Slighted
Here’s a part of the final essay I wrote for my Jewish Literature in Canada class. I had a particular interest in the bizarre and unique writings of Leonard Cohen as you can see.
In the essence of sharing stories, and on the topic of narratives, counter-narratives, I’d like to bring up Leonard Cohen’s whimsical and surprising creative voice, and how this robust, and sensible voice of his provides a compelling counter-narrative in the Canadian Jewish context. His stories are quite formidably counter-culture, invoking absurdity, and rather than invoking a completely Jewish voice, and characterized manifestations for this Canadian Jewish voice, he provides a curious array of inter-religious characters whom explore life in many commonly restricted dimensions. He’s like a space cowboy, pardon the ridiculous comparison, but sincerely this is the image Cohen invokes for me. He is seemingly arrogant and sort of stoic, though this may be an ostensible idea contrary to that of Cohen’s true heart and creative voice. Rather I sense in him, a totally intelligent, and sensitive person, trying to wrap his head around the mystery of life, and doing so in a valiant and poetic kind of way.
In the vein of Counter-narratives, I am reminded of a definition of Sainthood presented to me in my Introduction to Christianity class, it’s along the lines of, a saint, as well as being someone of extraordinary devotion to God, is also one who courageously displays a devotional attitude which is counter-cultural, counter, and even transcendental to the normative narrative which permeates people’s behavior conformingly.
Now, allow me to present a concept which may seem absurd at first, but perhaps shall make more sense as I articulate this idea. In my Religions of Tibet class, we’ve explored Buddhist Tantra, as a sort of alternative method for spiritual liberation, whatever this may mean. Tantrism is essentially a kind of immersion into extremes, submerging oneself in ordinarily untouchable or even disgusting things, and practices, so as to in a way, touch the untouchable. For them, this blurs the line between what is normally considered good and bad, and the boundaries of what is accessible to us. Basically, tantra is behaving in a way that is counter to common modes of thinking, sort of an obliteration of the limiting ideas we project as our reality. In this way, I’d like to propose that Cohen may unintentionally embody these tantric principles in his writing. It is most apparent, to me at least, in his riveting novel, ‘Beautiful Losers’, wherein he iterates spiritual and religious matters, often quite profound contemplations, through the lens of sexual deviance, and quite often, profanity. In a way Cohen flips this holier than thou narrative upside down, and demonstrates the divinity in sexual deviance, conveying that typical ideas of restricting oneself to access the divine may be contrary to the all-pervasive divinity that dwells, and should be honored in all things.
In order to find the Jewishness in Cohen’s writing, one must look carefully, it was even mentioned in class by an adamant student, that Cohen seems to be a pretentious Jew, unrepresentative of true Jewish culture. Though, this is why I present him as a spokesperson for counter-narratives, not only as an ‘unorthodox’ Jew, but also as a creative and writer in his time, employing poignant language, and poetic imagery which would baffle uptight religionists, and bewilder people confined to narrowly dogmatic ideas of what Godliness and divinity entail.
To conclude, throughout this paper my objective was to emphasize the importance of stories, and how sharing stories, is in fact the way in which the world progresses (I kind of dislike progress as a word, it’s ambiguous and general, so by progress I mean, the way in which we become more aware of human inter-dependence and semblance, so as to dissipate the illusions of fear which make us feel wholly separate, and thus opposing to others.). I hypothesize that in this world wherein we are all distinguished by stories, it is sometimes hard to find a place of belonging, indeed, there is no other person quite like us, who shares a duplicate of our story, in fact, we are irreducibly unique and different from others. So, how does one relate to the world, well it is by the sharing of stories, no matter how bizarre, absurd, and unearthly those stories may be. Sharing stories, allows for the mutual understanding of the suffering we all face in life, for as the Buddha said, life is indeed suffering. What solace is there, if not for the knowledge that we all share this suffering? Sharing one’s story is like opening one’s heart, allowing entry to another into the fragile realm of ones most hurtful memories. Stories are reflections of ones lived experiences, no matter how fictionalized or fantastical they may seem, they come from a deep kind of place, and there is a touch of the universal to them, so that, when stories are shared, a more complete and compelling narrative of universal human relatability can be established. In this way, both Cohen’s stories, as well as the Ghost of Hirsch, give us a brief opening into distinctive but mutually existing, and even complementary in their Jewishness, stories, but construct a more crystallized vision of the Jewish Canadian narrative.
