He could have had a very fine career as a novelist, but he got sick of not making any money. Cohen’s celebrity exploded in the last decade of his life fans may come to this book unaware that it is merely the last in a long line of novels and poetry collections that Cohen published, that in fact he launched his reputation in print and not in song. The Flame, which Cohen finished only days before his death in November 2016, is a collection of poems (most new, some old but never previously published), lyrics, drawings, and working notebooks. Art, sartorial elegance, and slaves: check, check, check. One almost senses him (knowingly, always knowingly) ticking off boxes. Not because the lyrics are especially funny (although there are touches of Cohen’s characteristic wry humor), and not because the poem is foolish (it’s quite good), but because it is practically a medley of every single theme and obsession Cohen took up over his sixty-year career. The first poem in Leonard Cohen’s posthumous book The Flame made me laugh.
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