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Beautiful Losers
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Beautiful Losers Mass market paperbound - 1991

by Leonard Cohen; Afterword by Stan Dragland


Summary

One of the best-known experimental novels of the 1960s, this uninhibited tale centres on the hapless members of a love triangle, and their sexual obsession and shared fascination with a mythic saint.Revolving around four central – and intrinsically flawed – characters, 'Beautiful Losers' is the frank and humorous story of a nameless narrator, his wife Edith, their domineering friend and mentor 'F' and Catherine Tekakwitha, a mythic 17th-century Mohawk virgin saint. The complexities of this three-way love, pain and lust are sent spiralling by the death of Edith and 'F' at the novel's start, leading the damaged narrator to question the nature of love, sexuality and spirituality in a series of explicit flashbacks.The extraordinary and inimitable singer-songwriter's classic novel, this is Leonard Cohen's most critically acclaimed literary work, echoing the dark poetry and wry humour of his timeless songs of loss, love, sex and religion.Not just an extremely funny novel, but an incredibly original and explicit examination of friendship, sex and spirituality.

From the publisher

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.

Details

  • Title Beautiful Losers
  • Author Leonard Cohen; Afterword by Stan Dragland
  • Binding Mass Market Paperbound
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 280
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher New Canadian Library, Toronto
  • Date 1991-02-01
  • ISBN 9780771098758 / 0771098758
  • Weight 0.34 lbs (0.15 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.06 x 4.5 x 0.6 in (17.93 x 11.43 x 1.52 cm)
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

“Fuses sexuality with spirituality… mystical and profane, poetic and obscene … an invitation to play Russian roulette with a phallic pistol.”
Kirkus Reviews

“Cohen is a writer of terrific energy and colour, a Rabelaisian comic and a visualizer of memorable scenes.”
London Observer (U.K.)

“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

“A fantasied eroticism which is wildly funny.… An exciting book.”
Sunday Times (U.K.)

“The literary counterpart of Hair on the stage and Easy Rider on the screen.”
Daily Telegraph (U.K.)

“Leaves one gasping for breath as well as suitable words.… Cohen is a powerful, poetic writer.”
Dallas Times Herald


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the author

Leonard Cohen was born in Montreal in 1934. He received his B.A. from McGill University and pursued graduate studies in English at Columbia University. Soon thereafter, he returned to Montreal and worked in his family's clothing business while he continued to write poetry. His artistic career began in 1956 with the publication of Let Us Compare Mythologies. He has published nine collections of poetry, most recently, Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (1993), and two novels, The Favourite Game (1963)and Beautiful Losers (1966). During the sixties he achieved national and international acclaim as a composer-singer. He has made seventeen albums, the latest being Dear Heather (2004). Numerous tribute albums, in many languages, have celebrated his songs. Cohen was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1991, and promoted to the rank of Companion in 2003. He received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award in 1993, and has won numerous Juno Awards.
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Beautiful Losers
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Beautiful Losers

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