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Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen (Jewish Life, History, and Culture) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ira B. Nadel
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 388619
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0292717326
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.5409
EAN: 9780292717329
ASIN: 0292717326
Publication Date: October 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
From reviews of the hardcover edition: "[Various Positions is] more a literary than a rock bio—quiet of tone, serious without being worshipful. Drawing on Cohen's own archives, Nadel plots aspects of Cohen's life—Zen, love affairs, drug use—against the evolution of his writing. He fashions a biography that is revealing but also mindful of its subject at his best." —Booklist "An excellent biography, one that manages to be both thoroughly scholarly and genuinely entertaining at the same time." —Montreal Gazette "An honest and sympathetic biography." —New York Times Book Review "The most authoritative work yet on the 'poet laureate of pessimism.'" —Library Journal
Known as the "Prince of Bummers," Leonard Cohen is a multi-talented poet, singer-songwriter, novelist, and Zen Buddhist whose career has spanned more than forty years and inspired countless other artists. In this critically acclaimed biography originally published in 1996 by Pantheon Books, Ira Nadel draws on extensive interviews with Cohen, as well as excerpts from his unpublished letters, journals, notebooks, songs, and other writings, to offer a full portrait of this enigmatic man and his artistic career. A new concluding chapter brings Cohen's story up-to-date, including the release of the albums Dear Heather, Ten New Songs, The Essential Leonard Cohen, and Blue Alert, as well as the publication of Book of Longing and the screening of the documentary film Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Cohen book May 9, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The condition of the used book was just as described, shipping was quick. I am very happy with the purchase!
Leonard Cohen History May 2, 2008
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.
A Leonard Cohen-style biography of Leonard Cohen March 10, 2000
22 out of 26 found this review helpful
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.
 no work of art June 16, 1999
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
I much prefer autobiographies to other biographies. Biographies tend to be clumsily assembled or stitched or thrown together and filled out with plodding prose. And so this biography. Well, at least you get some kind of overview of Leonard Cohen's life and here and there some fragments of Leonard Cohen's incisive wit. Two samples: Author: My publisher wants to know if this can be considered an authorized biography. L.C.: It can be considered a tolerated biography, benignly tolerated. Leonard Cohen is interviewing his famous actress girlfriend Rebecca De Mornay: Rebecca: The great advantage to having you interview me is that I won't have to field questions about Leonard Cohen. L.C.: Yes, let's talk about Leonard Cohen. What's he really like? Recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.
A detailed look at one of our greatest contemporary poets December 5, 1998
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
While Leonard Cohen's music, writing, and intreaguing life are enough to satisfy any romantic, this book manages to give a clear and accurate depiction of Cohen's motivations, influences, and understanding of life. From his innovative novels to his influencial and engrossing music and poetry, Cohen's life is portrayed as a constant exploration into the soul and the true meaning of love, sacrifice, and isolation. However, it is impossible to convey the passion and emotion that Cohen transmits in albums such as "Death of a Lady's Man" and "Songs of Love and Hate." In only this aspect does "Various Positions: A Life of Leanord Cohen" fall short of possible expectations. But perhaps Cohen's emotion is something that prose writing simply cannot capture. Leonard Cohen's life is certainly something worth reading about.
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