The Favourite Game

By Leonard Cohen

This warm and lyrical semi-autobiographical first novel by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen charts the coming of age of Lawrence Breavman, the only son of a Jewish Montreal family.

‘Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the world is made flesh.’

Lawrence Breavman seeks two things: love and beauty. Beginning with the innocent games of delicious misadventure with first love Lisa and the absorbing wanders through Montreal with best friend Krantz, Breavman's tale is a distant echo of ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ – injected with 1960s aesthetics and Cohen’s unique poetry. As Breavman grows into a young man, the emerging writer continues his quest for beauty and love, finding himself in the arms of Shell and a burgeoning realisation of his own talent for appreciating majesty in the grotesque.

Semi-autobiographical, the angst and beauty of Cohen’s voice deftly channel the painful confusion of the journey into adulthood, and the friendships, wars and lovers that are our guides.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Aug 6, 2009
• ISBN: 9780007341733

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. His first book of poetry, ‘Let Us Compare Mythologies’, was published in 1956 and his first novel, the semi-autobiographical ‘The Favourite Game’, in 1963. Cohen has recorded numerous albums and published several books of poetry and an experimental novel, ‘Beautiful Losers’ (1966). Cohen lives in Montreal, Canada.

Reviews for The Favourite Game

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Poetic, lovely writing. Amazing images: rooms become living things while bodies become objects of beauty. And, we have the story of a young man coming to grips with his heritage, his success, and his isolation.

[kirstiecat · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I should start by saying a little something. I adore Leonard Cohen...I actually think he's one of the best lyricists out there (if not *the best*) and on a visceral note, often times has his music completely soothed me (especially on trains..if you're taking an overnight AMTRAK ride across sleepy North America, be sure to bring about eight hours of early period Leonard Cohen, mainly: Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room, Songs of Love and Hate, and New Skin for the Old Ceremony. Or, if you have a tendency to listen to songs on repeat, bring a comfy set of headphones and play "Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye" to your little heart's content for the next ten hours.)


That said, I should also say I can be somewhat objective about Leonard Cohen even though I will admit to a slight bias. For instance, though his lyrics in more recent albums (i.e. The Future) are some of his best yet, the chosen music accompaniment is downright dreadful. Someone needs to kidnap the man and an acoustic guitar and make sure he doesn't leave a recording studio until "Anthem" has it's true stripped down glory. Not that I'm condoning this sort of musical heist or anything but seriously those good lyrics suffer under such appalling conditions. It's like putting the most decadent chocolate cake in a dark alley by a bunch of feeding rats.


Perhaps, I'm getting off track. I meant to talk about the book here. Well, this is the first book of Cohen's I've read (surprisingly! Boy, do I need to get my act together!) While I'd rather listen to an album of his, I do find some of the similarities interesting. The Favorite Game, first published in 1963 gives us a glimpse of early Montreal and insight into human relationships partially under the guise of a diary kept by a definite Ladies Man (interesting to note, if Cohen's own words about himself are true concerning the lack of adoring females and lustful intimacy, he could have never been this main character) Then again, who wouldn't adore Cohen in just about any fashion? To love a mind is to love a body even if that body is, at this point, 73 years old. Anyhow, at most it's semi-autobiographical and at least pure fiction.


I think the one thing I found fascinating about this book above all else was the emphasis on rooms...which in some way parallels the emphasis in Songs From a Room. For instance, there's this overwhelming sense of the inside private spaces of people's lives and a commitment that seems final even though for protagonist Lawrence Breavman it is anything but. It's almost as if by making this small commitment to share a period of time with a woman in a room, it's the same for him as a lifelong commitment. The problem is, that fidelity only lasts for the time he's actually in the room and then he's off to another woman. He has his definite favorites, though, and will come back to them...calls them long distance right after leaving the last (ahem I believe this was before texting) and even goes to the extent of giving one of his great loves his journal describing recent sexual exploits. This is technically a third person tale but very much so told without a moral perspective or from the point of view of any of the women (though we do have a sense of how they feel but the story is led by Breavman and his actions). It merely is about the way this man is who loves women but perhaps loves his choice and his own solitude more. The most interesting part of the book was towards the end when Breavman sees a male friend of his and volunteers as a camp counselor. I won't spoil it but there's a story that really comes out of nowhere here.


Some of my favorite quotes:


"Your body will never be familiar" p.20


"They held hands tightly and watched the stars in the dark part of the sky; where the moon was bright they were obliterated. She told him she loved him. A loon went insane in the middle of the lake." p.32


"You want to live in a world where the light has just been switched on and everything has just jumped out of the black" p. 141


"We have to bring everything to eachother. Even the times we are corpses" p. 165


"On the Hudson there were other lights, the necklace of the George Washington bridge, the slow-moving barges and the Alcoa signs across the water, The air was clear the stars big. They stood close and inherited everything" p. 173

[booksfordinner · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Discovered this book as I was spending some time with Leonard Cohen's music. Very pleased. Always loved when he said he stopped writing novels and started to write songs because making a living as a songwriter was so much easier. IT IS!?!

[yogipoet · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

brilliant poet, confusing novelist. i suppose it makes sense in the end if you're not looking for anything concrete.