Beautiful Losers.

COHEN, Leonard.

$3,500.00

Item Number: 99786

New York: The Viking Press, 1966.

First edition of Cohen’s second and final novel. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, lengthily inscribed by the author on the title page, “To William on his 60th Birthday warm regards Leonard Cohen Montreal 2008.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket with only the lightest of wear. Jacket design by Gilda Kuhlman.

Beautiful Losers is an expression of the 1960's. Leonard Cohen wrote it while fasting and consuming amphetamines to focus his creativity. The product is a complex novel that uses a range of literary techniques, allusions, and symbolism (Adria, 1990). It is noted for its excesses of language and sexuality, and it is filled with the mysticism and drug-use that is emblematic of the era (Goldie, 2003). In a similar manner, the plot is not a linear, coherent progression. Key scenes repeat themselves, and there is no intelligible timeline. Beautiful Loser's gained great popularity when Cohen turned from writer to popular singer-songwriter, and it is remembered for having introduced postmodernism to the Canadian literary canon.