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scottpnh10's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
windingdot's review against another edition
3.0
Wavered wildly while reading between love and hate. So I split the difference and gave it three stars.
lovegriefandgender's review against another edition
5.0
A gorgeous, sprawling, sexy prose barrage. It (sadly) ends pretty abruptly, but it is wonderful writing. A particular highlight would be the extended masturbation scene.
stupidpieceofhuman's review against another edition
5.0
i finished reading this book two days ago, but i have no exact words to explain what i felt after i finished reading it. i could've finished the novel in three or four days but i wanted to stay with cohen's poetic words of lovelessness, loneliness, sadness, and unhappiness for a long time-period. so, i took six days to finish it. i still don't have the words to describe my feelings. i am the emperor of the state of poor vocabulary. but, i can say that after i finished reading the book, i kissed the book. the last time i kissed a book after reading the whole book was my most dear friend's magnum opus, "finnegans wake". oh, only if you knew what i had felt! i should have taken more time to write it, to write my feelings about this particular book. but also, i have to say one thing -- canadians are fucking cool.
i am 23 years old and my life is not sweet or beautiful. the previous year gave me such a tough time that i haven't recuperated from it. it brought down my mental health to so low that i couldn't believe what i had become. i found an ocean of sadness in me, an ocean of sadness which is the child of acute loneliness and unbound lovelessness born out of their wedlock. there is no escape from this impenetrable sadness. i always relied on books, films, tv shows, and music. they helped, some people and talking to them helped but for the moment being, for that moment only. i started to smoke two cigarettes in a row where i used to smoke just one. someday, i didn't smoke for days. i found hard to sleep in nights. my body was tired, but my mind was awake. it took me 4 or 5 am in the morning to go to sleep, and i still dread that when i go to sleep or when i overread sometimes before sleeping. my mind has become a scrambled mess like some jackson pollock painting which i can't control. i found out that i didn't have any friends. i never had the personality of befriending someone, i still don't have. my jokes ricochet at me like a lethal weapon. i started to feel miserable which has not ended still. i fell in the whirlpool of self-pity and a universal contempt for others. i still masturbate excessively (sometimes, being afraid) to feel i am loved by some women, only to feel later the post-masturbation regret and find me stuck in the erogenous zone of self-pity and deep hatred and profound anger for my sad, miserable, and lonely existence. i still feel like i am the loneliest person in this world after travis bickle if he had ever existed. at this point, you think i'm a creep, huh? you know you're right, my friend. oh sorry, you're not my friend. i am sorry.
then, i found this book, this short novel in three parts. and while reading this book, i felt amazed at how cohen knew me so personally because i feel a deep connection to the main protagonist - the narrator - like i have never felt someone so close. so fucking close. then, i ask mr. cohen - how? how the fuck? did you also go through the same in spite of being a charming, beautiful, good-looking, talented man?
this novel runs like a fever-dream from where i can never escape. it's like some fever-dream paralysis that kept me hooked, made me feel how vulnerable i am in my real miserable life. i never did escape because i felt connected to this universe where i am also tied with a treacherous F. (that can be friend or a fucker in the disguise of a friend), a woman who was never meant for you, who never loved you no matter how much you were in love with her, and an obscure muse of whom nobody knows or everything is in your head. i see this novel, i read this novel through the sexual topography (mostly, coming from both immense pornographic influence and little sexual knowledge) that i know, and the feverishly sexual geography that i can't leave because it makes me feel orgasmic for my existence for a minute, but regretfully vulnerable for my life for the later period. like i said, this novel made me feel connected to the sadness of the novel. this is cohen's last novel, he never wrote another one.
besides, cohen also touched down the history of that time in canada, the québécois separatist movement, the psychedelia of the sixties, and his early fame as the poet-singer. this novel built on a erotic landscape that gives birth to unhappiness. from that unhappiness comes sadness. and, the more it was excavated, the more i felt connected to the timeless universe of this novel. the novel's time overlapped with its postmodern graciousness. oh, it was some beautiful six days that i have spent, some wonderful six days i have spent in my accursed life!
so, thank you, leonard cohen. after a long time, i felt connected to a great work of literature and its whole universe. i still don't have the exact words to describe the exact feelings. i just unleashed my vulnerability in this "review", but it's what i also felt, realised, and experienced.
again, thank you, field commander cohen.
p.s. canadians are fucking cool. there, i said it again.
i am 23 years old and my life is not sweet or beautiful. the previous year gave me such a tough time that i haven't recuperated from it. it brought down my mental health to so low that i couldn't believe what i had become. i found an ocean of sadness in me, an ocean of sadness which is the child of acute loneliness and unbound lovelessness born out of their wedlock. there is no escape from this impenetrable sadness. i always relied on books, films, tv shows, and music. they helped, some people and talking to them helped but for the moment being, for that moment only. i started to smoke two cigarettes in a row where i used to smoke just one. someday, i didn't smoke for days. i found hard to sleep in nights. my body was tired, but my mind was awake. it took me 4 or 5 am in the morning to go to sleep, and i still dread that when i go to sleep or when i overread sometimes before sleeping. my mind has become a scrambled mess like some jackson pollock painting which i can't control. i found out that i didn't have any friends. i never had the personality of befriending someone, i still don't have. my jokes ricochet at me like a lethal weapon. i started to feel miserable which has not ended still. i fell in the whirlpool of self-pity and a universal contempt for others. i still masturbate excessively (sometimes, being afraid) to feel i am loved by some women, only to feel later the post-masturbation regret and find me stuck in the erogenous zone of self-pity and deep hatred and profound anger for my sad, miserable, and lonely existence. i still feel like i am the loneliest person in this world after travis bickle if he had ever existed. at this point, you think i'm a creep, huh? you know you're right, my friend. oh sorry, you're not my friend. i am sorry.
then, i found this book, this short novel in three parts. and while reading this book, i felt amazed at how cohen knew me so personally because i feel a deep connection to the main protagonist - the narrator - like i have never felt someone so close. so fucking close. then, i ask mr. cohen - how? how the fuck? did you also go through the same in spite of being a charming, beautiful, good-looking, talented man?
this novel runs like a fever-dream from where i can never escape. it's like some fever-dream paralysis that kept me hooked, made me feel how vulnerable i am in my real miserable life. i never did escape because i felt connected to this universe where i am also tied with a treacherous F. (that can be friend or a fucker in the disguise of a friend), a woman who was never meant for you, who never loved you no matter how much you were in love with her, and an obscure muse of whom nobody knows or everything is in your head. i see this novel, i read this novel through the sexual topography (mostly, coming from both immense pornographic influence and little sexual knowledge) that i know, and the feverishly sexual geography that i can't leave because it makes me feel orgasmic for my existence for a minute, but regretfully vulnerable for my life for the later period. like i said, this novel made me feel connected to the sadness of the novel. this is cohen's last novel, he never wrote another one.
besides, cohen also touched down the history of that time in canada, the québécois separatist movement, the psychedelia of the sixties, and his early fame as the poet-singer. this novel built on a erotic landscape that gives birth to unhappiness. from that unhappiness comes sadness. and, the more it was excavated, the more i felt connected to the timeless universe of this novel. the novel's time overlapped with its postmodern graciousness. oh, it was some beautiful six days that i have spent, some wonderful six days i have spent in my accursed life!
so, thank you, leonard cohen. after a long time, i felt connected to a great work of literature and its whole universe. i still don't have the exact words to describe the exact feelings. i just unleashed my vulnerability in this "review", but it's what i also felt, realised, and experienced.
again, thank you, field commander cohen.
p.s. canadians are fucking cool. there, i said it again.
tome15's review against another edition
4.0
All I need to say is that this is exactly the sort of book you would expect Leonard Cohen to have written.
epictetsocrate's review against another edition
3.0
Dădu radioul foarte tare şi începu să strige dezlănţuit pe fondul vocii comentatorului ce recita o listă de dezastre: Du-te, du-te, oh, Corabie a Statului, accidente rutiere, naşteri, Berlin, tratamente contra cancerului! Ascultă, prietene, ascultă prezentul, clipa de faţă ne împresoară, vopsită ca o ţintă în roşu, alb şi albastru. Zboară ca o săgeată aruncată drept la ţintă, într-o cîrciumă soioasă. Goleşte-ţi memoria şi ascultă focul din jurul tău. Nu-ţi uita memoria, las-o să existe, preţioasă, undeva, în toate culorile de care are nevoie, dar într-un alt loc, înalţă-ţi memoria pe Corabia Statului ca pe un steag pirateresc şi ţinteşte cu tine drept în prezentul clinchetitor. Ştii cum să faci asta? Ştii cum poţi vedea acropola cu ochii indienilor care nu au avut niciodată aşa ceva? Fute o sfîntă, asta să faci, caută o sfîntuliţă şi fute-o de mai multe ori în vreun colţ plăcut de rai, dă buzna în altarul ei de plastic, locuieşte-i medalionul în care-i incrustată, fute-o pînă începe să cînte ca o cutie muzicală, pînă cînd luminile monumentului se aprind gratis, caută o mică impostoare cu aer de sfîntă ca Tereza ori Catherine Tekakwitha ori Lesbia, neatinsă de pulă, dar care leneveşte ziua-ntreagă într-un poem de ciocolată, caută o astfel de pizdă stranie şi imposibilă şi fute-o pe viaţă şi pe moarte, împroşcînd cu spermă de-a latul cerului, fute-o pe lună cu o clepsidră de oţel în curu-ţi, încurcă-te în faldurile-i diafane, soarbe-i secreţiile inexistente, cîine lipăind în eter, apoi coboară pe acest pămînt gras şi bate-l în lung şi-n lat cu pantofii tăi de piatră, încasează o bătaie zdravănă de la o ţintă fugară, primeşte loviturile absurde una după alta, un pumn în creier, o izbitură-n inimă, un şut în scrot, ajutor! ajutor! e vremea mea, secunda mea, aşchia mea din copacul de căcat al gloriei, poliţia, pompierii! priviţi circulaţia fericirii şi a crimei, căci străluceşte desenată în pastel precum trandafiriul acropolei!
siya_flow's review against another edition
Это было очень и очень спорно, хотя и интересно. Это было очень откровенно, порою до мерзости. А ещё мне кажется я взялась за это слишком рано. Может быть стоит вернуться к этому через несколько лет.
gab1202's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
how strange this book was, how unlovable it seems .. and yet i found myself hugging my copy tight to my chest once it was over. women as martyr, men as beast, movie magic and telephone dances. friends fusing. perverted and nationalistic and pious and humanistic. give a kiss to your copy when you’re done. read it as cohen says it, as “a sunstroke of a book”.
natyweiss's review against another edition
1.0
Definitivamente, lo prefiero escribiendo canciones. Uno de los libros más aburridos que leí en mi vida. Y eso que soy a prueba de bodrios...