Customer Reviews

Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah: A New Biography

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This one is no exception.

Also priapic. It appears repeatedly as Tim Footman editorializes about Cohen's amorous exploits. Why choose an obscure word that MS Word returns as a spelling error?

Beats me.

Who is this guy (Footman) anyway?

Apparently the former managing editor of the Guiness Book of World Records has morphed into a cultural oracle of surpassing significance.

Or at least that's what he would want us to believe.

The problem with this book is that the author really doesn't seem to have very much to say. The florid and pompous prose seems designed to confer a kind of intellectual gravitas and draw attention away from this lack of thoughtful content.

Here are some examples of this pretentious gobbledygook:

* He realized that becoming involved in Zen practice was compatible with his Jewish identity and beliefs, and even with his enjoyment of the bacchanalia that constituted life as a rock musician.

* For the moment, however, Cohen's rutting urges were sublimated into his growing interest in literature and music.

* Romantically unattached when he arrived on Hydra, Cohen was at first an amused observer of the coital merry go round on the island, until he met a Norwegian named Marianne Ihlen.

* Which leads into problematic territory, where we ask, whether some performers of some genres of music are to be classed as priests, while others are merely supplicants.

* As he powers through his eighth decade - and he's still singing Hallelujah on tour, he wouldn't be permitted to leave it out - new generations are waking up to the particular charm of that deep, growly miaow; an acclamation of a special kind.

"Particular charm of that deep, growly miaow"? Come on, gimme a break.

There are also what appear to me as astounding editing blunders. For example in the discussion of Cohen's novels The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers, references to "The Beautiful Game" and "Beautiful Strangers" inexplicably crop up. Maybe I'm missing something (if so let me know with a comment) but this looks like flagrant errors.

Cohen is a great artist. He deserves better.

So don't waste your time with this book. If you're looking for a good biography of LC read Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen by Ira Bruce Nadel instead.

In the "Conclusion: End of My Life in Art" Tim Footman in the new biography of Leonard Cohen says the question is not how good Leonard Cohen is but rather how great he is and wonders if we can even ask that question. After all there are those who would say "it doesn't matter what anybody thinks anyway; that nobody's opinion is more important than anybody else's. .. we should just enjoy what we enjoy, right?" Not really. Mr. Footman concludes that persons who think that way wouldn't be reading this most informative biography of Leonard Cohen anyway. "So this is between you and me, the people who care." (I couldn't agree more.) He then goes on to enumerate some of the qualities that make Cohen great: he is a brilliant lyricist in the company of Bob Dylan and even the likes of Cole Porter, he is extremely well read (a lover of William Butler Yeats and Lord Byron), and he is often quite funny in spite of his dark lyrics. Footman quotes as an example the lyrics from his favorite Cohen song:

"Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey.
I ache in the places where I used to play."

There is a wealth of information about Cohen in Footman's biography. The essential details are all here: Cohen's birth in 1934 in Montreal, his early beginnings as a writer, his poetry, his novels, his travels, his relationships with women, his time spent in a monastery, his highly successful concert tour in 2009. Although it is obvious that the writer is besotted with Mr. Cohen, he presents him with all his warts-- his drug use, his not-always-successful relationships: "I was very poor at relationships. . . I wasn't good at marriage, and I wasn't good at husbandhood or fatherhood."

In addition to what one would expect in a biography, Mr. Footman includes as list of his 10 favorite Cohen songs, a chapter on the popularity of "Hallelujah," a discography that includes bootlegs and a list of practically everyone who has ever recorded a Cohen song, a list for further reading that includes Nabokov's novel PALE FIRE and finally a chapter comparing Bob Dylan and Cohen. Footman concludes that in a hundred years from now Dylan will be the artist who defines the second half of the 20th century. Leonard Cohen, on the other hand, is loved. "And Cohen and surely Dylan as well--knows which is more important."

The people who care about Cohen will find much to like in this biography.

I would not call this a good book, yet I would not say it is entirely unworthy of reading. I found myself enjoying it despite myself, sort of like fast food or a microwave TV dinner. After the difficult bit of swallowing the introduction, the rest went down with no trouble. I just settled into the reality that is was not a novel or literary masterpiece. It was alot of bits of information, placed in chronological order about an artist I admire, and it included some details of his 2008/2009 tour and life. I learned things I did not know beforehand and left with new references to explore more in the life/art of Leonard Cohen. For that reason, I do not regret reading this book and that is where I found value in it.

Otherwise, it had the flavor of someone quickly putting it all together in order to capitalize on Leonard Cohen's recently successful return to the public. While reading it I wondered if Mr. Cohen had read it or endorsed it? I also wondered about the age of the author, as it had a "green" (NOT as in the evironmental sense . . .) feeling about it.

One of the other reviews stated that Leonard deserves better, and I would agree. Although, a better product will require some time and thoughtfullness, so I am confident that something of that nature is around the corner for us.

This is not a biography so much as a review of Cohen's career. At that, there is little new here. And while one might expect that it would have a lot of information of Cohen's more recent concert tour, there is actually very little of substance. In fact, as a career review, this book is mildly acceptable -- very readable and relatively few typographical and editing errors, but much less substantial than one would expect now -- after, there has been plenty of time to take a look back at most of Cohen's career.

There are few new details in this book. Footman often talks about an album selling well or poorly but he doesn't have any information on what that means -- a few hundred copies? a few hundred thousand? And he repeatedly notes that Cohen was more popular in Europe than in the US, but he gives one very little info on what this mean in any solid terms -- did he have trouble filling 100-seat theaters in the US, did he fill 1,000-seat venues wherever he went in Europe? What's a lot? What's a little? In fact you hear on when he genrally went on tour but there is little to read aobut how any of the tours proceed. The firt few minutes of the recently released recording of the Isle of Wight conert reveals more about that event than anything in Footman's book, and that's a shame -- if only Footman had done more homework and put it into the book.

As a career review, it seems unevenly harsh in it's criticism of Cohen's work although Footman does toss Cohen an ocassional bone in a general way, suggesting he might be a genius -- but one is left with the impression from Footman's book that Cohen was a genius that never made a good record or turned in a good performance or a really good book of peotry -- one is left wondering, wherein does the genius lie? Unless you are actually familar with Cohen's work.

This seems more like a task Footman took up for the money rather than something he did out of strong interest in the subject. He's tacked together a reasonably well-formed bird house that obeys the basic rules of carpentry, but don't expect to ever find a bird inside.

Although it is a much older book, I think a person interested in Cohen's life would be better served by Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen (Jewish History, Life, and Culture) (Paperback) by Ira B. Nadel. Nadel's book is not without its weak points, but it's a decent biography and ultimately tells you much more about Cohen than Footman's book.

Footman's book might serve as a companion piece to Nadel's, adding info on the career and while generally avoiding personal information, but it avoids too much info to be considered a necessary appendix, more as an add-on for the really avid Cohen fans that want it all.

When the delay in this book's publication date was announced at about the same time as more dates were added to Cohen's monster world tour, I was hopeful that meant that the author was embedded with the tour, and we were about to get an inside account of this career-crowning moment for the much beloved Cohen.

Alas, as it turns out, such is far from the case. This book could have been written by any fan, and indeed there appears to be not one iota of newly illuminating information here, no substantive new interviews with Cohen or anyone in his inner circle. It reads like an extensive set of liner notes to a boxed set, or an overlong article for the Sunday insert in your local paper. It all seems to be simply the result of the author's fandom and library or internet research.

For that matter, no one couldn't do without the self-indulgence. Way too many judgments are proffered about what's good or bad, what's worthy or unworthy--none of which is accompanied by any sense that the author is in any way more qualified than you or me to offer such blathering opinions, except that he wrote and published this book and you didn't. As for the structure, it gets as bad as--I am not exaggerating for effect--a two-page appendix entitled, "My Ten Favorite Leonard Cohen Songs." It's not even annotated, just the list of ten. Next time just get yourself a blog.

How wonderful it would be to know more about how this phenomenally affirming, charmingly late peak in Cohen's career came to be. The tour promoter put up a lot of money because, he has said, it was always his dream to stage a Leonard Cohen tour like this one. Now Cohen is more a household name than ever. How were the musicians auditioned? How do they relate to one another? How comfortable is Cohen now set up to be, after being wiped out by a former manager? Or does he prefer now to tour till he drops--not something he was ever known for before he was a septuagenarian? All of these await the pen of a serious biographer. In the meantime, we have this compendium of information, which is significantly less than the definitive Life of Leonard Cohen that would be of any literary value. How welcome that volume would be. The Ira Nadel book was a good start. But that's for another review.

I've been listening to a lot of Leonard Cohen music lately, I have at least one book of his poems on the shelves, and I know he's been around for a long time. But apart from that, I knew next to nothing about him. So, I read this book and while I'm dissatisfied with it, I came away knowing a little more.

Why the dissatisfaction? After all, there's lots of detail included about the lives and loves of Leonard Cohen, about his early years as a poet and author in Canada, his time in a Buddhist monastery, and information right up to 2009, the year he turned 75, when he went on tour. But this is Leonard Cohen at a distance: information gleaned from various sources and apparently from interviews with others who've known or worked with him. All this is fairly neatly worked into various themes: the role of religion, of sex, of drugs (and not to mention drugs and sex). There's mention, too, of complex interpersonal relationships, and of various (and often differing) answers that Leonard Cohen has given to different questions.

There's a lot of discussion about `Hallelujah', and of covers of Cohen songs that various people have made. There's some mention of his fiction and his poetry, and Tim Footman has kindly provided a list of his own personal top ten Leonard Cohen songs:

Tower of Song; Famous Blue Raincoat; Paper-Thin Hotel; Hallelujah; Bird on the Wire; Who By Fire; Anthem; A Thousand Kisses Deep; Suzanne; and The Great Event.

There is as well, quite a lot of commentary about how bad Tim Footman considers most of the cover art is on various releases. In fact, I think I learned more about some aspects of Tim Footman than I did about Leonard Cohen.

Still, I did like aspects of the book: there's information about other sources, a discography and a list of Leonard Cohen's published books.

Leonard Cohen, who turned 77 last month, is quoted as having once said: `I don't have much of a sense of my own work.' Perhaps not. But there are plenty of us who continue to enjoy it.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

This is the worst biography I've ever read. The facts check out, and there are plenty of insightful quotes, but Tim Footman seems determined to come off as a pedantic elitist, and there is no end to his arrogance. He is unsatisfied with looking down his long nose at anybody who likes (or dislikes) Leonard Cohen, but he never misses a chance to slam Cohen for his early lack of success as a poet and musician, his tumultuous relationship with all women in general, and his drug use. Gee, a musician who had a lot of sex and did a lot of drugs. Imagine! Your honor, I suggest we string this man up by the nearest tree! Footman also manages to talk both down and up to his audience, no doubt a remarkable feat, but hardly one that will win supporters. He uses words like "solipsistic" and then, almost in the same breath, explains to us that Sake is Japanese rice wine. In short, this book is not a biography of Leonard Cohen at all, but instead a monument to Tim Footman's self centered-ness. I want my money back.

Leonard Cohen Fans Will Lose Sleep Untill This Book Is In Their Collection. Very Little "Personal Life" Biographical Information, But Enough To Make It Interesting. Definately Worthy For The Novice Inspection.

One of the iconic songwriters of the twentieth century, Leonard Cohen is still going. "Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah" telling the story of a unique icon of music. Tim Footman examines the man who is multi talented with several novels under his belt and never boring, spending years doing what many would never even do for one. Tracing his life from his birth to over seventy years later to one of his most recent concert oturs, "Leonard Cohen" is a top pick for anyone who is a fan of the man and his work.

This is a precise and illuminating re-telling of the Leonard Cohen story with a truly remarkable narrative, largely absent from modern music biographies. Footman is an original writer and thinker who goes well beyond the call of duty, but never slips into self indulgent personal, theories - as has been so common in previous Cohen biographies. Hugely readable with a jovial mood throughout and delightfully illustrated, this unexpected work is a must for everyone with even a hint of interest in the man.