Some killed the Jesuits who brought the word while some, like Catherine, converted and began to flagellate, starve and otherwise torture themselves. There is also way too much description of how the native people reacted to the imposition of Christianity. The narrator is an historian who is researching the Iroquois Virgin, Catherine Tekakwitha. There is way too much discussion of the narrator's bodily functions. dies of some sexually transmitted disease, the narrator is left to try to decipher F.'s last instructions. The basic story line of this book involves a love triangle formed of the nameless narrator, his wife, Edith, and his best boyhood friend, F. However, I just read a review of his latest book of poetry and it seems from some of the excerpts that he is just as enthralled with his private parts as is exhibited in this book. I would like to think that, since it was written in 1966, he has matured since then. I may never be able to enjoy Leonard Cohen's music again after reading this book. This is the kind of book I wish I could write. Leonard Cohen can embody any moment and make it radiate outwards/inwards. So much psychedelic and experimental lit I just wanna throw in the junkbin but this book is like a sad-eyed thrift store Jesus, totally mesmerizing. There's so few things that can evoke that raw feeling, again with the DFW quotes, something something about sex, religion, fiction and music being the few places where loneliness can be transfigured & treated. I felt the same way when I read 'Les Enfants Terribles' when I was younger, like, here was this sexy book about kissing cousins, so decadent, so apolitical and unnecessary, so why did I like it so much? (Besides the obvious.) Because books like these play out like vivid fever dreams, written in ecstatic prose that recreates a kind of religious experience. I couldn't stop reading! Wanders from the material to the mystical without ever losing its sense of humor, and despite all its excesses never loses its humanity. Pre-internet, pre-irony, just sucking a dude off in a rowboat.

Beautiful losers leonard cohen review