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A review by beetree
Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen
5.0
I don't know what the hell to say about this book. So I'll talk about the feelings. Sometimes, I had to shut it because it was too nauseating. Sometimes I thought it was delicious, and disgusting. Sometimes my thoughts ran in parallel with it. At one point I declared that it was the best book in all the world because it just felt...so good.
I'll try to break it down. This was by far the strangest and most uninhibited thing that I have ever read. I felt as though I had never read a book before. Cohen wrote it when he was severely, severely depressed. Severely depressed. And I'll say it again. He was severely depressed. There's no point in trying to understand the ins and outs of the whole thing, because I just don't think you're supposed to. I'll copy-paste what it says on the back anyway...
"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."
I don't usually talk books over with my mom, but I did this time, after I told her it was the best book ever, and she believes it's a love-hate. There's pretty much no in between. For her it was more of a hate, she is glad she read it but she has no desire to ever again. For me it was a love. I think any strong reaction is a good one; is book is provocative beyond anything I've ever seen or read. But not for the faint of heart.
I'll try to break it down. This was by far the strangest and most uninhibited thing that I have ever read. I felt as though I had never read a book before. Cohen wrote it when he was severely, severely depressed. Severely depressed. And I'll say it again. He was severely depressed. There's no point in trying to understand the ins and outs of the whole thing, because I just don't think you're supposed to. I'll copy-paste what it says on the back anyway...
"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."
I don't usually talk books over with my mom, but I did this time, after I told her it was the best book ever, and she believes it's a love-hate. There's pretty much no in between. For her it was more of a hate, she is glad she read it but she has no desire to ever again. For me it was a love. I think any strong reaction is a good one; is book is provocative beyond anything I've ever seen or read. But not for the faint of heart.