The Favourite Game
by Leonard Cohen
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Cohen chronicles the youth and early manhood of Lawrence Breavman, only son of an old Jewish family in Montreal. His coming of age brings him to the adult games of love and war, with their infinite capacity for fantasy and cruelty, to literary fame as a college student, and a discovery of the totality of love and its demands and sacrifices.Tags
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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.
Member Reviews
A much more accessible novel than Leonard Cohen's later Beautiful Losers. That book was experimental and often impenetrable, but the structure of The Favourite Game is more regular. It is essentially a coming-of-age tale and a pseudo-autobiographical account of Cohen's youth.
The regular structure allows Cohen to shine at the things we know he is good at: lyricism and emotion. His poetic touch, whilst a drawback when it comes to plot and pacing, is excellent for scene-setting and for articulating emotion, and for a coming-of-age story that is key. There is a quiet majesty and intimacy in the interactions in The Favourite Game that elevate it above the self-centredness of most youthful bildungsromans.
Whilst a compelling novel in its own show more right, the book is more likely to be read nowadays by dedicated fans of Leonard Cohen, and in this respect it proves even more compelling. His penchant for eroticism is, thankfully, much less crude than in Beautiful Losers and whilst the womanising and bed-hopping might not play well in our more regressive, puritanical times, we do get a good insight into what makes Cohen tick and what makes him click with women. And the young Cohen who wrote The Favourite Game in 1963 can still be found in the courteous fedora-wearing gent of 2016; if you ever wondered why the man who wrote so earnestly about love could never find 'the one' and settle down with a wife, read The Favourite Game. "I'm not a good lover or I'd be with you now. I'd be beside you, not using this longing for a proof of feeling… I want no attachments. I want to begin again. I think I love you, but I love the idea of a clean slate more." (pg. 264). The book speaks of the heart of Cohen as he was, is and hopefully will be for a good while yet. show less
The regular structure allows Cohen to shine at the things we know he is good at: lyricism and emotion. His poetic touch, whilst a drawback when it comes to plot and pacing, is excellent for scene-setting and for articulating emotion, and for a coming-of-age story that is key. There is a quiet majesty and intimacy in the interactions in The Favourite Game that elevate it above the self-centredness of most youthful bildungsromans.
Whilst a compelling novel in its own show more right, the book is more likely to be read nowadays by dedicated fans of Leonard Cohen, and in this respect it proves even more compelling. His penchant for eroticism is, thankfully, much less crude than in Beautiful Losers and whilst the womanising and bed-hopping might not play well in our more regressive, puritanical times, we do get a good insight into what makes Cohen tick and what makes him click with women. And the young Cohen who wrote The Favourite Game in 1963 can still be found in the courteous fedora-wearing gent of 2016; if you ever wondered why the man who wrote so earnestly about love could never find 'the one' and settle down with a wife, read The Favourite Game. "I'm not a good lover or I'd be with you now. I'd be beside you, not using this longing for a proof of feeling… I want no attachments. I want to begin again. I think I love you, but I love the idea of a clean slate more." (pg. 264). The book speaks of the heart of Cohen as he was, is and hopefully will be for a good while yet. show less
I should start by saying a little something. I adore Leonard Cohen...I actually think he's one of the best lyricists out there (if not *the best*) and on a visceral note, often times has his music completely soothed me (especially on trains..if you're taking an overnight AMTRAK ride across sleepy North America, be sure to bring about eight hours of early period Leonard Cohen, mainly: Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room, Songs of Love and Hate, and New Skin for the Old Ceremony. Or, if you have a tendency to listen to songs on repeat, bring a comfy set of headphones and play "Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye" to your little heart's content for the next ten hours.)
That said, I should also say I can be somewhat objective about show more Leonard Cohen even though I will admit to a slight bias. For instance, though his lyrics in more recent albums (i.e. The Future) are some of his best yet, the chosen music accompaniment is downright dreadful. Someone needs to kidnap the man and an acoustic guitar and make sure he doesn't leave a recording studio until "Anthem" has it's true stripped down glory. Not that I'm condoning this sort of musical heist or anything but seriously those good lyrics suffer under such appalling conditions. It's like putting the most decadent chocolate cake in a dark alley by a bunch of feeding rats.
Perhaps, I'm getting off track. I meant to talk about the book here. Well, this is the first book of Cohen's I've read (surprisingly! Boy, do I need to get my act together!) While I'd rather listen to an album of his, I do find some of the similarities interesting. The Favorite Game, first published in 1963 gives us a glimpse of early Montreal and insight into human relationships partially under the guise of a diary kept by a definite Ladies Man (interesting to note, if Cohen's own words about himself are true concerning the lack of adoring females and lustful intimacy, he could have never been this main character) Then again, who wouldn't adore Cohen in just about any fashion? To love a mind is to love a body even if that body is, at this point, 73 years old. Anyhow, at most it's semi-autobiographical and at least pure fiction.
I think the one thing I found fascinating about this book above all else was the emphasis on rooms...which in some way parallels the emphasis in Songs From a Room. For instance, there's this overwhelming sense of the inside private spaces of people's lives and a commitment that seems final even though for protagonist Lawrence Breavman it is anything but. It's almost as if by making this small commitment to share a period of time with a woman in a room, it's the same for him as a lifelong commitment. The problem is, that fidelity only lasts for the time he's actually in the room and then he's off to another woman. He has his definite favorites, though, and will come back to them...calls them long distance right after leaving the last (ahem I believe this was before texting) and even goes to the extent of giving one of his great loves his journal describing recent sexual exploits. This is technically a third person tale but very much so told without a moral perspective or from the point of view of any of the women (though we do have a sense of how they feel but the story is led by Breavman and his actions). It merely is about the way this man is who loves women but perhaps loves his choice and his own solitude more. The most interesting part of the book was towards the end when Breavman sees a male friend of his and volunteers as a camp counselor. I won't spoil it but there's a story that really comes out of nowhere here.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"Your body will never be familiar" p.20
"They held hands tightly and watched the stars in the dark part of the sky; where the moon was bright they were obliterated. She told him she loved him. A loon went insane in the middle of the lake." p.32
"You want to live in a world where the light has just been switched on and everything has just jumped out of the black" p. 141
"We have to bring everything to eachother. Even the times we are corpses" p. 165
"On the Hudson there were other lights, the necklace of the George Washington bridge, the slow-moving barges and the Alcoa signs across the water, The air was clear the stars big. They stood close and inherited everything" p. 173 show less
That said, I should also say I can be somewhat objective about show more Leonard Cohen even though I will admit to a slight bias. For instance, though his lyrics in more recent albums (i.e. The Future) are some of his best yet, the chosen music accompaniment is downright dreadful. Someone needs to kidnap the man and an acoustic guitar and make sure he doesn't leave a recording studio until "Anthem" has it's true stripped down glory. Not that I'm condoning this sort of musical heist or anything but seriously those good lyrics suffer under such appalling conditions. It's like putting the most decadent chocolate cake in a dark alley by a bunch of feeding rats.
Perhaps, I'm getting off track. I meant to talk about the book here. Well, this is the first book of Cohen's I've read (surprisingly! Boy, do I need to get my act together!) While I'd rather listen to an album of his, I do find some of the similarities interesting. The Favorite Game, first published in 1963 gives us a glimpse of early Montreal and insight into human relationships partially under the guise of a diary kept by a definite Ladies Man (interesting to note, if Cohen's own words about himself are true concerning the lack of adoring females and lustful intimacy, he could have never been this main character) Then again, who wouldn't adore Cohen in just about any fashion? To love a mind is to love a body even if that body is, at this point, 73 years old. Anyhow, at most it's semi-autobiographical and at least pure fiction.
I think the one thing I found fascinating about this book above all else was the emphasis on rooms...which in some way parallels the emphasis in Songs From a Room. For instance, there's this overwhelming sense of the inside private spaces of people's lives and a commitment that seems final even though for protagonist Lawrence Breavman it is anything but. It's almost as if by making this small commitment to share a period of time with a woman in a room, it's the same for him as a lifelong commitment. The problem is, that fidelity only lasts for the time he's actually in the room and then he's off to another woman. He has his definite favorites, though, and will come back to them...calls them long distance right after leaving the last (ahem I believe this was before texting) and even goes to the extent of giving one of his great loves his journal describing recent sexual exploits. This is technically a third person tale but very much so told without a moral perspective or from the point of view of any of the women (though we do have a sense of how they feel but the story is led by Breavman and his actions). It merely is about the way this man is who loves women but perhaps loves his choice and his own solitude more. The most interesting part of the book was towards the end when Breavman sees a male friend of his and volunteers as a camp counselor. I won't spoil it but there's a story that really comes out of nowhere here.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"Your body will never be familiar" p.20
"They held hands tightly and watched the stars in the dark part of the sky; where the moon was bright they were obliterated. She told him she loved him. A loon went insane in the middle of the lake." p.32
"You want to live in a world where the light has just been switched on and everything has just jumped out of the black" p. 141
"We have to bring everything to eachother. Even the times we are corpses" p. 165
"On the Hudson there were other lights, the necklace of the George Washington bridge, the slow-moving barges and the Alcoa signs across the water, The air was clear the stars big. They stood close and inherited everything" p. 173 show less
Poetic, lovely writing. Amazing images: rooms become living things while bodies become objects of beauty. And, we have the story of a young man coming to grips with his heritage, his success, and his isolation.
This book is so beautifully written. Classic Cohen. There isn't much story but there are so many amazing paragraphs in this novel that it doesn't matter.
brilliant poet, confusing novelist. i suppose it makes sense in the end if you're not looking for anything concrete.
Well, 'The favourite game' tells a big deal about the live of the Jewish protagonist Lawrence Breavman in Montreal and later on for a while in New York. We get to know some pretty strange incidents in Breavman's life, and his sometimes twisted sense of beauty respectively aesthetics and a even more twisted sense of fun or interest. Breavman is rebelling against a lot of things and displays a rather morbid attitude towards life itself for example when he drowns a rat, tries a surgery on a frog or accompanying a boy's corps into town.
This altogether twisted person becomes a rather famous writer during the novel even some sort of celebrity which he despises equally to everything else.
A major part of the novel is devoted to Breavman's show more sexual adventures with various women, but you clearly notice that he is seeing those women more like beautiful objects than as real living persons. Only his relation to Shell seems different, but in the end it just develops with his strange paths of thinking.
If you wonder about this rather confused summary, be warned, this is exactly what the book is like! It IS confusing, and not always clearly structured. Generally there is some sort of chronological timeline, which is every now and then broken by bits and pieces that do not belong to the current narration. While the plot continues, it is hard to tell how much time has passed, so you cannot clearly say, how old our protagonist is on various occasions.
The book is divided into several parts called 'book' which are also divided into several chapters. Since the narration is not continuous throughout those 'books' you may get the feeling, that some parts just don't belong where they are, or may have been introduced at a later stage. One book even deals almost entirely with Shell and her background, that was a bit of a surprise to me. But this shows the importance of the character of Shell within the story and for the protagonist.
Well, enough on that already.
As far as the language is concerned... it is readable, maybe a bit too much for my taste. We have some references to songs and even poems by the author himself, pop culture... and the like.
But I simply disliked the book. I disliked the protagonist, his world view, his attitude towards life, people, work, his arrogance and twisted way of thinking. I only liked some of the comments of the narrator who foreshadowed some events or addressed the reader directly. Which only happened in some of the later *books* - another discontinuety. Oh, and the length of the chapters varied considerably - when I started reading, is was already annoyed about the language and writing style, because it was stressed through those very short first chapters. show less
This altogether twisted person becomes a rather famous writer during the novel even some sort of celebrity which he despises equally to everything else.
A major part of the novel is devoted to Breavman's show more sexual adventures with various women, but you clearly notice that he is seeing those women more like beautiful objects than as real living persons. Only his relation to Shell seems different, but in the end it just develops with his strange paths of thinking.
If you wonder about this rather confused summary, be warned, this is exactly what the book is like! It IS confusing, and not always clearly structured. Generally there is some sort of chronological timeline, which is every now and then broken by bits and pieces that do not belong to the current narration. While the plot continues, it is hard to tell how much time has passed, so you cannot clearly say, how old our protagonist is on various occasions.
The book is divided into several parts called 'book' which are also divided into several chapters. Since the narration is not continuous throughout those 'books' you may get the feeling, that some parts just don't belong where they are, or may have been introduced at a later stage. One book even deals almost entirely with Shell and her background, that was a bit of a surprise to me. But this shows the importance of the character of Shell within the story and for the protagonist.
Well, enough on that already.
As far as the language is concerned... it is readable, maybe a bit too much for my taste. We have some references to songs and even poems by the author himself, pop culture... and the like.
But I simply disliked the book. I disliked the protagonist, his world view, his attitude towards life, people, work, his arrogance and twisted way of thinking. I only liked some of the comments of the narrator who foreshadowed some events or addressed the reader directly. Which only happened in some of the later *books* - another discontinuety. Oh, and the length of the chapters varied considerably - when I started reading, is was already annoyed about the language and writing style, because it was stressed through those very short first chapters. show less
Discovered this book as I was spending some time with Leonard Cohen's music. Very pleased. Always loved when he said he stopped writing novels and started to write songs because making a living as a songwriter was so much easier. IT IS!?!
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Author Information
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Leonard Norman Cohen was born in Montreal, Canada on September 21, 1934. He received a degree in English from McGill University and studied literature at Columbia University for a year. His first collection of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956. His other collections of poetry include The Spice-Box of Earth, Flowers for show more Hitler, Death of a Lady's Man, Poems and Songs, and Book of Longing. He also wrote two novels entitled The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers. He was a musician and songwriter for almost five decades. He recorded 14 studio albums including Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room, Songs of Love and Hate, Ten New Songs, Dear Heather, Popular Problems, and You Want It Darker. He wrote numerous songs including Hallelujah, Suzanne, Dress Rehearsal Rag, Bird on a Wire, The Story of Isaac, Famous Blue Raincoat, Dance Me to the End of Love, First We Take Manhattan, Everybody Knows, and Tower of Song. In 2008, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He died on November 7, 2016 at the age of 82. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
New Canadian Library (73)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Favourite Game
- Alternate titles
- The Favorite Game
- Original publication date
- 1963
- People/Characters*
- Lawrence Breavman; Krantz; Shell
- Important places
- Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Epigraph
- As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill,
So my body leaves no scar
On you, nor ever will.
When wind and hawl encounter,
What remains to keep?
So you and I encounter
Then turn, then fall to s... (show all)leep.
As many nights endure
Without a moon or star,
So will we endure
When one is gone and far. - Dedication
- To my mother
- First words
- Breavman knows a girl named Shell whose ears were pierced so she could wear the long filigree earrings.
- Quotations*
- Breavman connaît une fille du nom de Shell dont on avait percé les oreilles pour qu'elle puisse porter de longues boucles d'oreillers en filigrane.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Then we walked away, leaving a lovely white field of blossom-like shapes with footprint stems.
- Blurbers
- Layton, Irving; Quarrington, Paul
- Original language*
- Anglais canadien
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- 26,734
- Reviews
- 9
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- (3.81)
- Languages
- 16 — Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 54
- ASINs
- 19
