INDG 401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Leonard Cohen, Antinovel, Protofeminism
9 Jun 2018
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ENGL 409, Lecture February 13, 2018
The Documentary
- Makes sense for understanding Leonard Cohen’s earlier career
- Any surprises in the documentary?
- In the barber shop
o He looks as skinny as a pencil
- Another documentary “I’m Your Man”
o In here he describes people reading his novel beautiful losers as “a reckless
though touching generosity on your part.”
o He suggests a few ways to read the book
o Documentary interspersed with casual conversations with Cohen
Beautiful Losers
- Pure experience
o In a Leonard Cohen letter
o Immediate vs unmediated experience
- Stream of consciousness
- First reactions
o Hard to read
o Books attack on narrative is disabling
o People are not responding it to it well
- Experience of reading it a second time?
- Should we even call it a novel
o Better to call it a book since it’s anti-novel
- Attempting to make us think about our practices of reading and comments on it
- Very self-reflexive and metafictional
o Presenting itself to us a s a text not as a representation of the real world so that we
respond to it as a kind of text full of patterns and motifs but not necessarily
making any claims on truth
- Does this novel represent anything?
o Or does it abandon all together the old obligation of mimesis and do something
else?
o Is it textual play and does not represent the real world in any degree?
- Images that jump out to us
o A lot of the images are things that disgust us
- Representation of Edith
o He believes that this is a proto-feminist novel
o She is spared our disgust
o Nothing to offer Edith except a status as goddess or saint
o Predicament of women at the hands of I and F
- Can we find other moments that seem to invite us to read in certain ways or theorize
problems of interpretation?
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Makes sense for understanding leonard cohen"s earlier career. In the barber shop: he looks as skinny as a pencil. Pure experience: in a leonard cohen letter, immediate vs unmediated experience. First reactions: hard to read, books attack on narrative is disabling, people are not responding it to it well. Should we even call it a novel: better to call it a book since it"s anti-novel. Attempting to make us think about our practices of reading and comments on it. Images that jump out to us: a lot of the images are things that disgust us. Representation of edith: he believes that this is a proto-feminist novel, she is spared our disgust, nothing to offer edith except a status as goddess or saint, predicament of women at the hands of i and f. That"s why you must not try to connect anything, your connection would be pathetic. The jews didn"t let young men study the cabala.
