by Ira B. Nadel
Chapter 4
1 “As long as you”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
2 “She is partly”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
3 “London is welcoming”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
4 “permanent advisor”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
5 “very lovely”: LC to Esther Cohen 18 April 1962, UT.
6 “until by sheer weight”: BCQ 1.
7 “I’m glad the book”: LC to CP, 27 March 1960, UT.
8 “I wouldn’t like”: LC to CP, 27 March 1960, UT.
9 “the only copy”: LC to JMcCL 28 August 1960, UT.
10 “I said to myself”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
11 “I suppose”: IL to DP 15 February 1960.
12 “wild and naked perfection”: Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi (1941; NY: New Directions, 1958) 55.
13 “six deal tables”: Charmian Clift, Peel Me a Lotus (London: Hutchinson, 1959) 15.
14 “in a wild spate of words”: Clift, Peel 60.
15 “horseshoe-shaped”: George Lailios to author 12 September 1994.
16 “the actors”: GL to author 12 September 1994.
17 “Bet between LC”: “Bet between LC and George Johnston,” 16 October 1961, UT.
18 “a lot of writing”: Cynthia Nolan in Garry Kinnane, George Johnston, A Biography (Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1986) 158.
19 “Pull up your sex”: LC 5/10/94.
20 “Forget the Grace”: “Fragment from a Journal,” SM 386.
21 “He exposed”: Don Lowe, Kingy (unpub.) 44.
22 “I don’t think”: DL, Kingy 48.
23 “living in a past century”: GL to author 12 September 1994.
24 “origins are truly”: GL to author 12 September 1994.
25 “I used to sit”: LC, “Journal,” 17 May 1966, UT.
26 “It wasn’t just”: LC, BBC 7/8/94.
27 “Marianne is perfect”: LC to IL, 21 April 1963, UT.
28 “the incarnation of the European woman”: Charles Gurd 7/12/94.
29 “the way she inhabited”: LC, BBC 7/8/94.
30 “Marianne and I”: LC, BBC 7/8/94.
31 “There was a woman”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
32 “Leonard was unique”: NB 12/29/94.
33 “You could not own”: NB 12/29/94.
34 “It has a huge terrace”: LC to Masha Cohen, 3 August 1961, UT.
35 “I wander through”: LC to EC,? October 1961, UT.
36 “But they came back”: LC to EC, 3 August 1961, UT.
37 “It is like receiving”: LC to MC, 18 October 1961, UT.
38 “having this house”: LC to Wog [Daniel Kraslavsky], 19 December 1961, UT.
39 “The years are flying”: LC to?, 16 December 1961, UT.
40 “The primitive circumstances”: FR 29.
41 “the first Hebrew”: LC 5/11/94.
42 “everything you saw”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
43 “You knew everything”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
44 “There’s sun all over”: LC to IL, 8 December 1961, UT.
45 “There’s something in the light”: LC in Michael Ballantyne, “Poet-Novelist Reflects on the Quebec Scene,” Montreal Star (26 October 1963) 2.
46 “Hydra—you can’t live”: LC 10/24/95.
47 “all the old potent guilts”: LC to “My dear friends,” (15 December 1960) UT.
48 “Since hearing the news”: LC to EC, 15 December 1960, UT.
49 “It took me some time”: LC to Maryann Greene 16 February 1961, UT.
50 “I have finished”: LC to Jake and Stella Pullman, 19 December 1961, UT.
51 “a protracted love-affair”: LC to DP, 23 February 1961, UT.
52 “every event described”: LC to JMcCL, 12 October 1960, UT.
53 “wanted to tell about”: LC to JMcCL, 12 October 1960, UT.
54 “He managed to offend”: LC to JMcCL, 9 March 1962, UT.
55 “I will always consider”: LC to JMcCL, 9 March 1962, UT.
56 “miserable … behalf”: LC to JMcCL, 8 December 1961; 26 July 1962, UT.
57 “a book without alibis”: LC to JMcCL, 4 July 1963, UT.
58 “perhaps its only value”: LC to Seymour Lawrence, 29 October 1961, UT.
59 “my work limps along”: LC to EC, 29 October 1961, UT.
60 “It doesn’t matter to me”: LC to JMcCL, 2 November 1961, UT.
61 “absolutely beautiful writing”: anon., Sheila Watson to LC, 29 January 1962, UT.
62 “too long”: SW to LC, 8 May 1962.
63 “Three in the morning”: LC to friends, 15? December 1960, UT.
64 “Except for this tiny”: LC to Bim, 17 February 1961, UT.
65 “We did it simply by”: LC in Canadian Theatre Review 14 (1977) 54.
66 “macabre, compelling thing”: IL to DP, 11 December 1960.
Chapter 5
1 “I am wild”: LC to Anne Hébert,? January-February 1961, UT.
2 “I had this mythology”: Tom Chaffin, “Conversations from a Room,” Canadian Forum (August/September 1983) 10.
3 “the day you left”: CP to LC, 27 March 1961, UT.
4 “The island”: FGL to parents, 5 April 1930, Poet in New York, tr. Greg Smith and Steven F. White (NY: Noonday Press, 1988) 255.
5 “presence urgently requested”: LC 5/11/94.
6 “I was Upton Sinclair”: LC 5/11/94.
7 “Your mother’s worried”: LC 5/11/94.
8 “This is no time”: IL to DP, 15 April 1961.
9 “Just think”: LC to JMcCL, 18 April 1961, UT.
10 “It’s going to be”: LC 5/11/94.
11 “to see a socialist revolution”: LC to Victor Cohen, 9 November 1962, UT.
12 “I’m one of the few men”: LC to VC, 9 November 1962.
13 “deep interest in violence”: Ladies and Gentlemen … Mr. Leonard Cohen (NPB film), 1965.
14 “The city was Havana”: “The Famous Havana Diary,” TS, UT 1.
15 “I enjoyed her”: “The Famous Havana Diary,” TS, UT 4–5.
16 “oppressive and repugnant”: LC to VC, 9 November 1962, UT.
17 “Power chops up”: LC to Cork Smith, 1 September 1963, UT.
18 “a tragic figure”: IL to DP, 4 May 1961.
19 “Communism is less sinister”: LC to Lonie?, 4 September 1961, UT.
20 “Dorian Grayish”: IL to DP, 13 May 1961.
21 “Leonard Cohen, 27”: dustjacket, SBE.
22 “For you”: “The Genius,” SBE 87.
23 “probably the best”: Robert Weaver, “Leonard Cohen’s Spice-Box Presents Sombre Vision,” Toronto Daily Star (10 June 1961) 29.
24 “The Lean and the Luscious”: David Bromige, “The Lean and the Luscious,” Canadian Literature 10 (Autumn 1961) 87–88.
25 “easily the most promising”: Desmond Pacey, Creative Writing in Canada (1952; New edition, revised and enlarged, Toronto: Ryerson, 1961) 247.
26 “There isn’t a single”: IL to DP, 12 April 1962.
27 “Psychologically, I think”: IL to DP, 12 April 1962.
28 “His passport was”: LC to Robert Weaver, 20 May 1961, UT.
29 “Your purity”: “Alexander Trocchi,” FH 47.
30 “yield profits”: LC to Canada Council, 2 June 1961, UT.
31 “distance is essential”: LC to Canada Council, 2 June 1961, UT.
32 “I remind them”: LC to Shaar Hashomayim Hadassah, 11 June 1961.
33 “they weep most of the day”: LC to EC, 13 July 1961, UT.
34 “that makes”: LC to EC, 13 July 1961, UT.
35 “rooted on the rock”: LC to EC, 13 July 1961, UT.
36 “his Gothic insincerities”: LC, dustjacket, The Favourite Game (London: Secker & Warburg, 1963.
37 “Thank god for”: LC to JMcCL, 18 August 1961, UT.
38 �
��I gather the Greek wines”: IL to DP, 28 August, 1961.
39 “dig deep”: LC to JMcCL, 18 August 1961.
40 “I chose a lonely country”: “For E.J.P.,” FH 69.
41 “you just felt good”: LC in “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 59.
42 “there is my beautiful house”: LC to RW, 22 November 1962, UT.
43 “Of men the sky demands”: “Here Was the Harbour,” PH 45.
44 “everywhere is going Communist”: LC to EC, 7 October 1961, UT.
45 “My abandoned narcotics”: “Indictment of the Blue Hole,” FH 19.
46 “Is there anything emptier”: “The Drawer’s Condition,” FH 16.
47 “I’ve smoked”: LC to Madeleine?, 12 November 1961, UT.
48 “In this part of the planet”: “We are getting to know the police better,” TS 1965, UT [3–4].
49 “I write a year’s verse”: LC to John B. Oakes,? October 1961, UT.
50 “the next book”: LC to CP 18, September 1961, U?.
51 “It’s so simple”: “For Marianne,” FH 52–53.
52 “seems to have endured”: LC to IL, 8 December 1961, UT.
53 “Lead me into families”: “For a long while,” PH 51.
54 “Something in the air”: LC to EC, 18 April 1962, UT.
55 “I’ve been working on”: LC to EC, 18 April 1962, UT.
56 “it’s so melancholy”: LC to EC, 22 April 1962, UT.
57 “Eating and kissing”: LC to Stephen Vizicenzy, 27 April 1962, UT.
58 “Norway is blonde”: LC to RW, 14 May 1962, UT.
59 “I can be seen Twisting”: LC to RW, 14 May 1962, UT.
60 “Strange to find myself”: LC to Yafa Lerner, 16 December 1961, LCA.
61 “This is the same novel”: LC to Peter Dwyer, 31 January 1962, UT.
62 “be interested in publishing”: LC to JMcCL, 6 March 1962, UT.
63 “it’s the kind of chutzpa”: LC to Rabbi Samuel Cass, 6 March 1962, UT.
64 “London is horrible”: LC to RW, 6 March 1962, UT.
65 “Over the two years”: LC to Daniel Kraslavsky, 10 March 1962, LCA.
66 “twice as slowly”: LC to Madeleine?, [10?] March 1962, LCA.
67 “terrified of waking up”: LC to Madeleine?, [10?] March 1962, LCA.
68 “fight for some tiny”: LC to Madeline?, [10?] March 1962, LCA.
69 “I feel I’ve lost”: LC to Madeline?, [10?] March 1962, LCA.
70 “There are a million things”: LC to Marianne Ihlen, 10 March 1962, LCA.
71 “I long for you”: LC to Marianne Ihlen, 10 March 1962, LCA.
72 “just as I always”: LC to MC, 10 March 1962, LCA.
73 “the things which are given”: LC to MC, 10 March 1962, LCA.
74 “the secret of my triumph”: LC to MC, 10 March 1962, LCA.
75 “I want to tear”: LC to IL, 23 March 1962, LCA.
76 “Too bad because”: LC to EC, 26 March 1962, LCA.
77 “beautiful book”: LC to EC, 26 March 1962, LCA.
78 “What a joyless farce”: LC to EC, 26 March 1962, LCA.
79 “It’s the first time”: LC to EC, 26 March 1962, LCA.
Chapter 6
1 “in the last six thousand years”: LC to MC, 20 May 1962, UT.
2 “My house is big”: LC to MC, 20 May 1962, UT.
3 “Buying this house”: LC to MC, 30 May 1962, UT.
4 “She’s a little overwhelmed”: LC to EC, 29 June 1962, UT.
5 “all the old chaos”: LC to Madeleine? 30 June 1962, UT.
6 “nothing sounds any good”: LC to Roland Gant, 26 July 1962, UT.
7 “I don’t intend to open”: LC to EC, 13 August 1961, UT.
8 “whom I had never spoken to”: LC to EC, 30 April 1963, UT.
9 “I’ve greeted people”: LC to EC, 2 July 1963, UT.
10 “intolerably touristic”: LC to EC, 2 July 1963, UT.
11 “It is hard to be”: LC to Renee Rothman, 2 July 1963, UT.
12 “eliminated a kind of self-conscious”: LC to RG, 26 August 1962, UT.
13 “I think I have”: LC to George Dickerson, 30 October 1962, UT.
14 “One day I found”: LC to GD, 30 October 1962, UT.
15 “anyone with an ear”: LC to IL, 15 October 1962, UT.
16 “Has the world”: LC to RW, 22 November 1962, LCA.
17 “coffin-colored room”: LC, “Luggage Fire Sale,” Partisan Review 36 (Winter 1969) 91.
18 “change is the only aphrodisiac”: “Luggage Fire Sale,” FR 92.
19 “a couple of women”: “Luggage Fire Sale,” FR 91.
20 “and a complete suntan”: “Luggage Fire Sale,” FR 91.
21 “sweetest aspect”: “Luggage Fire Sale,” FR 92.
22 “Cultural crises”: LC, unpub. report, [1962], LCA, [3].
23 “It’s a perfect little machine”: LC to IL, 26 February 1963, UT.
24 “[Yeats] has had”: LC to CS, 10 May 1963, LCA.
25 “Tell all your gold friends”: LC to CS, 22 May 1963, LCA.
26 “The photograph is of”: LC to CS, 7 July 1963, LCA.
27 “I haven’t been to sleep”: LC to SW, 15 February 1963, LCA.
28 “a first novel”: JMcCL to LC, 31 May 1963, McM.
29 “a third novel”: LC to JMcCL, 4 July 1963, UT.
30 “I will write a book”: LC, to JMcCL, 4 July 1963, UT.
31 “a beautiful book”: JMcCL to LC, 31 May, 1963, McM.
32 “one of the great dangers”: JMcCL to LC, 31 May, 1963, McM.
33 “I’ve never written easily”: LC to JMcCL, 4 July 1963, UT.
34 “will speak to nobody”: LC to JMcCL, 4 July 1963, UT.
35 “I accept the hemlock”: LC to CS, 10 May 1963, LCA.
36 “a fairly original study”: LC to CS, 1 September 1963, LCA.
37 “best creative periods”: LC to EC, 12 Nay 1963, UT.
38 “prose poems”: LC to CBC, 12 June 1963, UT.
39 “I gave my mental health”: LC to Marian McNamara, 6 September 1963, c.
40 “So many of my values”: LC to CS, 1 September 1963, LCA.
41 “Because you are Leonard Cohen”: JMcCL to LC, 22 August 1963, McM.
42 “feeling as you do”: LC to JMcCL, 9 September 1963, UT.
43 “I know this book”: LC to JMcCL, 9 September 1963, UT.
44 “they’ve been staggered”: JMcCL McCL., 9 September 1963, UT.
45 “This is a manuscript”: anon. to LC,? October 1963, MCM.
46 “This poetry is full of”: anon. to LC, 14 August 1963, McM.
47 “immature”:? to LC, 14 August 1963, McM.
48 “With scorn, love, nausea”: CP to LC, 13 August 1963, McM.
49 “I was ambushed by fifty”: LC to JMcCL, 29 March 1964, UT.
50 “The title is”: LC to JMcCL, 29 May 1964, UT.
51 “with my face for tits”: LC to JMcCL, 2 September 1964, UT.
52 “The whole point”: LC to JMcCL, 16 August 1964, UT.
53 “Note on the title”: FH [iii].
54 “I don’t profess”: JMcCL to LC, 11 September 1963, McM.
55 “has made me and the book”: LC to JMcCL, 1 March 1965, UT.
56 “The Mediterranean”: LC to IL, 6 August 1963, UT.
57 “Well, you know”: “So Long, Marianne,” SLC.
58 “I had the woman I loved”: “The Price of This Book,” DLM 168.
59 “a violent disintegration”: LC to CS, 6 September 1963, UT.
60 “what I want from people”: LC to CS, 6 September 1963, UT.
61 “The further a writer”: LC to CS, 4 August 1963, UT.
62 “A tall blonde girl”: LC to IL, 1 September 1963, UT.
63 “Lots of French lesbians”: LC to EC, 31 August 1963, UT.
64 “from a sexual point of view”: LC to EC, 31 August 1963, UT.
65 “I threw open the shutters”: ES 10–11.
66 “there were thousands of poems”: LC, English Poetry i
n Quebec, ed. John Glassco (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1965) 42.
67 “a self-authenticated speaking”: IL, EPQ 30.
68 “The mass magazine”: LC, EPQ 63.
69 “were never lovers”: LC in Barbara Amiel, “Leonard Cohen says that to all the girls,” Maclean’s (18 September 1978): 58.
70 “Suzanne takes you down”: “Suzanne,” SLC.
71 “And Jesus was a sailor”: “Suzanne,” SLC.
72 “compassionate attention”: LC, “The John Hammond Years, Pt. 12” CBC Radio (October 1986). “Now Suzanne takes your hand”: “Suzanne,” SLC.
73 “Most of my songs”: LC, “The John Hammond Years,” CBC.
74 “uncovering the lyric”: LC, “The John Hammond Years,” CBC.
75 “TV stations pay me”: LC to “Dear People,” 11 December 1963, UT.
76 “I was mailing a letter”: LC, 11 December 1963, UT.
77 “this Sunday”: LC, 11 December 1963, UT.
78 “Poet-Novelist Says”: “Poet-Novelist Says Judaism Betrayed,” Canadian Jewish Chronicle (10 January 1964) 3, 15 carried a report of the meeting. The edited talk appears in Take This Waltz, 143–153.
79 “Draw me with a valuable sign”: “Foreign God,” PH 74.
80 “please quit soon”: LC to Earle Birney, 21 February 1964, UT.
81 “the distinction between”: LC to Ann Caffin, 21? February 1964, UT.
82 “there’s something about the West”: LC to AC, 21? February 1964, UT.
83 “Vancouver is”: LC to AC, 21? February 1964, UT.
84 “fairly triumphant”: LC to MMcN, 29 March 1964, UT.
85 “Most of all”: LC to “Dear People,”? February 1964, UT.
86 “liturgy, a big confessional oration”: LC to Phyllis Webb, CBC TV, 29 April 1966.
87 “in the country”: LC to “Dear People,”? February 1964, UT.
88 “new novel, PLASTIC BIRCHBARK”: LC to JMCCL, 2 September 1964, UT.
89 “the whole system collapsed”: LC, “Comme un Guerrier,” Throat Culture 60.
90 “Leonard Cohen”: Time 84 (6 November) 1964: 16.
91 “the reading-tour”: LC to JMcCL, 1 March 1965, McM.
92 “torn on the conflicts”: LC to MMcN, 29 March 1964, UT.
93 “You’re coming to your goal”: Montreal Star, 13 July 1963, 1.
94 “in ten years”: LC to “Dear People,”? February 1964, UT.
95 “I have made a commitment”: LC to George Johnston,? February 1964, UT.
96 “embodied in her own life”: LC in Winfried Siemerling, “A Political Constituency that Really Exists,” Take This Waltz 161.