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jodie13's review
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
5.0
astroneatly's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
This guy’s temperament is as dry and cool as a gin & tonic. Like you read this very tall dark and handsome shot of breadth, and only for an afternoon you’re suddenly taken into a dying man’s last words, which were simultaneously pleading for a ‘Broken God’ his forgiveness and also the harrowing departure of what is his hell & Eden. If God is watching over us, who is watching over him? Is he/they doing okay? Iunno.
“I didn’t kill the snake
I gave the snake a break
Unbiblical”
He reminds me of my dad though. I remember during some bad years he gave me “Anthem”; and I just remember of a sudden that it didn’t even NEED to make sense. Who needs to open a big book right now and hear all about hellfire and brimstone? Because I open the bible and I get fewer answers. A concise poet, on the other hand, tells it like it is, toots.
“it is the truth,
the truth of all forgiving.
it doesn’t matter darling.
it really doesn’t matter.”
Without sounding too polemical, the raw baritone who once serenaded us with Hallelujah now turns his eye upon the absence of eternity, there’s actually a bit of a East of Eden, South of Heaven implied. ‘time’s good trick reverse it all’ He does sound lonely and bitter, as if he longs to return to a past love that he couldn’t let go of. He almost sounds anxious to get his reward, so to speak, cause it makes sense to him this;
‘nothing can be better
than the man and the
woman together’
I myself love my dear life, it’s not much and there’s not a lot of love, but I cherish my own laughter, my joys, my highs, I find purpose where somehow Leonard Cohen had felt like he flagged somewhere. He didn’t feel accomplished enough? He wasn’t loved enough, didn’t chase enough pussy? That’s his vibe, full of regret and melancholy and that we’d maybe overlook him for dirt like Kanye West and Co. 🙄 We need singers who sing with their soul, not with their autotune. And Leonard Cohen was an accomplished novelist as well.
Fancy that. 🍸
“I heard the snake was baffled by his sin
He shed his scales to find the snake within”
“I didn’t kill the snake
I gave the snake a break
Unbiblical”
He reminds me of my dad though. I remember during some bad years he gave me “Anthem”; and I just remember of a sudden that it didn’t even NEED to make sense. Who needs to open a big book right now and hear all about hellfire and brimstone? Because I open the bible and I get fewer answers. A concise poet, on the other hand, tells it like it is, toots.
“it is the truth,
the truth of all forgiving.
it doesn’t matter darling.
it really doesn’t matter.”
Without sounding too polemical, the raw baritone who once serenaded us with Hallelujah now turns his eye upon the absence of eternity, there’s actually a bit of a East of Eden, South of Heaven implied. ‘time’s good trick reverse it all’ He does sound lonely and bitter, as if he longs to return to a past love that he couldn’t let go of. He almost sounds anxious to get his reward, so to speak, cause it makes sense to him this;
‘nothing can be better
than the man and the
woman together’
I myself love my dear life, it’s not much and there’s not a lot of love, but I cherish my own laughter, my joys, my highs, I find purpose where somehow Leonard Cohen had felt like he flagged somewhere. He didn’t feel accomplished enough? He wasn’t loved enough, didn’t chase enough pussy? That’s his vibe, full of regret and melancholy and that we’d maybe overlook him for dirt like Kanye West and Co. 🙄 We need singers who sing with their soul, not with their autotune. And Leonard Cohen was an accomplished novelist as well.
Fancy that. 🍸
“I heard the snake was baffled by his sin
He shed his scales to find the snake within”
lsparrow's review against another edition
4.0
I love the lyrical quality to Cohen's poetry. I also enjoyed slightly unfinished quality to some of the poems in this collection and the pages from his journals. there is somethings about getting to see an author's own handwriting and style on the page.
alanffm's review against another edition
3.0
The Flame is a strange book that is divided into four sections. As someone interested in Cohen's life, I found many of the passages in the "poetry" and "notes" sections to be of particular interest. There was no need to include the lyrics to his last few albums in here, but no harm was done in doing so. The Flame's weakness is that it has no edge. Cohen seems to have settled into his ways and, while deeply reflective, the volume did not shout out at me in the same way that his earlier works did. I would not recommend this book to anyone who does not already like Cohen - there's simply no need to start here.
barnesstorming's review against another edition
3.0
It's a posthumous poetry collection, and as such it's a bit messy -- with some of the works coming from Cohen's last two albums, some coming from unfinished notebook sketches, and one even coming from an email exchange. It's also sometimes repetitive, with finished versions of the unfinished works both appearing. But when he's on, he's on, and some of the poems rank among his best, most chilling dissections of love, age, and death.
cwalsh's review against another edition
5.0
Biased? Maybe, but this collection is a beautiful compilation that shows Cohen’s many talents in a different light.