The life of the late Montreal-born poet, novelist, and singer/songwriter is detailed in this thoroughly researched biography. The author had extensive access to her subject as well as many of his friends, coworkers, paramours and associates and gives readers a quite fawning laudatory account of his troubled life, excluding his last four years. She was apparently blind to, or willing to overlook, the seamier features of his character, as were most women whom he charmed.
His almost insatiable, indiscriminate sexual appetite lead to relationships with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of women, but few long term relationships, none of which were even remotely monogamous. But he had the unique ability, the envy of all philanderers, to maintain friendships with almost all of his ex-lovers, perhaps because most of them were in the same bohemian counterculture and expected nothing permanent. The exception was the mother of his two children who, years after their relationship ended, sued him for support.
His New York friends in the late 50s and 60s, when he was an aspiring poet and novelist, included a who’s-who list of the famous from the world of the arts, including Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Allan Ginsberg, Frank Zappa, Tiny Tim, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joan Baez, and Jimmy Hendrix.
His quest for meaning in his life was never fully satisfied, as he pursued various belief systems, including indulging in Christian Scientism, Hinduism, and Zen Buddhism while always observing Jewish traditions. He spent five years in a spartan Buddhist monastery, becoming an ordained monk and practicing austere meditation, all while continuing his indulgence in heavy drinking, although he apparently eased up on his use of other drugs in his later years. Troubled by intermittent depression, some of his poetry and songs show his gloomy fatalism.
My wife had a similar experience to that related by guests arriving at his shack in Tennessee who were greeted at the door by a stark naked host, having had the same experience when, on a date as a naïve young nurse, (B.C.-Before Cam), she was invited to Gordon Lightfoot’s mansion in Toronto.
The details of the process of making music, well described here, was an eye-opener for me. The number of rewrites of some poems and lyrics run into the hundreds with some never used for anything and others purloined or stolen by other artists without regard for intellectual property rights. The mixing and matching of different lyrics with different musician combinations is a very complicated process that must be confusing, even to those involved. He was so naive that his finances were ruined when his financial manager (and one time lover) scammed him out of an estimated 7-10 million dollars in the 1990s.
Being a concrete thinker, I seldom enjoy reading modern poetry with lines that I find to be generally enigmatic, confusing, or even nonsensical, and have read little of Cohen’s prose or poetry, much of which is apparently graphic pornography-except those that made their way into song- but what gorgeous songs!
There are so many sides to Cohen that a dozen adjectives will not adequately describe the whole of him but here are some: shy, self-effacing, humble, perplexed, sex-obsessed, gentle, naive, troubled, charming, generous, kind, and above all, extremely talented as a singer-songwriter.
Although I enjoyed reading this interesting biography, books can be enjoyed only once or twice but music can be appreciated forever.
Thanks Michelle.
The Passionate Reader 