Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen

by Ira B. Nadel, Sonny Mehta (Editor)

Reissued with a new afterword

Leonard Cohen is back! With a #1 bestselling poetry collection, The Book of Longing, flying off bookshelves; Lian Lunson’s acclaimed documentary, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, in theatres this summer (the DVD will release this fall); and the superb soundtrack in music stores everywhere, Leonard Cohen proves he is Canada’s most enduring icon. Now, in the newly reissued Various Positions, Ira Nadel peels back the many layers to reveal the man and explain the fascinating relationship between Leonard Cohen’s life and his art. This book is a remarkable and rare
look at Leonard Cohen, up close and personal.

For nearly forty years, Leonard Cohen has endured the ups and downs of an international career that has alternately identified him as the "Prince of Bummers" and Canada's most respected poet and performer. Now, author Ira Nadel brings us closer to understanding these conflicting descriptions and allows us to enter Cohen's private world. He peels back the many layers to reveal the man and explain the fascinating relationship between Cohen's life and his art.

This is a remarkable and rare look at Leonard Cohen, up close and personal.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Poetry, Autobiography, Biography Memoir, Pop Culture

325 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Ann Diamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am finally getting around to reading this biography which I was asked to review when it first came out in 1996. At the time I was distracted by several factual errors that jumped out at me when I started reading it -- and which caused me to doubt the value of the whole book. I felt it was a staid rehashing of the already well-known (at least to me) facts of Leonard's career and life, by someone who didn't really "get" him, i.e. Nadel did a workmanly job of presenting the material, often without comment, as if he neither particularly liked nor disliked his subject. This time around, I'm impressed mainly by the quantity of his research, e.g. his quoting from Cohen's letters during his the early part of his career when he was struggling to make a name for himself and carve out a position in Canadian literature. In retrospect, his efforts to be taken seriously as a novelist and poet seem almost futile, given the hidden background, and what he was up against. I still see Cohen as a serious writer, whose novels and poems can be read as a multi-faceted assault on the society he had grown up in - but were marred by a kind of narcissistic self-obsession that was probably a cover for some real wounds that few could have fathomed back then.

I've written my own memoir of Cohen: The Man Next Door (available at Lulu.com). It deals with some of my own experiences with Cohen, on the streets of Montreal as I was coming of age, and later on Hydra and Mount Baldy as I got drawn deeper into the mystery religion that he seemed to embody. Since it ends on a bizarre note, I'm now the process of adding more chapters that are based on later realizations, some of which I've been posting at my blog (http://lunamoth1.blogspot.ca) since Leonard's death last November.

Re: Various Positions: one thing that makes it stand out is the raw objectivity some readers complain about. In particular, the chapters about life on Hydra, and Cohen's letters to friends and publishers, reveal sides of him that would shock a lot of his current fans and devotees. I think they probably shocked even Ira Nadel, who serves them up without comment. In fact, the young Cohen was often an obnoxious, self-obsessed megalomaniac who took drugs to deal with his frustrated ambitions. Nadel's biography at least makes it clear why Cohen was both envied and disliked in Canada: he was a braggart addicted to self-aggrandizing hyperbole. Somehow, Europeans were able to overlook this and focus on his songs, some of which were major works of art.

A whole fetishistic cult has lately grown up around him that is often based on trivia, and borders on sanctification -- especially at sites like Cohencentric.com where you can waste hours browsing through old photos, napkins and witty remarks to visited journalists. No singer has ever been more interviewed in his lifetime, and since his death no detail about Cohen's life is too boring to share with his legions of would-be lovers who never had the opportunity in real life to get to know him. But the real Cohen was a puzzle.

He also left behind an unfinished career as a writer -- choosing to reinvent himself in New York, London and Paris, where he could hide behind his image as a sophisticated, likeable iconoclast.

It's the Canadian chapters that are painful to read. I believe Cohen had a message for Canada that he found too overwhelming - which is one reason he had to write Beautiful Losers while high on amphetamines. I don't think anyone ever really penetrated to the core of his fiction, what it was actually about, what it was a screen for - not even Cohen himself. Canadian critics like Northrop Frye liked to suppress the ugly truths in the early poems and novels, calling them 'mythopeic' when in fact they were often closer to straight reportage about a country that was harbouring Nazis and engaging in secret genocide. Those were the real, deep reasons Leonard Cohen felt driven to write -- but Canada didn't really want that kind of writer.

I have to thank Ira Nadel for bringing some of the guck to the surface. In a few years, Cohen's handlers will probably have managed to bury most of it - and with it, the true story of Canada.

[Comfortably · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ήταν ο Λέοναρντ Κοεν που ποτέ δε καταλάβαινα τους στίχους του αλλά μπορούσα να τον κοιτάζω να τραγουδάει για ώρες.
Μετά ήρθε το Various Positions.
Και μετά ήταν ο κ. Λέοναρντ Κοεν που αναζητούσα να τον διαβάζω για ώρες.

Το βιβλίο είναι εξαιρετικά κακογραμμένο αλλά τα 4 αστεράκια πάνε στον πλουραλισμό των πληροφοριών που περιλαμβάνει για τον Κοεν. Ούτε η δεύτερη ανάγνωση θα μου φτάσει για να προσεγγίσω την πολυπλοκότητα της προσωπικότητας αυτού του ανθρώπου!

[James Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

After some debate with myself, I've decided I've already read this, borrowed from the library then, not remembering, re-bought a couple of years ago in a used bookstore. A good account of Cohen's life. Particularly interesting in terms of the influence of women in his work. For many years Cohen lived on a Greek island called Hydra. Included in the photos is a picture of him on his birthday, and behind him, on a bed, is a beautiful, topless woman. I'd always thought the woman was Greek. Given to him, I fancied, for his birthday. But the caption explains she's a Romanian friend. For years after reading this book, when asked what I wanted for my birthday, I always included in my list a Greek girl. Never happened. As we know, Cohen's song isn't over yet.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though Nadel admits that at best, a biography can only be an approximation, her thoughtful weaving of Cohens evolution, writing, and major events created a beautiful portrait of his life as an artist.

My favourite quote of hers,

“At the core of Leonard Cohen’s appeal is a poetics of survival, a means of confronting and transcending the darkness of self.

One of my favourite quotes of his:

“I want no attachments. I want to begin again again. I think I love you, but I love the idea of a clean slate more… the temptation of discipline makes me ruthless.

[Luca Pasquy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Che io sappia questa è l’unica biografia “tollerata dall’interessato” di Leonard. Varrebbe soltanto per questo la lettura: una vita impossibile da raccontare in ogni sua complessa sfaccettatura, ma è una lettura utile per scalfirne la superficie.

[Judy Frabotta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a stark raving Leonard Cohen fan. He has been the sound track to my life (particularly the difficult parts) since I heard his first album in a Georgetown college dorm room. I always thought his voice was perfectly suited to deliver his dark, funny, always surprising lyrics.

Anyway, this book was satisfying in the sense of putting together the chronology of his life and learning about his influences and discovering some things I'd never heard before. It was upsetting in the sense that unmasking any hero can be. I guess he'd be the first to acknowledge his feet of clay. Still love his music, but I no longer wish to sleep with him.

[Suzan Alteri · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful biography of one of my favorite songwriters - if not my favorite songwriters. Written a while ago, this is still probably my favorite Leonard Cohen biography. Nadel's insights into Cohen are fascinating, if not always entirely correct. Cohen has always been an enigmatic personality and this book tries to tape into the enigma, with good success. There's a new Leonard Cohen biography out, which I am also excited to read. This was also part of my re-reads over break. I have read this book probably about five times and I learn something new with each read. Great if you love either Leonard Cohen or the time period of the 60s-70s.

[Lew Auerbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a Cohen groupie, this is essential reading, despite its age -- almost 17, and some parts which are not particuarly well written. Nadel has talked to many of the girlfriends, musicians, fellow poets, and Leonard himself. One cannot come away from this without a deeper appreciation of Cohen, and the back story to some of his poems, songs, books, and loves.

[TL *Humaning the Best She Can*]

Second time I tried to read this ... Mr. Cohen is a fascinating man but the writing is just flat for me.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how you can write a book on Leonard Cohen and not even mention the song "Hallelujah." Admittedly, this is a biography of Cohen, not a book specifically about his music, but still, that feels like a perverse choice. Indeed, since my main interest in Cohen is in his music, this book was to my taste disappointingly light on consideration of that aspect of his career. Nadel does cover it reasonably extensively, dutifully referencing the recording of each album, but the book is close to half over before we even get to Cohen's recording career. That phase of his career did begin relatively late, but it seemed to me that the second thirty years of Cohen's life got short shrift compared to the first thirty. Perhaps that's because Nadel has more to say/add to the record about Cohen's early life than he does about his music, but I still found myself wanting more about Cohen the songwriter and the vicissitudes of his career. The book at times also seems disorganized, with some shifts of subject not to my mind clearly justified. That said, I did learn a fair bit about Cohen that I didn't know before, including (perhaps unsurprisingly) that he could be something of an asshole.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike 'I'm Your Man' this biography is a little more revealing of Cohen, and less flattering (especially during the early years). This is a good thing, though, because we finally see that the guy was human.

After reading through most of Cohen's catalogue I'm of the perspective that his best work was written during his late life, after he had moved past the excesses and foibles of his youth. In this biography we see that when Cohen was in his 20s and 30s (early work) he was definitely still growing up.

This title also seems to do a better job of framing Cohen as artist than 'I'm Your Man'. It's shorter in length, but seems to put more emphasis on Cohen's actual work, putting it in it's historical context, and sometimes comments from Leonard himself. I have to wonder if Sylvie Simmons took a different approach largely because this book already existed. In her title we get a very wide, surface-level overview of Cohen's life.

I'm of the opinion that both biographies are worth owning, mainly because Cohen had such a fascinating life, and they complement each other well. For the casual fan, however, I'd likely go with 'I'm Your Man' since it's chronologically later, and includes more breadth.

[Jimbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a very good overview on the life of my 2nd favourite artist but to write an entire biography and not mention his most famous song, even in passing, is unforgivable in my opinion. I would also have liked more focus on his music than his writing and Zen activities, but those are part of his story so fair enough.

This book isn't a patch on Sylvie Simmons bio, but it's a worthy read nonetheless.

[Carmen Martín]

Could anyone help me?

I'm working on a project about Leonard Cohen and the influence of Federico García Lorca over his work. I'd like to know if this influence is mention anytime in the book or if it's not something that the author has focused in.

It'd be very helpful if someone could tell me about it before getting the book!! Many thanks.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not as entertaining as Sylvie Simmons' biography of Cohen, I'm Your Man, Nadel's work remains-- very clearly-- the most informative and authoritative work about Cohen's life up to date.

[Batisse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ladies, rather than Lady's Man, trying to find his piece of mind by pursuing female reporters and fans to uncover their bosoms. Nevertheless, admirable creativity and capacity to discover life.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Leonard Cohen. I found this book hard to read.

It's worth a read if you don't have access to another bio of this important artist.

[GK Stritch · Rating 4 out of 5]

fills in the (finer) blanks

[Nechama · Rating 5 out of 5]

My five star rating has more to do with my love for L.C. than the actual content.
And Interestingly, hallelujah is not mentioned once in the book.

[Maja Šoštarić · Rating 3 out of 5]

Technically, there is little to reproach to the book of Ira Nadel. It is well-written, chronologically clear, and its style is quite affordable for any kind of reader - a good read in sum. Nadel's insistence on limiting the book to its strictly biographical content and depriving it from various interpretations of Cohen's life and opus, as well as from the usual tabloid-style trivia, is obviously very welcome and commendable.

Still: in some parts of the book Nadel tries to deduce Cohen's artistic expression from the factual elements of his personal life (for instance, when talking about Cohen's first novel, 'The Favorite Game"), which then points to a lack of consistency when compared to the way how Nadel deals with the second (and probably even more important) novel, 'Beautiful Losers'. Also, I personally would have been more interested to see some more examples of Cohen's religious background, i.e. how both judaism and zen have inter-played in creating LC's unique poetic expression, and how the spiritual feeds in where sex is clearly not sufficient, and vice-versa.

Also (and this has nothing to do with Nadel's book, it's just a detail on Cohen himself): I was a bit disappointed to see how inconsistent and childish Cohen actually was in many episodes. Nadel implicitly states something similar on several occasions in his book (and that's another plus - because he showed Cohen as naked as Cohen himself would have wanted, for his obsession with nakedness and the truth without embellishing is a well-known fact).

Cohen's own joke about how Nadel's book can be 'benignly tolerated', still, proves that Cohen has indeed been consistent in at least three aspects of his life: fanaticism with the female body; living within a poem; and, finally, a whit (and the wit) of auto-irony that makes a human such a giant.

[Jani · Rating 1 out of 5]

Leonard Cohen is a fascinating character, one of the true originals of the music world, one could say. Only familiar with his "musical side" (and pieces of the myth of the artist), I was somewhat surprised by this book. In short, I did not expect quite so much about the non-music side: Nadel goes to great lengths to tell about the Cohen before the recordings and about his personal life, which are of course very fine as this is a full biography, not a look at an artistic career.

While I can understand the importance of the in-depth look into Leonard's career outside music, I was left a bit lukewarm by all the information about Canadian poetry and literary scene around 1960s. One can argue for the importance of setting up the scene and Cohen's importance in it and the value of it for the furthering of the agenda of Canadian literature, but for me it just seemed too much. I can't claim that I am an expert on Canadian literature, but the fact alone that I had not heard of most of these characters (and I'm willing to guess neither have most non-Canadians) left me just reading through these pages just to get to those ones that I was interested in.

Sadly, the musical section contained no great revelations. Nadel went through the career and offered some reading about songs, but not much more. He unfortunately concentrated on the most usual ones of which I had already heard about many times. In fact, it seemed that his knowledge was mostly based on the sleeve notes of the first Greatest Hits compilation.

The few highlights of the book were some in-depth looks into Cohen's spiritual side which I found quite interesting. However, these were quite buried in uninspiring writing, which might be more fault of the translator (some song lyrics were just badly translated) that Nadel, although I haven't heard high praise for the original text either.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a bit of a wasted opportunity. While not an official biography, Nadel had access to tons of people close to Cohen, and the book was “benignly tolerated” by Cohen himself. But the author apparently chose to ignore Cohen’s advice not to let “the facts get in the way of the truth.”

Nadel, a professor of English at the University of British Columbia, is clearly a fan, but he seems reluctant to own the material or to impose any kind of overarching interpretation on Cohen’s life and work. Despite Nadel's academic bona fides, the book doesn't rise to the level of a critical biography. There's inadequate effort devoted to contextualizing Cohen, and there are only feeble attempts to pass critical judgment on his work and career. Slogging through Various Positions’ lackluster prose, you wish either for a book by a fan who loves the music and isn't afraid to make an impassioned and unapologetic argument as to why, or by someone with little emotional connection to Cohen who can contextualize and dissect and get some real critical distance on the guy and his work. That said, the book does dutifully trudge through all facets of his career (up to his comeback in the early nineties), so you learn a lot of details about the songs and the life, but Nadel never succeeds in capturing the essence of the man. Any attempt to impose a single meaning on any individual life is inevitably a distortion, but a good biographer should at least take a stab at it. Instead, Nadel has given us the life of Leonard Cohen as one damn thing after another.

[David Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

L. Cohen - An Academic Analysis

From the first time I heard Cohen sing Suzanne my junior year of high school I knew that I had discovered a singer/songwriter who would captivate me for years to come. And so it was. I have been an ardent follower of his music & literature for well over 40 years. He is without a doubt one of my all time favorite musical artists. And so, it is sort of odd that it has taken me over seven years to finally tackle this slim, academically focused biography. This book was left to me by my best friend who passed away from lung cancer over seven years ago. Dennis, a poet as well, loved Cohen as I did. When I read Den's poetry I can hear Cohen's voice between his lines. Interestingly, I never asked Den what he thought of this book. I think he may have responded similarly to how I am reacting - love the info, but where's the soul.

This book reads very much like a research paper - filled with detailed analysis of his works, but totally devoid of any feeling. It's not like Nadel ignores the emotional angst of his work; after all that is what Cohen is all about. However, her treatment of his work is clinical, detached, almost aloof in discussing the psychic pain that imbues so much of his output.

Here's what I would say: If you want to find out who Leonard Cohen is & what's he's about listen to his music or read his poetry. You'll get a much better sense of the man.

[Dennis Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very revealing look at one of Canada's most iconic authors, poets, and/or artists. If you've ever wondered where Cohen's lyrics came from, this will help you to understand, as much as anyone can, the way his faith, philosophy, and insecurity combined to create a compelling and unorthodox vision.

[Guinevere Johansson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In Provence they encountered a massive traffic jam en route to the concert. Bob Johnston told Billy Daniels, the road manager, to get some horses, since most of the musicians were from Texas or Tennessee. There were horses at the stable attached to the country inn where they were staying, so they mounted up and headed through the countryside to their destination. To their astonishment, along the way they found a French steakhouse done up as a "Texas bar." Ten cowboys and one Montreal Jew who had learned to ride at summer camp pulled in and roped their horses to the only hitching post in Southern France. They marched in wearing Western garb, surprising a few of the patrons and fulfilling the fantasies of the owners. After several bottles of wine, they remounted and headed off to the concert. They decided the best entry would be to ride their horses onto stage, and they did...
A group of Maoists in the crowd objected to paying because it reeked of capitalist domination and shouted that Cohen was a fascist. Bottles were thrown and the band thought someone had taken a shot at them, knocking out a stage light. Cohen took out the microphone and challenged the people to come on stage if they were unhappy, intimating that the singers were also armed, an expression of western bravado from a group of horse-riding musicians from the gun-totin' south.

[Janne Paananen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ira B. Nadel on käynyt kiitettävällä tarmolla käsiksi Leonard Cohenin elämään. Hän siteeraa antaumuksella Cohenin runoja, kirjoja ja lauluntekstejä ja sitoo niitä niiden kirjoittamisaikaan ja Leonardin sen hetkiseen elämään. Ja analysoi niitä myös. Valitettavasti hän ei osaa antaa tarinan "hengittää" lainkaan. Koko kirja on tappavan tylsästi kirjoitettu. Nadel on verraton tutkija ja perehtynyt aiheeseensa viimeisen päälle hyvin, mutta kirja tuntuu enemmän tutkielmalta kuin elämäkerralta. Kirja on julkaistu alunperin vuonna 1997 ja hän on päivittänyt uuden painoksen vuoteen 2006 asti. Tämä lisäluku kruunaa kirjan latteuden olemalla täysin päälleliimattu ja tuo kymmenen vuoden ajanjakso on ikäänkuin sylkäisty yhtenä klönttinä paperille. Yksi huonoimmista lukemistani elämäkerroista.

[R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Leonard Cohen ever since I bought his first album as "an experiment."
I've even enjoyed his poetry and prose, though to a lesser extent. So it was quite a surprise to read Nadel's biography and find how Leonard differs so radically from his public profile. Can't say as I'm all that fond of Leonard's lifestyle, but after all, it is *his* lifestyle. And it won't affect my respect and appreciation of his craft in the least.

Nadel's writing style was a hindrance at times. However, I would give him an A+ for his research.
The book is worth reading if you like Leonard Cohen, or perhaps just curious.

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am such a big fan of Leonard Cohen that I'm afraid I could never honestly or objectively review his bio. What I feared would happen (and didn't) was that the book would be full of references to what inspired this song or that poem and it would spoil his work for me from then on. Leonard Cohen's work is so sublime that no such thing could interfere with my enjoyment of it. That said, someday a great biography may be written on this great artist, but this wasn't it. Not a bad try, and I enjoyed it enough.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book fills in a lot of gaps in my knowledge of early and late "folk" music and Cohen's poetry. Never quite knew what "Suzanne" (so how many times did I listen to Judy Collin's version on my small phonograph on the porch of my house in Dembi Dolo, Ethiopia)was about. Now I have a better sense and yet there's so much ambiguity in his work. Have about 30 of his songs on my ipod. But sometimes you just wanna say, "Hey, Leonard, lighten up."

[Angrom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biographie un peu décevante ... Je cherchais quelque chose sur la musique de Leonard Cohen et déjà il faut attendre quasiment la moitié du livre pour entendre parler de musique (la faute à un début de carrière tardif, il est vrai)
La bio est bien écrite et se lit bien mais ne va pas pour moi assez au fond des choses. Et puis faire une bio sur Cohen sans mentionner une seule fois Hallelujah c'est osé !

[Karenguinea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always like Leonard Cohen, but after watching the recent documentary "I'm your man", I was eager to find out more about this disciplined, intriguing, sexy but dark human being. Learnt a lot about Leonard Cohen and his life but found the book a little disjointed and difficult to follow and was still yearning for more info about the man at the end.