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With a life spanning 75 years (and counting) as a singer, poet, famous womanizer, heavy user of drugs and alcohol, and, perhaps most surprisingly, a Buddhist, the Leonard Cohen story is an easy one to make interesting in book form. Author Tim Footman's new biography touches on all of these aspects of Cohen and delves deep into his work, but his account also lacks the depth that makes for a great musical biography. The main problem with Hallelujah is that it wasn't written with any input from Cohen himself, or even anyone close to him. Without that perspective, the reader gets an account of major events in Cohen's public life, taken from previously published pieces, and a good criticism of his work, but not any insight into what he's really like as a person or any behind-the-scenes stories from the people involved. The book is also too short to be considered definitive, with the biography proper coming in at a slim 166 pages, and augmented by incongruous and poorly chosen appendices covering a dissection of the oft-covered "Hallelujah" and a comparison between Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan which contains such pearls of non-wisdom as "Dylan and Cohen were both Jewish, and both looked it". There are also some editorial faux pas which are distracting, such as Allen Ginsberg's famous Howl poem being listed by Footman as originating in both 1956 (p. 27) and 1955 (p.49), with the latter being incorrect. There's a great biography of Cohen to be written, but this definitely isn't it.
DAVID MANSDORF
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