Hallelujah! The doyen of self-deprecation is back with a fine book of poems, prose fragments, song lyrics, line drawings and pixelated images, elements of which have previously appeared online.
‘Book of Longing’ will reassure Leonard Cohen devotees that the meagre fare of his last album (‘Dear Heather’) was out of character. It should help the septuagenarian recover financially after his long-time manager defrauded him of millions. And with confessions about ‘disappearing naturally up my own asshole’ – ‘I did this for 30 years but I kept coming back to let you know how bad it felt’ – he offers a note of caution which garrulous admirers like Bono should really take on board.
Stretching back to at least the 1970s, the collection includes musings on the central women in Cohen’s life, from his late mother to former lover Marianne and the one who made him feel ‘truly alive’ – Nico. It also contains reflections on his more recent retreat to a Zen monastery and on the lusts which age has failed to extinguish. Perhaps most striking are the illustrations: careworn self-portraits, affectionately rendered, sit alongside beguiling nudes and the personal iconography which has adorned his later records.
Those seeking confirmation of Cohen’s status as the harbinger of doom will occasionally find him worrying about modern political evils, which have ‘made a puke of prayer’ and which threaten to impose the ‘sadness of the zoo’ upon society. But above all, the great Canadian is still penning lines worth stealing, especially in pursuit of love. ‘You go your way,’ he suggests. ‘I’ll go your way too.’
