A great admirer of the music and poetry of the late Leonard Cohen. But I found this hard going and in my opinion a laborious read. Perhaps because I had no empathy with any of the characters. It was well enough written but I struggled with it. Still love the music.

A closer look at the imagination and creativity of Leonard Cohen, exploring themes in his later work, from shame and feeling unworthy to longing and sexual desire. A unique peek. Worth a read for any Cohen fan.

Since I appreciate Leonard Cohen’s songs and poetry, it seemed fitting to check out this collection of some of his earliest, and previously unpublished writings. Several previous reviewers have alluded to the harsh tone and subject matter in these novella and stories. Still, they provide insight into a young man spilling out feelings, values, questions onto paper. I found it a worthwhile addition to other of Cohen’s other writing such as Beautiful Losers and Spice Box of the Earth.

Truly a treasure for fans of Leonard Cohen or not! The novella is a strong start with an intriguingly dark view of life. The main character seems to have a spark ignite in him upon seeing his long-lost grandfather beat a police officer while picking him up from the train station. The main character begins to be drawn to extreme acts and emotions, whether it is lust and sex with Marilyn, anger and ego with his coworker, or obsession and violence while stalking a baggage claim worker. In particular, the conversations between Marilyn and the main character are poignant, raw, and heart wrenching. She seems to be aware there is a change in the narrator, but believes it is his love for her, not the physical and emotional violence he craves. The only thing that seems to stop the violence is the narrator witnessing his grandfather beating the landlady whom the grandfather has sexually engaged with in the past. It is like a mirror to his own behavior and desires, dark and deeply honest.
The themes of darkness, honesty, and shock continue into the short stories. Many of the stories are sweetly mundane, contrasting with the dark themes. Like a mirror, many of the stories revolve around a repulsion to one's desires. One story incapsulates this perfectly. A man is remorsefully reminiscing on a past lover that is getting married in town. He goes over to drink with a buddy, recounting the past summer romance he let slip through his fingers due to his lack of honesty. Only then, his buddy reveals he too was sleeping with the same women that summer. Bereft, he goes back to her house only to see her once more and wonder if she will join him one last time. Shame, lust, and a desire for violence seem permeate the pages of this earlier previously unearthed work of Cohen's. The biggest flaw is his use of archetypical characters in lieu of character building. Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC!

Early writings of Leonard Cohen mostly written in the 50s including a novella (the title piece) and a bunch of short stories. They cover themes that are common in his other work, often the characters are poets (perhaps altar egos or autobiographical), there are demented old people, alienated and unusual young people, relationships are strange, sex is everything from beautiful to ugly, violent, or just sad. Many of the characters are awful people. The main character in A Ballet of Lepers is just horrible, he humiliates people, he’s cruel and nasty but I found it hard to look away. The writing is compelling in most of the stories and it’s an interesting read for anyone who is a Cohen fan.

“I have never fully understood my anger. In fact, sometimes I am frightened by it. It is more of a hate than an anger.”

Leonard Cohen left us a treasure of stunning recordings created after he made his mark as an author. “A Ballet of Lepers: A Novel and Stories” is composed of earlier unpublished writings. Often when a recording artist dies there is a rush to release any salvageable unfinished work, regardless of whether it is worthwhile or merely a cash grab. This novel, these stories– do they give us any insight into the author… or should they have remained buried in some dusty trunk?

Those only superficially aware of his music may be surprised at the tone here. We will not find Judy Collins singing these verses. With streaks of sadism and violence, this version of Leonard is not one you may want to nudge up to. The voices here belong to loners for the most part and you can see why. The violence is explosive and brutal.

In the opening novella, “A Ballet of Lepers,” we see a cop get beaten, we see women get beaten, the protagonist even punches out his grandfather. At one point he concentrates his focus on a side character, a baggage handler he describes as “stupid and ugly and frightened.” This man evokes a “sharp sensation of hate” surging through his body. We are told this is the first real sensation he has felt in a while, but we are witnessing a man who seems to thrive on extremes. What follows is bullying, harassment, and humiliation all to fulfill a thirst for emotional stimuli.

Fear of intimacy is another prominent theme in these stories. Sex is good, but please, God, don’t ruin things by talking about relationships. After sex he finds it intolerable that his partner analyzes the relationship, performing an autopsy on where things stand. Her physical presence is what he wants– it serves to keep the threat of loneliness at bay. This is a far cry from the “ladies man” mystique which grew around him in his later years (a notion he laughed at).

The recordings of Leonard Cohen took us through nearly fifty years of thought provoking lyrics covering everything from beauty and romance to ugliness and hate. The works in this book tap into passionate hot spots, but are also powerful glimpses into the man working things out in his youth. These are rich, if not always sunny dispatches.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic, Grove Press and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #BalletOfLepers #NetGalley.

A Ballet of Lepers Leonard Cohen
Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and experience the genius in the book “A Ballet of Lepers” by Leonard Cohen. Having always admired Mr. Cohen’s written word in song, the brokenness, dimensions of his characters conveyed in the various stories, was new to me and haunting. Each story raw with life, history, traditions, at times difficult to read hoping characters/situations could be tied up with a happy bow, but grateful Mr. Cohen chose to follow his inner voice with little limitations. Each story challenged me to step out of my comfort zone and embrace the evolution of each story.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Grove Atlantic for an advanced copy of this unreleased collection of works by the iconic singer, musician and poet Leonard Cohen.

As a person, I have always been of two minds on material that the artist did not want shared with the world, especially coming after the artists death. Why should the artists' estate, agents, publishers make money in an obvious cash grab on things the artist felt uncomfortable about. As a fan I should respect the artists choice. However I have a ton of music bootlegs, studio sessions live songs never released by artists, and collections of stories by authors who never wanted them shown. So like most Americans I am a hypocrite, because honestly I am a fan more than a person and I want it all. A Ballet of Lepers is a collection by singer, songwriter and really cool guy Leonard Cohen, of stories and one novel when he reckoned he was more a man of letters than he was a performer. A book that shows the artists honing his craft and finding themes that would make up some of his most famous songs.

Written between the years of 1956-1961 readers can see the artist trying to find both his voice and his medium. And probably hoping to make a few books selling these to magazines. The book contains one novel, A Ballet of Lepers, a radio show, a precursor to podcasts for the young people, and fourteen short stories. A few of these stories follow the life of Mister Euemer and his wife, in situations that are mostly sad, but also reflective of life and love. Some features obvious Cohen stand-ins again about love, and life, with a lot of repetition of these themes. The novel is a story that is both funny, and odd. Something David Lynch could direct, or maybe the Farrelly Brothers. A man is tracked down in his bording house to be told that his Grandfather, who he had no idea was still alive, is being shipped Montreal where the man lives, as the family watching and caring for him is basically tired of him. From there hilarity kind of ensues.

The writing is both honest, and surprisingly shocking for the era that they were written in. Sudden violence, odd sexual thoughts, and again more honesty than expected. The novel is both funny, odd and sad, sometimes in the same paragraph. I think it really would be a good movie. Though it does stick with one even a day later. The other stories are good also, but again some of the ideas are repeated, which is interesting because you can see how the artist was trying to find a direction. The writing is very good in some places, both visual, almost too visual, and yet still with a feeling of distance, as if Cohen was wondering how much to revel. Which in some stories he revealed quite a bit.

An interesting collection of older works that shows the artist finding himself. Fans of Leonard Cohen will be sure to enjoy this, if not for the look back at what was, and what might have been, and also for the gift of one last work by an artist they enjoy.

Thank you Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC copy of "A Ballet of Lepers."

I give this book 2 stars because it was dark, depressing, deviant and sexual in nature. I just don't like those combinations. It does have an atmosphere of other classic novels such as "Of Mice and Men" and "The Catcher in The Rye" minus the emotional part. I think it has the making of a great novel but emotionally it just wasn't there. I did not feel sympathy towards the characters. There are some short stories that have potential but it was just too short. I would try to read Mr. Cohen's poetry, maybe that would be better.

Not only do you get to read A Ballet of Lepers but there are also short stories. There should be some trigger warnings on multiple of the stories, and some repetitive nature. that you figure had to do with some of the stories being written around the same time. I only knew of Leonard Cohen because of his singing, not his writing, but there is a lot going on in his stories as I guess with his songwriting. It all comes full circle.

Apparently Leonard Cohen left behind an archive of material when he passed away a few years ago. Some music has already been released, a book of poetry and sketches as well. Now, a previously unpublished novella and a set of stories written in the late 1950s and very early 1960s, dating from before his first published novel, The Favorite Game.

If you're a fan of Cohen's music, perhaps also a fan of his poetry and his later prose, this collection will be a rare treat, especially the novella. Although he didn't start writing and recording music until years later, all of his best known themes and rhetorical devices, his imagery and lyricism, his unmistakable personal style, are here.

"Tonight, we are gentry and animals, birds and lizards, stone and water, slime and marble. Tonight, we are glorious and degraded, knighted and crushed, beautiful and disgusting... This is why I must have come to you in the first place. This is why I must have left the others, the hundreds who try and snag my ankle with crippled hands as I speed to you."

Add some guitar, sisters of mercy singing back-up vocals, an oud or bouzouki, and voila!

The scenes with the girlfriend Marilyn are all like this. Then there is the Grandfather, and that starts to get unhinged quickly and moves farther and farther off its hinges as it goes along. And then he starts in with the ugly baggage clerk and his wife, and that gets beyond bizarre -- maybe even too bizarre, if truth be told.

Crazy stuff, perhaps, but eminently readable. This is not like his later novels, which when Sharon Robinson tried to read them, he told her, think of them as jazz. This is mostly straightforward narrative, decorated so beautifully with Leonard Cohen's perfect and seamless wordsmithing. There's no reason why a fan of his music will not love this.

The stories are relatively short and tend to have O. Henry endings, bolts from the blue that make them make sense. Like any story collection, some are better than others, and your mileage may vary. Two interesting aspects of them as a whole: there always seems to be a character that is the personification of the author himself, the dead giveaway being that he is often described as a poet. And there is a series of stories featuring the same man and his wife, the Euemers.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for making an advance copy of this collection available for me to review. As a fan from the early 70s who has seen Cohen perform in London, Montreux, Vienna, Carnegie Hall and other NYC venues, who bought Various Positions as soon as it was released when it was only available as an import, and has performed Cohen's songs live and on YouTube, this is truly an honor and a privilege.

And as a reader who did not get the jazziness of The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers, this is a novel I could happily read, even when it went off the rails.

This is my first book to read by this author but I cannot wait to read more by them! This is such a uniquely written story that you will find yourself thinking about long after you finish it. Highly recommend!!

Various early writings (1956-61) from Leonard Cohen, in which you can absolutely see the same mind and sensibility that would so enrich the world through his music, while also having a pretty good idea why they've remained in the vault up to now. The title piece is a short novel, which begins in classic Cohen territory, sex and mortality waltzing together: "For a minute or two, we inspected our thirty-five-year-old bodies. And truly at that moment our flesh, flesh which we all know dies swiftly and unlovely, was beautiful." There's rueful wisdom: "They part who exchange promises of eternity as surely as they who have the honesty to remain silent. Last year's beloveds are the same as this year's, it is only the lovers who have changed." There is a man writing in blissful ignorance of the notion that, in a supposedly more liberated future, there would one day be such a thing as the Bad Sex Award: "Sweat is perfume, groans are gold, gasps are bells, shudders are silver. I wouldn't have traded this for the ravages of the loveliest swan." But the stretches of a Cohen at once still forming and yet bordering on self-parody haven't quite found the appropriate chassis yet. The plot - a man who sleeps in his clothes to save time, then makes his colleague look bad with the fastidious boss; a horny young man forced to forego his privacy in order to put up his outrageously violent and ill-mannered grandfather, yet still grumpily fornicating in the shared room – feels much more like a knockabout US comedy film. Is this a record of the incongruous inner life of the star of a nineties gross-out movie? The more we see of the awful ancestor, the more he feels like a realistic – and thus considerably less amusing – reboot of Father Jack. Soon, the narrator is treating the old man as some kind of stinking oracle, finding romance with Marilyn a chore compared to the delights of stalking a baggage clerk he's taken against. There is a distance between narrator and author but, I suspected, never quite as much as the author might have liked – perhaps one reason why the older, wiser author never saw fit to publish this while he was still with us. Especially when it gives the impression of having been abandoned with an ending which, while it can't altogether be called unfair or random, does retrospectively confer on the whole enterprise the air of a grotesque shaggy dog story.

The rest of the book comprises one radio play – which seems somehow incongruous, even though it was with words and voices that Cohen would go on to make his name, and even though here it's not formatted as one anyway – and assorted short stories, mostly at the shorter end of the spectrum. Some have distinct overlap with the novel, whether that be the fascination with deformity in Saint Jig or the senile, incontinent grandfather in A Hundred Suits From Russia. Elsewhere, it's more general, vignettes of callow jealousy and performative heartbreak, not dross exactly but (with the possible exception of the especially autobiographical The Jukebox Heart) a long way from the gold into which their author would later refine such concerns. Several follow Mister Euemer, an everyman figure one could easily see becoming the spine of Cohen's career in an alternate world where his career followed Updike more than Dylan, and his wife; the best of these is the emotional rollercoaster of Lullaby: "Into the night, she wept for the youth she thought she had been cheated of, and for the spires, towers, canals, and hills she would never see, and she wept secretly for the romances in obscure village inns which she would never enjoy." But I think my favourite of the lot may be Polly, a tangled little tale of burgeoning sexuality which also manages to feel weirdly like rebadged slash of Taskmaster, a programme it preceded by more than half a century.

(Netgalley ARC)

This was an interesting book. Fans of Leonard Cohen will definitely like it, anyone who’s not into his music might not enjoy it. I liked the short stories better than the novella. This is a must for Cohen fans!