Beautiful Losers
One of the best-known experimental novels of the 1960s, this uninhibited tale centres on the hapless members of a love triangle, and their sexual obsession and shared fascination with a mythic saint.Revolving around four central – and intrinsically flawed – characters, ‘Beautiful Losers’ is the frank and humorous story of a nameless narrator, his wife Edith, their domineering friend and mentor ‘F’ and Catherine Tekakwitha, a mythic 17th-century Mohawk virgin saint. The complexities of this three-way love, pain and lust are sent spiralling by the death of Edith and ‘F’ at the novel’s start, leading the damaged narrator to question the nature of love, sexuality and spirituality in a series of explicit flashbacks.The extraordinary and inimitable singer-songwriter’s classic novel, this is Leonard Cohen’s most critically acclaimed literary work, echoing the dark poetry and wry humour of his timeless songs of loss, love, sex and religion.Not just an extremely funny novel, but an incredibly original and explicit examination of friendship, sex and spirituality.
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LEONARD COHEN
BEAUTIFUL LOSERS
for Steve Smith (1943-1964)
Somebody said lift that bale.
RAY CHARLES singing ‘Ol’ Man River’
Table of Contents
The History of Them All
Catherine Tekakwitha, who are you? Are you (1656-1680)? Is that enough? Are you the Iroquois Virgin? Are you the Lily of the Shores of the Mohawk River? Can I love you in my own way? I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That’s what sitting on your ass does to your face. I’ve come after you, Catherine Tekakwitha. I want to know what goes on under that rosy blanket. Do I have any right? I fell in love with a religious picture of you. You were standing among birch trees, my favorite trees. God knows how far up your moccasins were laced. There was a river behind you, no doubt the Mohawk River. Two birds in the left foreground would be delighted if you tickled their white throats or even if you used them as an example of something or other in a parable. Do I have any right to come after you with my dusty mind full of the junk of maybe five thousand books? I hardly even get out to the country very often. Could you teach me about leaves? Do you know anything about narcotic mushrooms? Lady Marilyn just died a few years ago. May I say that some old scholar four hundred years from now, maybe of my own blood, will come after her in the way I come after you? But right now you must know more about heaven. Does it look like one of these little plastic altars that glow in the dark? I swear I won’t mind if it does. Are the stars tiny, after all? Can an old scholar find love at last and stop having to pull himself off every night so he can get to sleep? I don’t even hate books any more. I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve read and, frankly, it never seemed very important to me or to the world. My friend F. used to say in his hopped-up fashion: We’ve got to learn to stop bravely at the surface. We’ve got to learn to love appearances. F. died in a padded cell, his brain rotted from too much dirty sex. His face turned black, this I saw with my own eyes, and they say there wasn’t much left of his prick. A nurse told me it looked like the inside of a worm. Salut F., old and loud friend! I wonder if your memory will persist. And you, Catherine Tekakwitha, if you must know, I am so human as to suffer from constipation, the rewards of a sedentary life. Is it any wonder I have sent my heart out into the birch trees? Is it any wonder that an old scholar who never made much money wants to climb into your Technicolor postcard?
I am a well-known folklorist, an authority on the A——s, a tribe I have no intention of disgracing by my interest. There are, perhaps, ten full-blooded A—-s left, four of them teen-age girls. I will add that F. took full advantage of my anthropological status to fuck all four of them. Old friend, you paid your dues. The A——s seem to have made their appearance in the fifteenth century, or rather, a sizable remnant of the tribe. Their brief history is characterized by incessant defeat. The very name of the tribe, A——, is the word for corpse in the language of all the neighboring tribes. There is no record that this unfortunate people ever won a single battle, while the songs and legends of its enemies are virtually nothing but a sustained howl of triumph. My interest in this pack of failures betrays my character. Borrowing money from me, F. often said: Thanks, you old A——! Catherine Tekakwitha, do you listen?
Catherine Tekakwitha, I have come to rescue you from the Jesuits. Yes, an old scholar dares to think big. I don’t know what they are saying about you these days because my Latin is almost defunct. ‘Que le succès couronne nos espérances, et nous verrons sur les autels, auprès des Martyrs canadiens, une Vierge iroquoise-près des roses du martyre le his de la virginité.’ A note by one Ed. L., S.J., written in August 1926. But what does it matter? I don’t want to carry my old belligerent life on my journey up the Mohawk River. Pace, Company of Jesus! F. said: A strong man cannot but love the Church. Catherine Tekakwitha, what care we if they cast you in plaster? I am at present studying the plans of a birchbark canoe. Your brethren have forgotten how to build them. And what if there is a plastic reproduction of your little body on the dashboard of every Montréal taxi? It can’t be a bad thing. Love cannot be hoarded. Is there a part of Jesus in every stamped-out crucifix? I think there is. Desire changes the world! What makes the mountainside of maple turn red? Peace, you manufacturers of religious trinkets! You handle sacred material! Catherine Tekakwitha, do you see how I get carried away? How I want the world to be mystical and good? Are the stars tiny, after all? Who will put us to sleep? Should I save my fingernails? Is matter holy? I want the barber to bury my hair. Catherine Tekakwitha, are you at work on me already?
