Intricate Preparations: Writing Leonard CohenStephen Scobie This essay collection reflects the scope and reach of Leonard Cohen’s influence. It ranges from academic essays that consider the treatment of the Holocaust in Cohen’s poetry, aspects of personal and national identity in his novels, and the theoretical problems of performance in his songs, to less formal discussions such as an Internet newsgroup thread on “Closing Time” and a description of fan reactions to his concert performances in Germany. Several writers pay tribute to Cohen by contributing poems that “translate” his work into new idioms. The book also includes two new poems by Cohen himself. Intricate Preparations is fully international in scope, with contributions coming from Australia, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Norway, and Finland, as well as Canada—including something from the Governor-General herself. |
Contents
Counterpoint Leonard Cohen | 1 |
Introduction | 3 |
On First Looking into Leonard Cohen | 5 |
What Irving Layton Taught Me about Leonard Cohen | 9 |
Leonard Cohens Postcolonial Novel | 12 |
Nationalism and Loss in Beautiful Losers | 24 |
Letter | 51 |
Preservation Fortification and Destruction in The Favourite Game | 53 |
Ways to Play in Cohens Garden of Verses | 117 |
Reconsidering Death of a Ladys Man and Death of a Ladies Man | 125 |
Your Man OnLine | 140 |
Whos the Boss? An Internet discussion on Closing Time | 150 |
Poems | 158 |
Leonard Cohen Live | 160 |
Leonard Cohen Live in Germany 1993 | 184 |
The Representation of the Holocaust in Flowers for Hitler | 198 |
Corporeal Grammar in The Favourite Game | 64 |
The Voice of Trust in Leonard Cohen | 73 |
So Long Marianne | 84 |
Poem | 86 |
Ladies and Gentlemen Mr Leonard Cohen Mr Ralph Gustafson | 87 |
A Symposium | 100 |
When to Write Prose for Leonard Cohen | 210 |
Beautiful Losers and Narrative Excess | 213 |
Vertiginous Games in the Fiction of Leonard Cohen | 235 |
Poems | 260 |
Contributers | 262 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic album anglophone Canadian argues artist audience autobiography Barbour Beautiful Losers becomes body Breavman Caillois Caillois's Canada Catherine Tekakwitha character Charles Axis Cohen's songs commentary concert critical culture Death desire différance Douglas Barbour Dudek Dylan Edith English experience fact Famous Blue Raincoat Favourite Game fiction figure film flakes flesh Flowers for Hitler francophone French fuck Gnarowski Gustafson historian Hitler Holocaust human Hutcheon Internet Irving Layton Krantz Lady's Layton Leonard Cohen listening literary live logos loss Louis Dudek McClelland means ment mimetic Montreal Nadel narrative narrator novel Parc Lafontaine performance person play poem poet poetry pornography position postmodern present Quebec Québécois Ray Charles reader relationship Scobie seems sexual singer singing Spector STEPHEN SCOBIE story structure sublime suggests Suzanne theatre tion Toronto transformation vertiginous vertigo victims voice words writing