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Leonard Cohen

The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall

ebook
88 of 88 copies available
88 of 88 copies available

Leonard Cohen has aimed high: to be all Jewish heroes at once. Like Jacob, he struggled with angels. Like David, he sang psalms and seduced women. But he never ceased doing what he did best: going from city to city and reviving our hearts. Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall follows the singer's cosmopolitan life from Montreal and New York to the Greek island of Hydra and examines his perpetual dialogues with himself, God, and avalanches.

We see how six decades of radiant pessimism and a few thousand nights in hotel rooms transformed a young Jewish poet who longed to be a saint into an existentialist troubadour in love with women and a gravelly-voiced crooner who taught a thousand ways of dissolving into love.

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen's life and art. Gracefully blending biography and essay, he interrogates the mission Cohen set out for himself: to show us that darkness is just the flip side of light.

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    • Library Journal

      April 1, 2024

      This is a rhapsodic and fluidly written new take on Canadian poet/crooner/troubadour and pessimistic, introspective social commentator Cohen (1934-2016). Lebold (literature, performance studies, and rock culture, Univ. of Strasbourg) follows Cohen's journey from Montreal to New York (with frequent stops in Los Angeles and Paris) and to Greece. This hefty edition updates Lebold's 2013 Cohen biography, previously published in France. Cohn was a Sabbath-observing Jewish man who wrote Hallelujah and was influenced by other religions (including Zen, after living in a California monastery). His music's themes of sexually frank and delicate love compare with those of his admirer Bob Dylan. Cohen had romantic relationships with several women, including Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, and his long-term muse Marianne Ihlen, all of whom deeply affected his interpretations of life. Lebold offers three portraits of him--a man who saw angels and mostly everyone else fall, pulled down by gravity; an eternal pilgrim, explorer, and wanderer; and a metaphysician of the broken heart. This analytical biography meticulously charts Cohen's career and artistic output, situating him within popular culture around the world. VERDICT This big biography of Cohen will appeal to a wide variety of readers, especially the philosophically minded.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      April 15, 2024
      As Lebold notes in this luminous and unconventional portrait, Leonard Cohen was an observer at heart. Whether acting as poet, lyricist, or novelist, he was particularly interested in how and why men fall (he was also interested in women, of course, but typically in relation to men). The word falling is used in multiple ways here, most often referring to falling in love, something which Cohen did a lot throughout his life: "Sometimes for the night, sometimes for a decade." But falling can also mean plunging into the abyss, since Cohen suffered through bouts of depression. Part flaneur, part existentialist stranger, part wandering Jew, Cohen was all of these and more. His upbringing in Montreal is mentioned here as is his time in New York, hanging out in Chinatown, Greenwich Village coffeehouses, and jazz clubs as well as interludes in London and the Greek island of Hydra and playing the part of a Zen monk on top of Mount Baldy outside L.A. Lebold's approach is cyclical, like life itself. He portrays Leonard Cohen as quirky, poetic, enigmatic, and, invariably, elusive. The book, like the singer, embraces the sacred and the profane. With plenty of photographs, including of Cohen at his dapper best, this is a book to get lost in.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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