metaphor is irrelevant. If some find it otherwise, it is up to them, eveybody has the right to make a mistake, this is not a crime. All useful inventions came out of mistakes.

But having say so, it is necessary to stress that In the novel the narrator means rape. R-A-P-E. As a symbol. S-Y=M-B-O-L.

Now if you look carefully - maybe you are too far, I don't blame you for not disginguished very well, but, French and English raped the Amerindians. Then English raped French. Now this is still the state of affair, even if both Amerindians and French are rebuilding their identities as the old-fashion colonialism is fading.

And, really, I just can see how you could relate the quote of my opinion of Québec nationalism to your post-coital, as we have more to have thick skin in regard of English than in regard of Amerindians. Fucked up something also has the meaning of screwing it. This is a perfect coit up then. Continue. You seem to enjoy it very much.

Fljotsdale wrote:

Tchocolatl wrote:I like your critic Fljotsdale!

I just have a reserve with your two last sentences. The novel is written using the narrator as a lense the lector is seing through, but the narrator, this is not the author.

I'm not saying the protagonist is Cohen. However, for a person to be able to write like that, they have to have intimate awareness of their own most deeply hidden baseness.
Everyone has truly vile bits inside them. When they rise up into consciousness we smother them virtually at birth and pretend such shocking thoughts and desires never entered our heads and hearts. We keep them in our mental cellar with the trapdoor locked and heavy weights on top, but sometimes a fragment escapes and we panic until we have it trapped again.
I'm not saying Cohen has ever experienced anything in Beautiful Losers, but he will have read a lot of stuff, seen stuff on newsreels... had bits of himself recognise some of that stuff as present in himself... and thus, when writing Beautiful Losers, he was exposing himself, not merely the protagonist.
And I think some bits of it may be personal experience, as well.

Whatever... he is an amazing writer, isn't he?

YES!!! He is. And an amazing signer too.

Thanks G_d that at some point, he decided to go this way.

OK, this is clear now, what you are saying. I keep continue to think that Cohen managed, with his genius, to create an artistic persona that has everything to do with his day to day life and seems so really him because the persona being more complex than a monolithic black (all bad) or white (all good) character, but that he carefully manages also to keep his intimity out of spotslights

But were I am fully in accord with your opinion is when you say that somebody must be tuned to certain realities in order to be, let say, the puppeter who will operate the puppet show in a certain way and not in another.

Cohen began very soon to shed the light on what society would prefer to ignored. At some point Jew community were upset with this, as any community is, in fact.

Fljotsdale wrote:The subject matter is the most difficult I have ever read. But the way it is written is compelling. He draws you down into nightmare and rubs your face in human baseness and anguish. I know of no other writer who spreads his soul all over the page like that.

He does it in his music lyrics and poetry as well. He seems to hold nothing back.

We all have bits of ourselves we want to hide, to be ashamed of, to avoid admitting to.

Cohen doesn't.

A few days ago I read this and I have been thinking about it .

Probably the Cohen's great attractive is his way of exploring and telling these deep feelings. I remember a lizzytysh's written, she spoke about his style of singing, the closed eyes, bowed inward, extracting it of inside. This sensation of honesty and knowledge, maybe mistaken but is very real for me, makes me feel Leonard very close to me - in spite of to be so far away in every meaning - and very very dear.

As Tchocolatl says, there is impressive the quantity of prominent figures of the Jewish community who ventilated - and made hygienic - zones of our interior. Also we have to be grateful to them for their magnificent sense of the humor, sometimes. Again we see as the individuals behave of a different - and better - form to the group or State .

It does not worry me on the identification between writer, character and reader. Cohen or Shakespeare can build terrible figures and we can understand them. It is not matter if we are like them. We all are human beings - more similar than we imagine - and we recognize features that we have. There is not danger of developing the strokes, we have rationalized them.

Tchocolatl, most of my vacations are already made . I do not write with more frequency because it costs me very much, I am stubborn, slow and cannot transmit freshness and style . I can assure you that I would like to contribute more things, also in other threads.

The destiny of all the Indian peoples was to succumb in front a more powerful, cruel and wild forces, do not better. Really a few tribes were soft or smooth and others were fierce warriors. I wonder if you had preferred to be: a soft - good - Indian or a fierce warrior - bad -... in front your killer .

(I have written "good" and "bad" because I know that you hate this simplification. I liked this of white and black monolith).

I do not feel responsible of that the Spanish did. For agreements, in that time, the Catalans we could not be going to America to stole gold. We were independent states and they had this monopoly.

We did some raids for the Mediterranean managing to hang our flag on the Acropolis, this painted in Beautiful Losers and that the British stole - good part of the Parthenon - for the British Museum. Well, I am not proud of that bunch of Catalans and mercenaries did there.

I am in solidarity with my Spanish brothers if they ask for the prohibition of something so cruel and shameful, as are the bullfights .

A simple way of ridiculing the idea of Independence is to reduce it to a topic of money. It is not as well a good way to remember as they were raped. It is better to think that an individual has to be free and independent to decide to marry. That a community has to be free and independent - or to feel like that - to form a part of a bigger community .

ForYourSmile wrote:

Fljotsdale wrote:The subject matter is the most difficult I have ever read. But the way it is written is compelling. He draws you down into nightmare and rubs your face in human baseness and anguish. I know of no other writer who spreads his soul all over the page like that.

He does it in his music lyrics and poetry as well. He seems to hold nothing back.

We all have bits of ourselves we want to hide, to be ashamed of, to avoid admitting to.

Cohen doesn't.

A few days ago I read this and I have been thinking about it .

Probably the Cohen's great attractive is his way of exploring and telling these deep feelings. I remember a lizzytysh's written, she spoke about his style of singing, the closed eyes, bowed inward, extracting it of inside. This sensation of honesty and knowledge, maybe mistaken but is very real for me, makes me feel Leonard very close to me - in spite of to be so far away in every meaning - and very very dear.

Yes. I agree.

ForYourSmile wrote:As Tchocolatl says, there is impressive the quantity of prominent figures of the Jewish community who ventilated - and made hygienic - zones of our interior. Also we have to be grateful to them for their magnificent sense of the humor, sometimes. Again we see as the individuals behave of a different - and better - form to the group or State .

Again, yes. And I particularly like Cohen's sense of humour. He seems to make everyone else sad, but he makes me smile, often, and even laugh out loud.
Though I have found nothing to make me smile in Beautiful Losers, so far. This thread is very enlightening about the book, though, which I appreciate very much.

ForYourSmile wrote:It does not worry me on the identification between writer, character and reader. Cohen or Shakespeare can build terrible figures and we can understand them. It is not matter if we are like them. We all are human beings - more similar than we imagine - and we recognize features that we have. There is not danger of developing the strokes, we have rationalized them.

Yes, I agree.

Tchocolatl wrote:

Fljotsdale wrote:

Tchocolatl wrote:I like your critic Fljotsdale!

I just have a reserve with your two last sentences. The novel is written using the narrator as a lense the lector is seing through, but the narrator, this is not the author.

I'm not saying the protagonist is Cohen. However, for a person to be able to write like that, they have to have intimate awareness of their own most deeply hidden baseness.
Everyone has truly vile bits inside them. When they rise up into consciousness we smother them virtually at birth and pretend such shocking thoughts and desires never entered our heads and hearts. We keep them in our mental cellar with the trapdoor locked and heavy weights on top, but sometimes a fragment escapes and we panic until we have it trapped again.
I'm not saying Cohen has ever experienced anything in Beautiful Losers, but he will have read a lot of stuff, seen stuff on newsreels... had bits of himself recognise some of that stuff as present in himself... and thus, when writing Beautiful Losers, he was exposing himself, not merely the protagonist.
And I think some bits of it may be personal experience, as well.

Whatever... he is an amazing writer, isn't he?

YES!!! He is. And an amazing signer too.

Thanks G_d that at some point, he decided to go this way.

OK, this is clear now, what you are saying. I keep continue to think that Cohen managed, with his genius, to create an artistic persona that has everything to do with his day to day life and seems so really him because the persona being more complex than a monolithic black (all bad) or white (all good) character, but that he carefully manages also to keep his intimity out of spotslights

But were I am fully in accord with your opinion is when you say that somebody must be tuned to certain realities in order to be, let say, the puppeter who will operate the puppet show in a certain way and not in another.

Cohen began very soon to shed the light on what society would prefer to ignored. At some point Jew community were upset with this, as any community is, in fact.

I didn't realise you were Jewish, Tchocolatl.

Yes, of course, a genius can create whatever character s/he wishes - but for that character to 'come alive' a part of his/herself is of necessity in the character. Imo, anyway.

We are not so far apart in our viewpoint, I think.

I'm not Jew. I was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. That does not make me totally impermeable to other religions/philosopies and/or communities.

Yes, this is what I think since I began to read your posts, Fljotsdale we are very very similar in our viewpoints on many Leonard Cohen's work sides.

FYS, once I had only a deal of 10 hours/month, and this is how I managed : I had a "log of navigation" which was an ordinary notebook where I keep records of date and time I was logging to Internet. When I was on the page I wanted, I disconnected and noted the time. I read everything I want on the page. If I needed to go to another one I reconnected and noted the time. And so on. When I had to answer in a forum, I did it on Word (any other word precessing thing) then when the answer was finished I reconnected and copy/paste the answer in the post, click/sent it. and then disconnected.

Well, to make a short story, I connected just the time I really needed instead of being connected all the time, and at the end of the day I was doing the total.

I was very tight with my 10 hours per month (to the great amazement of the company's clerk which said it was a rarity) while having done mostly what I am doing with this 24/24 hours per day connection I have now. Of course it depends a lot of the activities on the net one has. This to tell you that I would like to read your post more often!

Tchocolatl wrote:I'm not Jew. I was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. That does not make me totally impermeable to other religions/philosopies and/or communities.

Oops! My mistake! It was you writing

Thanks G_d that at some point, he decided to go this way.

that made me think so. Jews write G-d instead of God.

I was brought up Catholic. I'm a dedicated atheist now though.

The Lord's name in vain, you shall not prounonce? Or something like that. Yes, it is in the Old Testament. A very Jewish thing, indeed. Sorry if it confused you. It was not my intention.

Flotjdale, I always thought "The Favourite Game" was a very visual novel, that it would make a really nice movie, if Mr. Filmaker has enough budget and could follow the chapters as they are, untouched, but just translated them into pictures and sounds. But it would take a big budget. There was a movie here, made out of the novel, titled also "The Favourite Game", not a bad thing at all (though it takes in serious that one has to "work" a lot on the symbols to appreciate - Cohen gives the choice, not the movie) but nothing that looks like the entire novel, chapter after chapter.

For BL, it would be much more something else...

I am not trying to make you see things my way, Tchoco. I was merely trying to point out that my misreading of post-colonial and post-coital had nothing to do with (as you mentioned in one of your tomes) sex with animals for G-d's sake!!!

You in Quebec may have a very well and just reason to feel fucked over or not. But it is the Aboriginals that were fucked by all. I am merely trying to get you off the 'animal' kick that you started out on. That was not what I meant and you know it.

Linda.

At this point I think that you are doing what is best known as "disinformation".

I will not engage in that sort of muddle jumble.

No explanations are necessary.

As I just read on that board : with some people who are open to you, no need to explain, with others, explanations will never be to their satisfaction. That is life.

Tchoco wrote: Like those 3 monkeys. Pretty metaphor the monkeys one.

This is all I'm trying to dispel, Tchoco. Never was I equating my 'metaphor' with the graphic sexual nature. And I do understand the concept of rape vs consensual sex. And I also understand the use of symbols in this book. I was only trying to ascertain if you thought that my 'metaphor' had anything to do with the above. Which it did not.

The rest we can agree on or disagree on. It doesn't matter. We've been here before. I just wanted to put those monkeys to bed. So to speak.

Linda.

Tchocolatl wrote: The Lord's name in vain, you shall not prounonce? Or something like that. Yes, it is in the Old Testament. A very Jewish thing, indeed. Sorry if it confused you. It was not my intention.

No worries, dear. It's very easy to confuse me, lol!

Tchocolatl wrote:Flotjdale, I always thought "The Favourite Game" was a very visual novel, that it would make a really nice movie, if Mr. Filmaker has enough budget and could follow the chapters as they are, untouched, but just translated them into pictures and sounds. But it would take a big budget. There was a movie here, made out of the novel, titled also "The Favourite Game", not a bad thing at all (though it takes in serious that one has to "work" a lot on the symbols to appreciate - Cohen gives the choice, not the movie) but nothing that looks like the entire novel, chapter after chapter.

A movie? Gosh. Erm... some of the scenes in that book would be a bit dodgy as film, I think... though considering some of the things that are filmed, I suppose it might be pretty tame...

Tchocolatl wrote:For BL, it would be much more something else...

Er... yeah!