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karen's Reviews> Beautiful Losers
Beautiful Losers
by
by
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 heatheris 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 neverbecomesa 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'slolitain 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 heatheris 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 neverbecomesa 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'slolitain 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!
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Beautiful Losers.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
April 8, 2007
– Shelved
Comments Showing 1-50 of 63 (63 new)
David wrote: "Since I am the Leonard Cohen of Goodreads, I shall vote for this.It's a solidarity thing. "
The union makes us strong.
come on, then, leonard: say something pretty.
I'm Buddhist now. I have no time for pretty.
Rambling, maybe, but at least heartfelt....
Very savvy, Brissette.'Forget' the Montambo, and then have a readymade float rationale.
You're good.Damn,you're good.
David wrote: "Very savvy, Brissette.'Forget' the Montambo, and then have a readymade float rationale.
You're good. Damn, you're good. "
pff - you don't know anything about floating. a float an hour after the review is written does nothing. a successful float needs to be done long after everyone has forgotten your words. here, i will demonstrate.
Well, they don't call you a Flotation Expert for nothin'.
i am practically a flotationdevice
I remember really liking this book, but I'm worried about re-reading, what if I don't like it as much? What if nineteen year old Greg liked this but what if it becomes one of those books that older and dumber Greg might not like as much? How many times did you read this? When did you read it last? What did you eat last night, was it good? Could I ask you these things in person? No, because you just left the floor and I forget things.
Greg wrote: "...What if nineteen year old Greg liked this but what if it becomes one of those books that older and dumber Greg might not like as much?...Aren't you supposed to get the dumbness out of your system when you're 19 and growwiseras you age?
A happy-go-lucky friend of mine discovered that his wife was cheating on him. My wife went over to his house a few days later and found him listening to Leonard Cohen. She turned off the stereo. It was a close call.
Jason wrote: "A happy-go-lucky friend of mine discovered that his wife was cheating on him. My wife went over to his house a few days later and found him listening to Leonard Cohen. She turned off the stereo. It..."Yes, Lenny is not for those whose emotions are in a fragile state!
Greg wrote: "I remember really liking this book, but I'm worried about re-reading, what if I don't like it as much? What if nineteen year old Greg liked this but what if it becomes one of those books that older..."i have read it maybe three times?? the last was about three years ago, but it is one of those books where i can remember passages clear as day. for dinner last night i had 2 pieces of cheese toast and a bag of cadbury mini-eggs. a family sized bag. yeah, it was good.
Maybe I should try to re-read this again soon.I think in certain ways I was smarter when I was younger than I am now, but the smarts weren't necessarily in anything beneficial. Or maybe I'm just less full of myself as I've gotten older.
What kind of cheese was on the toast? Was this something you made or was it store bought cheese toast?
ummm american? because i am american.
You didn't answer the store bought or homemade part of the question. Please respond!
okay, david.i bought the cheese. i bought the bread. i combined them because i am a master chef. all this while my butternut squash/sausage lasagna sat sadly in the fridge.
Thank you! Now I have a more complete picture of your evening last night. I will enter it into my book where I keep track of everything you do. It's not creepy that I do this. It's for posterity.
it's creepy that you stand under my window in the nude, though. i am calling the cops.
karen wrote: "okay, david."Hey! What's that supposed to mean?
ha!it was a very david tone. i am not accusing you of standing nude under my window, at least.
i didn't float this review this morning. are you proud of me?
The day is still young.I only take a David tone when you fail to answer my important questions.
oh, david,allyour questions are important...
ADMIRE MY CONTINUED RESTRAINT!
i am glad the sexy/stalker moment has passed. i didn't want to interrupt.:)i started beautiful losers months ago and then i misplaced it in my apartment. i got it from a friend who'd recently moved in with her boyfriend, and they were getting rid of their duplicate copies (this makes no sense to me because i like having duplicates, but okay) and another good friend was there, and said it was one of his favourite books of all time. and then i said, i should read it then, and he looked uneasy and said, i don't know that you would like it. i think it might be "too too" for you. even though i use this expression all the time my back went up and i brought it home. and i liked a lot of the beginning, especially the relationship between the protagonist and his best friend/rival. but i can remember when i stopped i was a little less charmed. the last page that sticks in my mind was a page full of short staccato sentences with a lot of exclamations, and i fear i was losing patience when i misplaced it... cohen is a poet above all -- even as a singer he seems more truly a throwback to bard, to me. i suspect that when i do finish it, i will find that my friend is right, and that he will be too too for me. you can challenge me to fisticuffs now, if you like. i'm sure byron would love to see that.:)
will karen go berserk if i say the staccato exclamations i didn't like really reminded me of the worst moments of allen ginsberg?http://youtu.be/prFjO9d6yOk
you people and your links i can't see here!!i am not upset at all! there is definitely a "beat sensibility" to a lot of it. but him at his best is better than any of them. i wouldn't get mad about anyone not liking this, because it is hard for me to understand my fascination, apart from the cohen-ness of it all.
karen wrote: "you people and your links i can't see here!!i am not upset at all! there is definitely a "beat sensibility" to a lot of it. but him at his best is better than any of them. i wouldn't get mad abou... "
It's just a clip from Wayne's World: the boys are grovelling before Alice Cooper exclaiming, "We're not worthy!"
my link is to one of my least favourite allen ginsberg poems ever, as performed on conan o' brien show many moons ago. he is knocking two music sticks together and chanting the poem "don't smoke!". he chants "don't smoke! don't smoke! don't smoke!" a lot of times in that poem. man i want to punch that poem in the face.:)i am glad you are not upset, but i suspect greg is disappointed because he was hoping for controversy.:)
oh, no - where will he find controversy on the internet??
I'm not longer looking for controversy on the internet, I'm set on trying to always be at the center of it.
Greg wrote: "I'm not longer looking for controversy on the internet, I'm set on trying to always be at the center of it."So then, you're a Discordian?:)
hahaha sorry, that is a little goodreads project that has ceased. she is a wonderful woman, and we had to let the internet know this.
Mariel wrote: "I like this review. It no mess."I agree, plenty of coherence:)
I love the 'bubblegum song' from Leonard. Yeah, okay, that's not the title, but how I remember it. Had no idea about this book existing.
i don't even know what song you mean!!! some fan i am!
I seem to recall an interview with Cohen in which he was asked why he went from poetry to songwriting. He answered that it was to keep himself from writing any more novels.Regardless, I too love this deeply flawed novel.
ha! yeah, that sounds like something he would say, so charmingly self-deprecating...
David wrote: "Since I am the Leonard Cohen of Goodreads, I shall vote for this.
It's a solidarity thing. "
Yeah,and I am the George Clooney of Goodreads..loll
It's a solidarity thing. "
Yeah,and I am the George Clooney of Goodreads..loll
It's a solidarity thing.