A Ballet of Lepers
A Novel and Stories
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- 8,99 €
Descripción editorial
Before ‘Hallelujah’, ‘Suzanne’ and ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’, the young Leonard Cohen was a gifted writer of prose. In this previously unpublished work, readers will discover the magic that animated Cohen’s unique voice was present from the very beginning.
A Ballet of Lepers comprises Cohen’s first novel and short stories, written between 1956 in Montreal and 1961, when he had settled on the island of Hydra in Greece. The titular story follows a reclusive man whose life is invigorated when his grandfather comes to live with him. The book explores themes that would permeate Cohen’s later work, from shame and unworthiness to sexual desire and longing. Meditative, surprising and provocative, A Ballet of Lepers reveals the great artist like never before.
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The late singer-songwriter and novelist Cohen (Beautiful Losers) leaves readers with an enthralling collection of work written in the 1950s and '60s, as complex and dark as his lyrics. The unnamed narrator of the title novella is an aimless, solitary 35-year-old Montreal man who leads "an underground existence." After the narrator learns his grandfather needs a place to live, he takes the older man in. It turns out the grandfather and narrator are ruthlessly violent—in one harrowing scene, the grandfather joins the narrator in beating the narrator's girlfriend—and the story ends in a stunning reversal. In "O.K. Herb, O.K. Flo," the narrator muses bitterly on Montreal's cold surfaces: "All the stone you could want to fool yourself that life is substantial." The narrator goes to a bar and meets a mediocre jazz player named Herb, who confides he's going to convince his former lover, Flo, now married, to commit adultery. Herb passes out, leaving the narrator and Flo to discuss the situation. "Polly" follows a junior high girl who orders two younger children to do a variety of demeaning tasks in order for them to hear her play her recorder, such as taking out her trash. Cohen (1934–2016) writes brilliantly of desire and cruelty as his desperate characters yearn for connection. This is magnificent.
