The Favourite Game

by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen's fame as a songwriter and poet has long eclipsed his reputation as a novelist. He abandoned fiction after only two novels--1963's The Favourite Game and 1966's Beautiful Losers--but these were enough to reveal Cohen as a deft and vivid storyteller, equally comfortable with poetry and prose. Their frank sexuality and unapologetic social satire made them controversial (and wildly popular) on their first publication, but they are easily as substantial as any of Cohen's collections of verse.

Like so many first novels, The Favourite Game is semi-autobiographical, a coming-of-age novel that tells the story of Lawrence Breavman, a Montreal Jewish boy who matures into a promising poet. In order to create his art, Breavman feels compelled to live destructively, divesting himself of his lovers, friends, and family, keeping them only in his memory and his writing. Cohen moves carefully between cruelty and sentimentality, and none of his characters--including Breavman himself--escape his satiric venom.

Though unmistakably a poet's novel, The Favourite Game does not include the experimentation or unrestrained lyricism of Beautiful Losers. Instead, in a remarkably compressed story, Cohen is able to render powerful narrative episodes in the space of a couple of pages or skewer a character in a single sentence. This lends Cohen's narrative voice a slightly disengaged feel, letting the novel maintain a tense atmosphere of ironic intimacy--the passions it presents are tangible, but they are forever unreachable, held tightly in Breavman's memory and Cohen's art. --Jack Illingworth

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Poetry, Literature, Novels, Classics, Canadian Literature

245 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Leonard Norman Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963.

Cohen's earliest songs (many of which appeared on the 1968 album Songs of Leonard Cohen) were rooted in European folk music melodies and instrumentation, sung in a high baritone. The 1970s were a musically restless period in which his influences broadened to encompass pop, cabaret, and world music. Since the 1980s he has typically sung in lower registers (bass baritone, sometimes bass), with accompaniment from electronic synthesizers and female backing singers.

His work often explores the themes of religion, isolation, sexuality, and complex interpersonal relationships.

Cohen's songs and poetry have influenced many other singer-songwriters, and more than a thousand renditions of his work have been recorded. He has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10, 2008 for his status among the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters".

Reviews

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

To live in the modern world and not know Leonard Cohen... perhaps. It is impossible not to feel his presence, spread throughout the cultural space. Have you watched the cartoon about Shrek, "Barefoot on the grass", "Ambulance", "Dr. House", the opening of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics? So they sang along to Cohen's "Hallelujah." Have you read Pelevin's "Generation P"? Epigraphs to the chapters are lines from his songs.

Written in 1959-1960, the young author received a grant from the Canadian Council for Culture in London and on the Greek island of Hydra , Beauty at Close Quarters was rejected by a Canadian publisher, who considered the novel obscenely autobiographical, boring and fixated on sex.Cohen sent the manuscript to English and American publishers, who demanded a halving, as a result, the novel in its current form under a new title was published first in England (1963), then in America (1964) and only in 1970 in the writer's homeland, Canada.

Hallelujah
Все знают, что лодка дала течь,
Все знают, что капитан солгал,
У всех есть это странное чувство,
Будто их отец или собака умерли.

Leonard Norman Cohen "Everybody Knows"

Жить в современном мире и ничего не знать о Леонарде Коэне... возможно. Невозможно не ощутить его присутствия, разлитого по культурному пространству. Смотрели мультик про Шрека, "Босиком по траве", "Скорую помощь", "Доктора Хауса", открытие Олимпиады в Ванкувере 2010? Значит подпевали коэновой "Аллилуйя". Читали "Generation П" Пелевина? Эпиграфы к главам строчки из его песен.

В нем уживались крайности. Ловелас, известный тем. что разбивал семьи друзей. уводя их жен с поэтом, который находил и складывал слова, несшие утешение миллионам сердец. Музыкант, который сетовал, что написание песен для него тяжелый процесс, но сегодня, спустя шесть лет после его смерти, продолжают выходить неизвестные композиции из архива. Исполнитель, на пике карьеры удалившийся от мира в буддийский монастырь, приняв имя Jikhan - "тишина" (санскр.) и принеся на пять лет обет молчания. Поэт, композитор, певец, художник, прозаик. А можно с этого места поподробнее?

Вполне. Кроме поэтических сборников наследие Коэна включает две книги прозы и сегодня, когда француженка Анни Эрно (Annie Ernaux), пишущая в жанре автофикшн стала обладательницей литературного Нобеля - прецедент, который избавил исповедально-дневниковую прозу с элементами вымысла от клейма недожанра - сегодня брюзжание записных ценителей боллитры не помешает охарактеризовать "Любимую игру" романом.

Написанная в 1959-1960, молодой автор получил на это грант от Канадского совета по культуре в Лондоне и на греческом острове Гидра. "Красота вблизи" (Beauty at Close Quarters) была отвергнута канадским издателем, который счел роман непристойно автобиографичным, скучным и зацикленным на сексе. Коэн разослал рукопись английским и американским издателям, которые потребовали сокращения вдвое, в результате роман в его сегодняшнем виде под новым названием вышел сначала в Англии (1963), потом в Америке (1964) и только в 1970 на родине писателя, в Канаде.

История детства и юности монреальского озорного гуляки, мальчика из хорошей еврейской семьи, но далеко не идеального поведения, склонного дерзить матери и с уровнем ответственности, стремящимся к минус единице. Вот Бривман подсаживает крысу. которую оставил ему на передержку друг, уехавший на зимние каникулы, к своей крысе, оставляет обеих в подвале и примерно неделю забывает кормить. Догадайтесь, что было.

Вот, начитавшись учебника по гипнозу, усыпляет молоденькую служанку, внушает ей раздеться, взять свой член, после уходит, забыв вывести девушку из транса. и только ее истерический хохот с битьем головой о шкаф напоминает парнишке, что надо бы закончить сеанс как полагается. Вот. напившись с другом Кранцем до бесчувствия, препарируют найденную на дороге лягушку, а потом идут в ресторан, захватив вырезанное сердце - сколько проживет вне обычной среды?

Фу, гадкий какой, - вы скажете. и будете правы. И будете неправы. Все когда-то совершают поступки. за которые им может быть стыдно. Не может не быть стыдно. Не все имеют мужество признаться в этом. Без свидригайловской надсадности, без биения себя в грудь, без фальшиво-покаянной интонации. Предельный цинизм? Возможно. Или та единственно-возможная степень откровенности, которая индульгирует творца.

А кроме того, они были без тормозов, шестидесятники, идейные вдохновители движения хиппи. Прогибали изменчивый мир под себя и некоторым из них это до поры удавалось. Ричард Бротиган, не приходя в сознание, учил "Ловле форели в Америке", Уильям Берроуз ("Голый завтрак"), засадив жене пулю в голову во время неудачной игры в Вильгельма Телля и отделался двумя днями заключения. На этом фоне "Любимая игра" Коэна-Бревмана выглядит детски-невинной.

Лайза, Тамара, Шелл. Их он любил, по их сердцам прошелся аналогом того гусеничного трака каким по вверенному его заботам мальчику-аутисту Мартину проехал настоящий бульдозер (кишки наружу и вот это вот все, так что девушки еще легко отделались). Гений и злодейство, говорят вещи несовместные, как насчет гения с безответственностью и инфантилизмом в духе Питера Пэна?

Ну вот как-то так. Не стой под стрелой, подруга. Эпифания (Θεοφάνια), когда боги являют себя смертным, без жертв не обходится, а гениальность божественна. Алилуйя!

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been over 10 years since I read Cohen's Beautiful Losers and I really don't remember much besides, well, a vibrator. I wasn't sure what to expect from this book? What will the favorite game turn out to be? Does it involve a vibrator?

This is a semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age novel about Montrealian (is that a thing? let's call it a thing) Lawrence Breavman who, from a rather young age, is fairly obsessed with sex. Or, I don't know, maybe all boys are, or maybe it's a Canadian thing.

But in Leonard Cohen fashion, parts of his story are really beautiful. Not when he's using Breavman to talk about women being his property, certainly; but Cohen is a poet, and his poetry comes across even in his prose.

I understand from the never-wrong Wikipedia that Cohen's story was actually much longer than what it turned out to be because a lot of it got chopped. I think that it's actually noticeable. The chapters are short to begin with, vignette-like, but there's a flow to a lot of it. But the flow is disrupted quite a bit, and I wonder if those breaks are where some chop-chop happened.

Breavman isn't as interesting a character to me as one of his lady friends, Shell. Cohen spent a considerable amount of time discussing Shell, and managed to make her a fascinating character. I would have liked to know even more about her. I also wish Cohen had spent similar amounts of energy on Breavman and the other characters. But, again, maybe all of that is in the chopped sections which I hold out hope will one day come to the light of day.

And, I'm sorry. Can we just comment for a moment on the fact that Cohen was asked to heavily edit his novel? That's like cutting Frank Sinatra off during his Lifetime Achievement award speech. Nobody puts baby in the corner.

[Georgia Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leonard Cohen's semi-autobiographical first novel is not about music. It's about the other Leonard Cohen, the one who dreamed when he was young of becoming a poet.

His poetic sensibility is evident from page one. I wondered if he could keep it up to keep me reading. He does and I did. This sensibility is often, though not always, beautiful. But what you're guaranteed is it's sharp. The language never fails. And its message rings true. From the boy finding his first imperfection ("It's easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It's hard to show a pimple.") and someone witnessing a brawl ("The bouncers pursued the disruption like compulsive housekeepers after an enormous spreading stain, jerking fighters apart by their collars and sweeping them aside as they followed the struggle deeper into the dance floor.") to intimacy ("Her hand rested on his arm like snow on a leaf, ready to slip off when he moved."), this novel glitters like a crown with many gems.

There are also some excerpts from Cohen's poetry. Damn, they are good. Here is a taste.

"Beneath my hands
your small breasts
are the upturned bellies
of breathing fallen sparrows."

And this:

"When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want my body and my hands
to be pools
for your looking and laughing."

Watching a lover sleep, he describes this way: "To kneel beside her and run his fingers on her lips, follow every shape, was to annihilate sunsets he couldn't touch."

Elsewhere, there are simple truths. My favorite is this one. "It isn't often we meet someone who has the same vision of what we might be as we have for ourselves."

To those who found the book boring, perhaps the timing wasn't right. Try again. I recommend it not for plot or a main character to be admired but for the beautiful writing and acute observations of life. The short vignettes which make up this novel are well worth reading more than once.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leonard Cohen, like the artist at various times known as Prince, likes to fuse God and sex together, so that for him shagging is like Communion is for Catholics, and he shares this view with crazy cult leaders and holy lechers throughout history, as can be seen in songs like Hallelujah (check out what that holy dove is up to), Dance Me to the End of Love (one of my top favourites) and his other - wilder - weirder - better - far more disgusting - novel Beautiful Losers.

In this first novel he gives us a portrait of the artist as a young slightly bohemian bore, mooching and yearning his way around Montreal. It's okay, but he hasn't got his mojo working yet. Beautiful Losers is the one Cohen novel to read - he quit writing novels after that one. It was impossible to follow up.

This one is a saunter, that one is a mind-melt. Read Beautiful Losers and get the full Cohen experience - it'll dance you to the end of something or other, that's for sure.

Note ; i saw Mr Cohen in concert once. He's a very funny guy. At one point he said to the audience ;

"I'd like to thank you for all the letters and cards and good wishes you've sent me over the years, but I'm sorry to tell you they didn't help at all."

[Janelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a Leonard Cohen fan but wasn’t aware that he’d written 2 novels until recently. This one is the first and published in 1963 and semi autobiographical. The writing is just wonderful , short chapters, often short sentences but it reads beautifully and though often I didn’t particularly like what Lawrence Breavman, the narrator was saying , I couldn’t look away. He’s quite full of himself, his ambition to be a poet is more important to him than anything and though he loves women/sex he’s often cruel in his dealings with those women, even the ones he says he loves. But strangely, I loved it!

[verbava · Rating 5 out of 5]

«улюблена гра» — перший (із двох) романів леонарда коена, написаний 1959 року, але виданий тільки 1963-го. перший потенційний видавець, канадський, відмовився мати справу з текстом, бо там було занадто багато автобіографічності й сексуальності, а занадто мало сюжету. американське й англійське видавництва, які взялися друкувати книжку, попросили її порізати бодай удвічі; повна версія, якщо вона взагалі збереглася, світу досі не побачила, то ми не знаємо, що в ній було, але чомусь у мене є відчуття, що багато поезії.

бо навіть те, що таки вийшло друком, наскрізь поетичне. головний герой (якого весь час хочеться назвати героєм ліричним) дорослішає, досліджує себе і монреаль, тонко відчуває світ, закохується в половину зустрічних жінок і з третиною з них намагається переспати — коротше, усе те, від чого в мене зазвичай стаються гострі приступи окозакочування. а тут зненацька — не стався. ба більше, ця книжка записалася в канон тих безумно прекрасних, які мені колись хотілось би перекласти просто заради насолоди від роботи з текстом.

навряд чи просто гарне письмо могло би витягти цей сюжет (чи його брак), але коен підкорює ще й трошки відстороненою нарацією від третьої особи, повною теплої іронії до себе колишнього: головний герой юний, наївний, захоплений (насамперед собою) і впевнений, що тільки він по-справжньому відчуває жінок і місто; трохи старший оповідач уже розуміє, що це крінжатина, але така, знаєте, зворушлива, про яку ми всі разом можемо всміхнутися. виходить чарівно.

[Ilyhana Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the reason why I give less than five stars to so many others.
Exquisitely written, it allows the reader an insight into the life experiences of a brutally self-involved person.
The central character Breavman lives in a world of his own creation, a world of "expectation". He lurches from one whim to the next and in the process leaves a trail of relationship debris, about which he cares little.
In the sheer genius of his style, Cohen redeems his protagonist from his life of arrogance and loneliness in one acute paragraph. In so doing, Cohen restores hope for the reader, hope for his protagonist, hope that all things, all people have potential for change.
And this was Cohen's first novel, beautiful, crafted with an obvious intelligence and depth of perception.

[Loren · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Shell was genuinely fond of him. She had to resort to that expression when she examined her feelings. That sickened her because she did not wish to dedicate her life to a fondness. This was not the kind of quiet she wanted. The elegance of a dancing couple was remarkable only because the grace evolved from a sweet struggle of flesh. Otherwise it was puppetry, hideous. She began to understand peace as an aftermath."

Out of print, bitches. Find your own copy.

[KK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kada spava, svaki covek je samo dete!


Iskreno, nisam nikad bila fan Koena ali me je zainteresovalo da procitam njegov prvi roman i moram priznati da sam se prijatno iznenadila. Pise na jako dopadljiv nacin, ima lepe opise i drzi paznju do samog kraja.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As can be confirmed from the recently released biography of Leonard Cohen I’m Your Man, The Favourite Game is a semi- autobiographical work. Humour is something most people don’t associate with Leonard Cohen but this book has it (mostly in the first part). What I first found striking about the book was the short chapters, more like vignettes almost like poems connecting the dots of the story. Not having grown up in 1950’s Canada I can only guess that Cohen’s depiction of it during Breavman’s childhood was on the mark. I found the main characters discovery of sexuality particularly interesting and how educators at the time hid essential facts behind meaningless trivia; e.g. ‘A single sperm is one thousand times smaller than this [.].’

The characters in this book don’t come to life easily, it is as if they have a soul but it is just half alive and thus do not jump off the page. Cohen’s writing commands a powerful atmosphere at times, however this is not constant, it merely comes and goes.

Cohen is a master of subtlety, I was most impressed with his description of a masturbation session (chapter 19), without once mentioning the word masturbation or anything blatantly related to it. At the time of writing The Favourite Game, Cohen was 28 or 29, however his recall of the frustrations experienced by many adolescent boys that girls their own age develop faster and thus prefer to date older males appears very fresh. Throughout the novel Cohen writes a lot about the body in both similes, metaphors and descriptions. It is clear that the body has held high significance for Cohen throughout his life and writings. Pick from any section of Cohen’s writing life; poetry, the novels or lyrics and you will find various homages to the human body especially the female form. He worships it like a religion.

The book raised two incredibly fascinating and essential questions in the examination of life and ourselves. Can some things about ourselves be too deep for us to discover? And. Can we only just ever scratch the surface of who we are?

In book I Cohen depicts the crumbling of a once passionate relationship in to passive aggressive onesupmanship. With lots of subtle attacks from each partner regarding various grievances the other harbours, such as Breavman’s short story about how Tamara can make him feel so worthless. Cohen also notes the mild longing for aspects of ones single life which were given up to facilitate relationships, such as the wish for solitude or not needing to compromise as much. He writes from the true perspective of one who has experienced such a trauma; it is clear that Cohen has been very emotionally vulnerable and damaged in this area of his life. I found this part of the story a very though pill to swallow because I have been through very similar experiences myself, experiences which I didn’t wish to remember.

In parts Breavman’s character reminded me greatly of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Grey because he seemed to be on a one-way road to emotional disaster and ignoring the warning signs, this was extremely frustrating for me to read. The issue of Breavman and his mother is a horrible one, it angered me to see him abandon and constantly disrespect her and eventually drive her insane. Breavman is not a person I would like to be friends with. The themes are very bitter indeed, it is almost a textbook on how to hurt those you love. Which is in line with Cohen's later work; “All I ever learnt from love is have to shoot somebody who outdrew you.”

When I got to book III I began to lose interest in the story because it proceeded down a path I found to be very foreign, gritty and grotesque in parts, I simply could not identify with the character of Breavman anymore (not that identifying with the character is everything). The voice of the book 50 years on from its publication remains a youthful one with no apparent aged tone to its text, eventually the tone will of course freeze and remain in a fixed period of history. I believe the timeless themes of adolescence, relationships and self-discovery are to the books credit that it doesn’t appear too dated.

Cohen himself said “If you hold an artist special to you, you will appreciate their early work as well as latter work.” when I started reading this book I found myself slightly pressured to like this book because Cohen is my number one favourite artist. Luckily I managed to dispel this feeling and became unbiased in my judgement of this work. It was not an easy read but it is rewarding nonetheless.

[Makis Dionis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magic Bus!!

[Izzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leonard wrote some of these scenes with only one hand is all I'm saying

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to review this. I wanted to underline so many passages but it's a library book. I wanted to devour and savour it at the same time, I wanted to review it but everything I say sounds like a slam poem. Glorious, drowsy summertime prose and witty one liners, this book epitomises everything Leonard Cohen has ever meant to me. The Future was the soundtrack to my childhood. Later, drinking red wine on the couch late at night with my dad talking literature listening to hallelujah obnoxiously loudly over the speakers. This book felt so very familiar, and I missed it when it wasn't by my side. I tried to record my favourite lines but there was nearly one on every page. beautiful beautiful.

[Laura Leaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book – a kind of sexual bildungsroman of the young man Leonard Breavman (Leonard Cohen) – is gorgeous and rather appalling simultaneously. To be formally accurate it’s written in the stream-of-consciousness style, but it’s bolder than that. The point of view is third person, but so close to Breavman’s consciousness as to give me the odd effect of perceiving things from two places at once. The images at the onset of the novel required some effort as I read because they leap from the death of Breavman’s father, to his best friend and sounding-board Krantz, to the games they play and stories they tell (often sexual), to his mother’s needling passive aggressiveness, to his first sexual encounters.

The scenes and images miraculously coalesce into a deep understanding of Breavman’s nature. Still in school, he lives an affluent life in a Jewish suburb of Montreal. He is intellectually interesting, attracted to beauty at the linguistic and physical level, and obnoxious in his objectification of women. At one point Breavman learns the art of hypnosis and uses it on Heather, his family’s maid. “She was a husky, good-looking girl of twenty with high-coloured cheeks like a porcelain doll. Breavman chose her for his first victim of sleep. A veritable Canadian peasant.” It works. He handles her naked body, “unbuttons his fly and told her she was holding a stick [. . . ] He was intoxicated with relief, achievement, guilt, experience.” From that point on, Breavman’s sexual obsession with women becomes more profound and - for me - more exhausting.

He begins a relationship with Tamara, who becomes his “mistress” for three years until he turns twenty. The scenes with her are interrupted by episodes with his mother and make for an interesting psychological effect. The sexual repetition got on my nerves but the descriptions are lovely. At one point he leaves Tamara after she falls asleep: “Her body was with him and he let a vision of it argue against his flight. I am running through a snowfall which is her thighs, he dramatized in purple. Her thighs are filling up the street. Wide as a snowfall, heavy as huge falling Zeppelins, her damp thighs are settling on the sharp roofs and wooden balconies. Weather-vanes press the shape of roosters and sail-boats into the skin. The faces of famous statues are preserved like intaglios. . . .” This vision causes him to return, and he quietly lets himself back into the apartment.

Later, “He saw the most beautiful person and pursued her. Shell.” In the third part of the book sexual desire does not abate but it does (finally) deepen, intertwining itself with beauty and spirituality. His comments about Shell still jar - in that they’re constantly objectifying – but his feelings for her are convincingly like love. By the end of the book, I feel the power that women had over Leonard Cohen’s own mind and memories – and the book deepened my appreciation for his song lyrics. I am reminded of his shortest poem from Book of Longing titled “The sweetest little song”: You go your way / I’ll go your way too.”

[Melissa D · Rating 2 out of 5]

I respect Leonard Cohen but I was so bored with this book and felt it lacked a plot. Didn't help that the protagonist was extremely unlikable.

[Matej Vidaković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ne sramim se priznati kako sam "Divne gubitnike" Leonarda Cohena počinjao čitati dva puta. Prvi put sam odustao od tog aluzivnog postmodernog kaosa punog seksa, prošaptanih molitvi i pritajene želje za vječnim spasenjem. Kad sam roman, pak, uzeo drugi puta - progutao sam ga u jednom dahu. To je bilo TO. I dan-danas mi je to jedan od najdražih romana, jedan od onih čije mjesto ne možeš objasniti drugima koliko god se trudio. Kakve to veze ima sa "Omiljenom igrom" (inače, prvim Cohenovim romanom)? Baš nikakve.

Što je uopće "Omiljena igra"? Žanrovski, formalno, strukturom?

"Omiljena igra" je jedan od najtužnijih, samotnih monologa. "Omiljena igra" je jedan od najtužnijih romana ikada napisanih. Tužan jer progovara o uobičajenom, toliko svakodnevnom da ga više i ne primjećujemo, užasu tijela. Svatko mora imati tijelo. Tijela vječno ostaju jedna drugima strana, i mi u njima zatočeni ostajemo jedni drugima ne samo daleki, nego i osuđeni, prokleti na nedohvatljivost. Nedohvatljivost koja se ima dovršiti jednom u vječnoj kontemplaciji Zlatne Vječnosti, u naručju iz kojega smo iskoračili na ovu Zemlju.

"Omiljena igra" je roman koji je predivno čitati sam u svojoj malenoj studentskoj sobi, roman koji je predivno čitati u jesen pokriven dekom u svojem krevetu dok vjetar na prozore lijepi otpalo lišće koje izgleda poput raskvašenih žitnih pahuljica, roman koji je predivno čitati u bilo kojem od kafića gdje smo tražili (i još tražimo) smisao života uz šalicu kave, roman koji se može čitati na obali rijeke dok ljetno sunce na zalasku blagoslivlja grad...

Roman o samoći koji se čita u samoći. I koji jest Samoća. Samoća koja se vječno širi prema Drugome, a uvijek ostaje samo Moja.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel of dialogue and memory in which a young man tells his lover about his experiences growing up in Montreal. Some of those experiences seem embarrassingly intimate, and even if the young man does not tell his lover about them, the third person narrator describes them for us, the readers. The narrator mentions “scars” early in the novel and this suggests a possible metaphor for the text, which combines sexual experimentation, violence and adolescent consciousness in a way that frequently seems uncomfortable and awkward; this, however, is likely deliberate, as the narrator often views the protagonist ironically, from the perspective of one who is older and wiser. To some extent, Cohen’s approach emulates the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, an enfant terrible who suggested cultivating warts on one’s face. In subject and in style the book imitates James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as well: it is a kunstlerroman, tracing the developing consciousness of a young man with artistic ambitions. The technique of the first part of the book is particularly reminiscent of the early pages of Joyce’s Portrait: the narrator does not represent the cause and effect links between events but employs a fragmented form and vivid imagery to reproduce dialogues and the protagonist’s memories.

Acquired 1995
The Word, Montreal, Quebec

[Mark Drew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lawrence Breavman, you are, in actuality, a misogynist, a user and a taker and your ultimate fate is briefly noted within the same grey colored future as you left your mother and deserted your friend and lovers.

I have no real summary review of this book - what it does is remind me again of the wisdom of Shakyamuni in the Upajjhatthana Sutta:

"'I am subject to aging, have not gone beyond aging.'

"'I am subject to illness, have not gone beyond illness.' ...

"'I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death.' ...

"'I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.' ...

"'I am the owner of my actions,[1] heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.'*

This book is not about these remembrances, but underscores them as one reads.

Having said this, this was a very hard book for me to read. I found the stream of consciousness writing to be very difficult to absorb and to be closer to poetry than to prose. It is jelled from isolated vignettes that slowly create an arching narrative of a not very likeable individual who uses his genius as both a cudgel and as a means to isolation.


*("Upajjhatthana Sutta: Subjects for Contemplation" (AN 5.57), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 3 July 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipita...)

[Andrei Mocuţa]

Impossible to rate this one. Anywhere between 1 and 5 stars.

[Arif Abdurahman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novel coming of age semi-otobiografinya. Novel yg ditulis Cohen di pertengahan akhir 20, soal masa remajanya di Montreal. Saya pikir, akan lebih baik kalau Cohen menggunakan si Lawrence Breavman dalam sudut pandang pertama. Saya menyukai pasase jurnal Breavman, lebih personal kalau Cohen melakukannya di seluruh novel. Kisah novel ini berpusat pada seorang remaja Yahudi kelas menengah, yang bereksperimen soal hipnotis dan cinta, atau seks.

[Jasminka]

Ovo je prvi od jedina dva romana voljenog mi pevača Leonarda Koena, koji je napisao sa nepunih 29 godina. Priča je smeštena uglavnmom u Montrealu pedesetih godina prošlog veka. Satkana od kratkih poglavlja, To je priča o odrastanju i sazrevanju Lorensa Brivmena, mladiča jevrejskog porekla. Divni Koenov stil je kao u njegovim pesmama. Pročitala sam da je ovaj njegov prvenac svrstan u 10 najboljih kanadskih romana 20 veka, ali i da je dosta cenzuriran kako bi ga objavili, pa nije ni čudo što mi je ipak nešto falilo. Vladislav Bajac je napisao:
"Kakva šteta što Koen nije objavio više proznih knjiga osim ove i Divnih gubitnika! Kakva bi to literatura danas mogla biti!? No, zapravo, ipak, znamo: ako nemamo prozu, imamo njegovu poeziju. Eto kako bi mu proza izgledala! Uostalom, to se već dalo prepoznati pre pola veka, u Omiljenoj igri, te 1963. godine. Tada je u Grčkoj završio pisanje ovog romana zahvaljujući višegodišnjoj stipendiji koju je dobio od Umetničkog saveta Kanade. Kada je 2012. dobijao Nagradu Glen Guld, Koen je novčani deo od pedeset hiljada dolara poklonio (vratio) istom tom Umetničkom savetu Kanade za potrebe stipendiranja novih mladih umetnika, rečima da (kao jedan od prvih stipendista): „Bez pomoći i ohrabrenja Kanadskog saveta nikada ne bih ni napisao Omiljenu igru.”
Po knjizi je snimljen i film 2003 u režiji Bernarda Herberta.

[Cassandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I'm a huge Leonard Cohen fan. He's my favorite musician, by far. Just letting the bias be known. Hence my praise, despite some of my qualms with this book. Because his words break me with their beauty.

Here, Cohen is the ultimate poetic voyeur. He commits the common iniquity of regarding women as Mystery, simply because they are women, rather than individual, complicated people whose perspectives and inner lives are as real and valid as his own. It's a sin most Surrealists fall into also: Woman as Object of Worship, as if the worship factor excuses the object factor. It doesn't.

How Cohen saves himself is that in this work, his main character is not only voyeur, he's also the ultimate solipsist- regarding only himself as having any real agency. And here's where I forgive him this sin, for he does it with all persons, not just women. And in doing so, it's the characters surrounding Lawrence Breavman (yes, Cohen) that end up feeling like real people. Breavman's dialogue is so abstracted that it doesn't feel like he could be a real person. Real people don't talk this way. But wait. Then you listen to a Leonard Cohen interview. Cohen does talk this way. He speaks almost in poetry, not prose. It's very peculiar, but consistent. So, of course his novels come out like this.

Cohen acknowledges that this solipsism affects those around Breavman, but the character keeps falling back into it, unable to break the cycle of thinking he's had since he was a child. This is culminated in a moment where he lists his lovers, and his defining characteristics of them. Besides the introduction of a character rather late in the book, who I can't really discuss without spoilers, one of the few times Breavman seems to break out of his solipsist cycle is when he is, in fact, being a voyeur:

She changed her position, drawing the white sheet tight along the side of her body, so that her waist and thigh seemed to emerge out of rough marble. He had no comparisons. It wasn't just that the forms were perfect, or that he knew them so well. It was not a sleeping beauty, everybody's princess. It was Shell. It was a certain particular woman who had an address and the features of her family. She was not a kaleidoscope to be adjusted for different visions. All her expressions represented feelings. When she laughed it was because. When she took his hand in the middle of the night it was because. She was the reason. Shell, the Shell he knew, was the owner of the body. It answered her, was her. It didn't serve him from a pedestal. He had collided with a particular person. Beautiful or not, or ruined with vitriol tomorrow, it didn't matter. Shell was the one he loved. (pg. 149)

[Stella Metcalf · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
Men are disgusting and especially Leonard cohen.

[Anne-Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

"One day what he did to her would enter his understanding with such a smash of guilt that he would sit motionless for days, until others carried him and medical machines brought him back to speech.
But that was not today."
And that was not this novel. It was a story of hurt and carelessness. Breavman stomped from Montreal to New York to the Laurentians with no considerations for the women he was using and with a determination to sever all of his ties with the things he loved, desperate to disconnect.

This might not be the best read if you are attached the character of Leonard Cohen. There is a an horrible chapter in which the alter-ego protagonist hypnotizes a woman and takes advantages of her sexually and it really put me off.

[Shaheer Azam · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Poetry is a verdict, not an occupation."

Presented as a series of vignettes from the life of Lawrence Breavman (who seems to have been based on LC himself), this novel is difficult to put down. The poetry of the prose is breathtaking in this 220 page whirlwind tour of girls, sex, longing, Montreal, New York, women, love, longing, and sex. It is not in the least surprising that the author ended up as one of the most celebrated songwriters of all time.

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked Leonard Cohen a LOT more before I read this book.

[Michael Joe Armijo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always had a curiosity about singer Leonard Cohen. I have loved several his songs (EVERYBODY KNOWS, I’M YOUR MAN, SUZANNE, HALLELUJAH, TRAVELING LIGHT) and I keep discovering that I like more of his music now after his death in Nov. 2016 at the age of 82. His composed lyrics are quite interesting and thought-provoking. I had never known he wrote a book until recently which is why I hunted down this old used paperback copy that had a copywrite of 1963.

In 1959, when he was age 25, he was awarded a $2000 grant by the Canadian Council. He used it to live cheaply in London and on the Greek island of Hydra to write this first novel. Publishers rejected it because of the autobiographical content and found it to be tedious and preoccupied with sex—WHICH IS TRUE!

Leonard Cohen found a new publisher after it was requested to be made shorter in length (which is why the story seems choppy). He ended up cutting the book in half and it was published in England in October 1963 and in the USA in September 1964.

In the 1990s I remembered he was dating actress, Rebecca DeMornay, born in 1959 (who I loved in THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE from 1992). I learned on Wikipedia that she co-produced Cohen’s 1992 album called THE FUTURE. Suzanne Vega, also born in 1959, said Cohen’s relationships with women were one of seduction accompanied by ‘a secret handshake’. Reading this book, THE FAVORITE GAME, and realizing that the main character is ‘him’ I find Vega’s comments to be very true.

While reading I was debating on a 1 or 2 star but I’m giving him a 3 star because it had potential but the fact that he had to cut the book in half made it a miss versus a hit. He used lyrics from 3 songs in the book and I had never known the songs before. I liked them, so I got that out of this book. In addition, the titles of these songs encompass what this story is about:

THE GIRL THAT I MARRY (I like the Frank Sinatra version).

I ALMOST LOST MY MIND by Ivory Joe Hunter

NEAR YOU (I like the Francis Craig version)

Cohen was clearly a womanizer (with Janis Joplin in 1968, among others, and he never married because commitment was his fear as it inflicted hardship and constraint and weighed heavily on his mind and spirit). He did have 2 children with Suzanne Elrod (Adam in 1972, also a singer, and Lorca in 1974). In the 1960s the love of his life seemed to be MARIANNE IHLEN, a Norwegian woman, who died 3-months and 9 days before he did. The woman, SHELL, in this book was definitely MARIANNE. Yet, in the book all of his conquests are mentioned (HEATHER, BERTHA, LISA, TAMARA, NORMA, PATRICIA, and SHELL). I feel, he collected woman and songs. Nonetheless, here are the lines I got out of this book which allowed me to read more into this interesting Canadian Jewish man/talented singer. I believe his favorite game was playing ‘The Soldier and The Whore” while Lisa’s was playing in the snow.

“This isn’t my face, not my real face.”
“Where is your real face, Mother?”
“I don’t know, in Russia, when I was a girl.”

Bagels and hard-boiled eggs, shapes of eternity, were served back at the house.

And what was it like to have no father: It made you more grown-up.

Whenever they could they played their great game, the Soldier and the Whore. Their game forbade talking dirty or roughhouse. Whores were ideal women just as soldiers were ideal men.

Children have a highly developed sense of ritual and formality.

A loon went insane in the middle of the lake.

As they grow older, the horrors become mental, the peculiarities sexual, the wonders religious.

Whoosh...there was nothing that couldn’t be done.

There was nothing that couldn’t be done.

There’s one place for me,
Near you.
It’s like heaven to be,
Near you.

Commitment was oppressive but the thought of flesh-loneliness was worse.

I’ve noted many times during my life that only when faced with extremes of emotion in others can I confirm my own stability.

Writing is an essential part of the Jewish tradition and even the degraded contemporary situation cannot suppress it.

Manual labor did not free his mind to wander at will.

“You’d be surprised how much you forget and how little time there is to remember. Usually, you act right on the spot and hope your decision is the best one.”

Montreal, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else.

“...night after night I lie in front of the TV, does anybody care what I do, I was such a happy person, I was a beauty, now I’m ugly, people on the street don’t recognize me.”

Mail became a part of his heart. He carefully chose the places to read these lengthy communications, which were far more exciting than the chapters of a novel because he was the major character in them.

No woman is so beautiful she will not want her beauty told again in rhyme.

“I wish I could say all there was to say in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.”

There were weekend breakfasts of eggs and blueberry muffins.

In sleep every man is an only child.

“I enjoy his madness. He enjoys his madness. He’s the only free person I’ve ever met. Nothing that anybody else does is as important as what he does.”

“What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross.”

The sun is always part of the sky, but the moon is a splendid and remote stranger.

He attempted to let his mind wander, but he hung on every wild detail, waiting for the hours to be up.

Lisa’s FAVORITE GAME: After a heavy snow we would go into a backyard with a few friends. The expanse of snow would be white and unbroken. One was the spinner. You held the spinner’s hands while the spinner turned, you circled the spinner until your feel left the round. The spinner let go and you flew over the snow. You remained still in whatever position you landed. When everyone had been flung in this fashion into the fresh snow, the beautiful part of the game began. You stood up carefully, taking great pains not to disturb the impression you had made. Now the comparisons. Of course, you would have done your best to land in some crazy position, arms and legs sticking out. Then we walked away, leaving a lovely white field of blossom-like shapes with footprint stems.

[rebeca ravara · Rating 5 out of 5]

i like books like these - those that hinge toward immorality, jump from category to category, explore a variety of avenues. it is very well achieved under the stream of consciousness format just as much as cohen's incredibly obsessive and weirdly romantic poetic writing style. god he's just wonderful

you can make arguments that this is objectifying or that the main character is misogynistic, which in a way, he is, though I think it's so much more than that! the book feeds off cohen's poetry, his obsession towards bodies and love and sex and God. it's about it all and so much more. and it's so raw and human.

always a pleasure Mr cohen.

[Simon Granqvist · Rating 2 out of 5]

En del formuleringar är alldeles otroliga medan en hel del är totalt oförståeligt. Som någon annan hade skrivit är den här novellen nog mer tänkt att läsas som poesi än som en roman. Jag hoppas att Lawrence Breavman inte är Cohens direkta spegelbild för i så fall har han en väldigt misogyn syn på kvinnor och sex, typ det boken handlar om - kvinnor, sex, kvinnor, sex och så vidare…

Boken saknar egentligen handling och det är dessutom väldigt svårt att hänga med i det som händer, eftersom han hoppar fram och tillbaka med osammanhängande formuleringar. Är man Cohen-fan som älskar allt han har skrivit kan jag tänka mig att den här boken går hem. Tyvärr är huvudpersonen så svår att tycka om ens lite grann, så för mig blir det ett ett dålig betyg

[Guilherme Rodrigues · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Estava bem ali no hospital, que, com drogas e eletricidade, vinha mantendo a sanidade dos homens de negócio evitando que as esposas se suicidassem e livrando filhos do ódio."