Various Positions
A Life of Leonard Cohen
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- 23,99 лв.
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- 23,99 лв.
Publisher Description
Reissued with a new afterword
Leonard Cohen is back! With a #1 bestselling poetry collection, The Book of Longing, flying off bookshelves; Lian Lunson’s acclaimed documentary, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, in theatres this summer (the DVD will release this fall); and the superb soundtrack in music stores everywhere, Leonard Cohen proves he is Canada’s most enduring icon. Now, in the newly reissued Various Positions, Ira Nadel peels back the many layers to reveal the man and explain the fascinating relationship between Leonard Cohen’s life and his art. This book is a remarkable and rare
look at Leonard Cohen, up close and personal.
For nearly forty years, Leonard Cohen has endured the ups and downs of an international career that has alternately identified him as the "Prince of Bummers" and Canada's most respected poet and performer. Now, author Ira Nadel brings us closer to understanding these conflicting descriptions and allows us to enter Cohen's private world. He peels back the many layers to reveal the man and explain the fascinating relationship between Cohen's life and his art.
This is a remarkable and rare look at Leonard Cohen, up close and personal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The flamboyant life of Canadian singer/ songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen (b. 1934) is given straightforward treatment in this authorized biography by Nadel, a book reviewer for the CBC and professor of English at the University of British Columbia. The chief virtues of the book are its thorough research and its honesty. Clearly an admirer of Cohen's work, Nadel is unstinting in his depiction of his subject as one who has "led a life of unfettered romance, largely free of obligations or responsibility." From Cohen's precocious childhood in the Jewish community of Montreal through his years as one of Canada's most promising young poets, to his intermittent career as a sort of lugubrious rock star--"the prince of bummers"--the artist comes across as egotistical, charming, dilettantish and moody, swinging wildly between vainglory and self-pity. He was an improbabale singer: even Cohen compared his voice to a bumblebee--in theory it shouldn't fly, but it does. The melodrama of his life seems manufactured to fit his gifts as both singer and songwriter, but these talents are difficult to evoke in prose, and Nadel isn't likely to convince anyone who isn't yet a fan of Cohen's abilities. The faithful, however, will light scented candles as they follow the well-traced turns of the artist's life. Photos.
