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Beautiful Losers (1966)

by Leonard COHEN

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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1,755219,700 (3.42)39
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. "From the Trade Paperback edition."… (more)
  1. 00
    The Favourite Game by Leonard Cohen (Bridgey)
    Bridgey: My Favourite Game & Beautiful Losers are the only 2 novels by Cohen. Both confusing, but Beautiful losers doesn't seem to have too much in the way of a plot.
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» See also 39 mentions

English (20)  Spanish (1)  All languages (21)
Showing 1-5 of 20 (next | show all)
My rating of this book is probably proof that I'll forgive a novel just about anything if it sounds enough like a poem. This book was absolutely weird (it's also absolutely filthy and would be a great choice for anyone who wants to punk their book club). Was it good literature? Someone better than me will have to figure that out, because I couldn't tell. Who cares, it has passages like this:

"Fashion this prayer to Thee. I don't know to get it with 1000-voice choir effect like 'consider the lily.' Fashion this heap with gleaming snow-shovel facets, for I meant to build an altar. I meant to light a curious little highway shrine, but I drown in the ancient snake cistern. I meant to harness plastic butterflies with rubber-band motors and whisper: 'Consider the plastic butterfly': but I shiver under the shadow of the diving archaeopteryx."

And that was just a page I opened to at random. ( )
  jdegagne | Apr 23, 2022 |
This book makes me so wistful. Pre-internet, pre-irony, just sucking a dude off in a rowboat. I couldn't stop reading! Wanders from the material to the mystical without ever losing its sense of humor, and despite all its excesses never loses its humanity. I felt the same way when I read "Les Enfants Terribles" when I was younger, like, here was this sexy book about kissing cousins, so decadent, so apolitical and unnecessary, so why did I like it so much? (Besides the obvious.) Because books like these play out like vivid fever dreams, written in ecstatic prose that recreates a kind of religious experience. There's so few things that can evoke that raw feeling, again with the DFW quotes, something something about sex, religion, fiction and music being the few places where loneliness can be transfigured & treated. So much psychedelic and experimental lit I just wanna throw in the junkbin but this book is like a sad-eyed thrift store Jesus, totally mesmerizing. Leonard Cohen can embody any moment and make it radiate outwards/inwards. This is the kind of book I wish I could write. ( )
  uncleflannery | May 16, 2020 |
I love Leonard Cohen's music, I adore his poetry BUT, this novel did nothing for me. It is too concerned with being clever and not sufficiently with creating character and story.

I need to play some of Cohen's music and read some of his poetry now to set the man back on his rightful plinth. ( )
  the.ken.petersen | May 10, 2020 |
the great Canadian Dirty Book! It was also a quite well crafted exploration of the heady delights of the first fully explored love affair. While i am told, it is very male oriented, it is still a good example of what "he" was thinking....perhaps there hasn't been a female novel of the same stature.....please advise.... ( )
  DinadansFriend | Nov 23, 2019 |
I may never be able to enjoy Leonard Cohen's music again after reading this book. I would like to think that, since it was written in 1966, he has matured since then. However, I just read a review of his latest book of poetry and it seems from some of the excerpts that he is just as enthralled with his private parts as is exhibited in this book.

The basic story line of this book involves a love triangle formed of the nameless narrator, his wife, Edith, and his best boyhood friend, F. After Edith kills herself and F. dies of some sexually transmitted disease, the narrator is left to try to decipher F.'s last instructions. There is way too much discussion of the narrator's bodily functions. The narrator is an historian who is researching the Iroquois Virgin, Catherine Tekakwitha. There is also way too much description of how the native people reacted to the imposition of Christianity. Some killed the Jesuits who brought the word while some, like Catherine, converted and began to flagellate, starve and otherwise torture themselves. ( )
  gypsysmom | Aug 10, 2017 |
Showing 1-5 of 20 (next | show all)
"...a lyrical dream of Montreal, combined with Canadian religious history and the nature of sainthood."
added by SaintSunniva | editWorld Book Encyclopedia, Laurie R. Ricou (Dec 30, 1999)
 

» Add other authors (12 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
COHEN, Leonardprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Town, HaroldCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Somebody said lift that bale.

-- Ray Charles singing Ol' Man River
Dedication
for Steve Smith (1943-1964)
First words
Catherine Tekakwitha, who are you?
Quotations
Information from the Norwegian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Bønn er oversettelse. Et menneske oversetter seg selv til et barn som ber om alt mulig på et språk det knapt behersker.
Er det kjøttet som straffer meg? Er det noen ville bølinger som har et skjevt øye til meg? Mord i kjøkkenet! Dachau-gårdstun! Vi oppdretter levende vesener bare for å spise dem! Elsker Gud en slik verden? For et nifst matsystem! Alle vi dyrestammer i evig krig! Hva har vi vunnet på det? Menneskene, matnazistene! Døden som matsystemets fundament! Hvem skal be kyrne om unnskyldning? Det er ikke vår feil, det var ikke vi som fant det på. Disse nyrene er nyrer. Dette er ikke en kylling, det er en kylling. Tenk på dødsleirene i hotellkjellerne. Blod på putene! Materie spiddet på tannbørstene! Alle dyr spiser, ikke for nytelse, ikke for gull, ikke for makt, men bare for å leve. For hvis evige Nytelse? I morgen begynner jeg å faste.
Jeg husker et av K'ungs ordtak som han var glad i: Når Mesteren spiste sammen med en mann i sorg, spiste han seg aldri mett. Onkler! onkler! hvordan våger en eneste av oss å spise?
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Wikipedia in English (1)

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. "From the Trade Paperback edition."

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Penguin Australia

An edition of this book was published by Penguin Australia.

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