Francis Mus - The Demons of Leonard Cohen

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The demons of Leonard Cohen / Francis Mus ; with a foreword by Brian Trehearne.

Other titles: Demonen van Leonard Cohen. English

Names: Mus, Francis, author. | Trehearne, Brian, 1957- writer of foreword. | Vroomen, Laura, translator.

Description: Series statement: tudes canadiennes | Translation of: De demonen van Leonard Cohen. Translation by Laura Vroomen. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020018749x | Canadiana (ebook) 2020019335x | ISBN 9780776631202 (softcover) | ISBN 9780776629926 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780776631219 (PDF) | ISBN 9780776631226 (EPUB) | ISBN 9780776631233 (Kindle)

Subjects: LCSH: Cohen, Leonard, 1934-2016Criticism and interpretation. | CSH: Canadian poetry (English)20th centuryHistory and criticism. | CSH: Poets, Canadian (English)20th centuryBiography.

Classification: LCC PS8505.O22 Z76813 2020 | DDC C811/.54dc23

Legal Deposit: Third Quarter 2020 Library and Archives Canada Printed in Canada Production Team Copy editing Michael Waldin Proofreading Robbie McCaw Interior layout John van der Woude, JVDW Designs Cover design Steve Kress Cover image [Hans-Jurgen DibbertK&K]/ [Redferns] via Getty Album covers courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment Album covers courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment This book was published with the support of Flanders Literature ( flandersliterature.be )

Lannoo Publishers 2015. For the original edition. Original title: De demonen van Leonard Cohen. Translated from the Dutch language. www.lannoo.com . University of Ottawa Press 2020. For the English edition. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database and retrieval system, without the prior permission. In the case of photocopying or any other reprographic copying, please secure licenses from: Access Copyright www.accesscopyright.ca 1-800-893-5777 For foreign rights and permissions: www.iprlicense.com The University of Ottawa Press and the author wish to thank Dominique Boile for the use of the images on page 65.

The University of Ottawa Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its publishing list by the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, and by the University of Ottawa.

For Lucas and Hanne

To M.

From local embeddedness and global exile to
universal aspirations and back again

A writer in search of his language (1):
Case study of an unpublished short story

INTERMEZZO 2. DONT FOLLOW THE STORY,
FOLLOW THE EMOTION

A writer in search of his language (2):
The international reception of Beautiful Losers

tout prendre [Take it all] Leonard Cohen, Claude Jutra,
and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Perhaps a time is coming which will be more favourable to your kind of talent than the present or the last twenty years. I do have a feeling that a brighter day, a singing day, must come if there is to be any future at all, and then a poet will want to make his work resemble music instead of an equation enclosed in a cryptogram.

Hugh MacLennan to Leonard Cohen, February 13, 1955

[T]hough I have seen the same actor a hundred times, I shall not for that reason know him any better personally. Yet if I add up the heroes he has personified and if I say that I know him a little better at the hundredth character counted off, this will be felt to contain an element of truth. For this apparent paradox is also an apologue. There is a moral to it. It teaches that a man defines himself by his make-believe as well as by his sincere impulses. There is thus a lower key of feelings, inaccessible in the heart but partially disclosed by the acts they imply and the attitudes of mind they assume.

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942

The Demons of Leonard Cohen is a second book disguised as a translation. In February 2015, a Dutch-language version was published, aimed at a general readership in the Netherlands and Flanders with only a passing familiarity with Cohen. Because Cohens work lends itself to an exploration in essays, my monograph found a place among the numerous biographies and academic publications. The English translation faced a twofold challenge: the book would have to appeal to a more international audience, while I also wanted to iron out some inconsistencies in the original edition by linking my gaze as an invested reader and listener to a more academic approach. The writing of these two publications, between 2010 and 2020, was a long and very intense process during which I received a great deal of assistance from a large number of people. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them.

This book would not have come about without the support of the University of Ottawa Press and Uitgeverij Lannoo. My special thanks go out to Lara Mainville, Caroline Boudreau, Pierre Anctil, Maarten Van Steenbergen, Katrien Van Oost, and Wim Degrave. Many thanks to Laura Vroomen for her meticulous translation. My research trips to Canada were made possible by funding from the Research FoundationFlanders and the Canadian embassy in Brussels. It was also an honour to be invited by Franois Letourneux, Victor Shiffman, and John Zeppetelli to participate in the Leonard Cohen conference A Crack in Everything (Montral, April 2018). I am also indebted to Chantal Ringuet, who gave me the opportunity to contribute to the collection Les rvolutions de Leonard Cohen.

I admire Brian Trehearne for his exceptional ability to couple profound insights with constructive criticism.

I would like to thank Robert Kory and Alexandra Pleshoyano for their support with this and future academic work, and for their generosity in letting me use quotes and archive material.

During my research I received help from a great many fans, experts, and academics, as well as colleagues and friends of Leonard Cohen himself. Thank you for your unfailing input and enriching testimonies and insights: Allan Showalter, Alexandru Bublitchi, Andr De Bruyn, Anthony Glinoer, Aurelia Klimkiewicz, Bart Meuleman, Catherine Leclerc, Charley and Hattie Webb, Christian De Paepe, Christophe Lebold, Christophe Van Gerrewey, Christophe Vekeman, Cin Windey, Dirk De Wachter, Dominique Boile, Hazel Field, Ira Nadel, Jarkko Arjatsalo, Javier Mas, Jennifer Toews, Maarten Massa, Michel Biron, Michel Garneau, Rainier Grutman, Raluca Tanasescu, Roscoe Beck, Sammy Slabbinck, Sherry Simon, Silvia Albertazzi, Sylvie Simmons, and Vicky Broackes.