Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen

I am officially going through another Leonard Cohen phase (more on that later) and in looking for some books to read for a recent trip involving long flights, I came upon this little book. In "Leonard Cohen: A Life in Art" (160 pages; originally published in 1995), author Ira Nadel brings a short biography of Leonard Cohen. Keep in mind that the book was written mostly in 1994, just as Cohen had turned 60 and had then-recently scored a sizable commercial hit with his 1992 album "The Future". Let me state upfront that this is not your ordinary biography. It reads more like an academic dissertation, with multiple sidebars into the art (songs, poetry, and other) of Cohen. As is often the case, the most fascinating part are the early years. In fact, the book is divided almost to the page half in half between Cohen's life up to 1967 (release of his first album) and his life afterwards. The son of well-to-do Jewish immigrants in Montreal, Cohen defied his parents' expectations and after attending undergraduate at McGill and graduate at Columbia, decided to make a go of it as a poet. Becoming restless, Cohen visits London and then Greece, where he would continue to spend significant amounts of time for decades to come. The book does a tremendous job in putting matters into context, both from an artistic perspective, as well as a more personal one. The second half of the book is far less interesting, in particular as the years go on, as too many times it becomes a repetition of describing life on the road, tour after tour. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book for the insights provided in the first half of it. I saw Leonard Cohen recently live in concert for the first time, at the Coachella music festival, and what a delight that was. A thrilling set from start to finish. As a fan of Cohen for a long, long time, it was a dream come true to finally see him perform. It caused me to revisit some of his earlier albums, including the excellent 1979 live album "Field Commander Cohen", and of course also the just-released CD/DVD "Leonard Cohen Live in London".

he is the greatest poet in forever and fab singer, enjoyed it was a gift and that person loved it. the book was in great condition

Very insightful reading about a very gifted writer and performer of poetry and music. Also provides interesting details of personal life experiences of life during the sixties and seventies. An interesting view of the development and maturation of a genius.

This is a fascinating book. However, it is not a conventional biography, in that the author (Ira Nadel) does not fully succeed in weaving the events of Cohen's life into a flowing narrative. The story proceeds disjointedly, and the reader follows it with a feeling of uneven coverage and missing pieces. Ira Nadel is clearly in personal awe of Leonard Cohen (as any of us would be, I suppose), such that he shies away from offering much analysis (psychoanalysis?) of his work and conduct of his life, beyond what the work and facts of his life suggest readily. For example, Cohen's long, tortured relationship with his wife Suzanne is described by a series of vignettes, as cold as news reports, spiced only with relevant-seeming quotations from Cohen's work. Nadel doesn't do the interpretive work of suggesting was going on in Cohen's mind, and what was causing that, which is what biographers usually do for us (and we judge them on whether they do that well or badly). There are ocassional Freudian interpretations, as when Nadel compares Cohen's relationship with his lovers to that with his mother. But we don't get a feel for how the relationship developed and began to sour. In fact, we barely get any feel of "development" in Cohen's life at all, which makes it seem like disconnected reportage rather than a biographical narrative. This quality could be seen as a plus, as it gives the book a cryptic feel, rather like the work of Leonard Cohen itself. I learned a lot, and enjoyed the distant quality of Nadel's writing for what it was, but I was left wanting to know more. Perhaps Cohen, whose work often veers into playful impenetrability, perfers it that way.

This is a fascinating book. However, it is not a conventional biography, in that the author (Ira Nadel) does not fully succeed in weaving the events of Cohen's life into a flowing narrative. The story proceeds disjointedly, and the reader follows it with a feeling of uneven coverage and missing pieces. Ira Nadel is clearly in personal awe of Leonard Cohen (as any of us would be, I suppose), such that he shies away from offering much analysis (psychoanalysis?) of his work and conduct of his life, beyond what the work and facts of his life suggest readily. For example, Cohen's long, tortured relationship with his wife Suzanne is described by a series of vignettes, as cold as news reports, spiced only with relevant-seeming quotations from Cohen's work. Nadel doesn't do the interpretive work of suggesting was going on in Cohen's mind, and what was causing that, which is what biographers usually do for us (and we judge them on whether they do that well or badly). There are ocassional Freudian interpretations, as when Nadel compares Cohen's relationship with his lovers to that with his mother. But we don't get a feel for how the relationship developed and began to sour. In fact, we barely get any feel of "development" in Cohen's life at all, which makes it seem like disconnected reportage rather than a biographical narrative. This quality could be seen as a plus for the book, as it gives the book a cryptic feel, rather like the work of Leonard Cohen itself. I learned a lot, and enjoyed the distant quality of Nadel's writing for what it was, but I was left wanting to know more. Perhaps Cohen, whose work often veers into playful impenetrability, perfers it that way.