From This Broken Hill I Sing to You: God, Sex, and Politics in the Work of Leonard Cohen

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Leonard Cohens troubled relationship with God is here mapped onto his troubled relationships with sex and politics. Analysing Covenantal theology and its place in Cohens work, this book is the first to trace a consistent theology across sixty years of Cohens writing, drawing on his Jewish heritage and its expression in his lyrics and poems. Cohens commitment to covenant, and his anger at this God who made us so prone to failing it, undergird the faith, frustration, and sardonic taunting of Cohens work. Both his faith and ire are traced through: Cohens unorthodox use of Jewish and Christian imagery His writings about women, politics, and the Holocaust His final theology, You Want It Darker, released three weeks before his death.

Reviews

Marcia Pally offers here an immensely rich theological interpretation of the work of legendary Canadian poet-musician Leonard Cohen. The key theological theme I see is Cohen's claim that we human beings were made for covenant with God and one another and yet the way we were made or the way we have turned out makes it immensely difficult for us to keep the very covenants that we need. So the human condition is tragic, and the tragedy may ultimately be traceable to the very God who alone is our source and our destiny. This book makes me want to marinate in the music and poetry, though not the lifestyle, of Leonard Cohen. It also deepens my immense appreciation for the impressive intellectual range of Marcia Pally. This is a tour de force. -- David P. Gushee, Mercer University, USA
Marcia Pally has written an absolutely brilliant and arresting book about the lyrics of Leonard Cohen. Cohens lyrics have fascinated me for many years - a descendant of rabbis, he has done the remarkable thing of writing prophecy and social criticism into his lyrics. Marcia Pallys book analyzes his extraordinary talent. Please read it! -- Erica Jong, award-winning author of Fear of Flying, novelist, and cultural commentator, USA
Drawing upon the entirety of Cohens creative output, including his oft-overlooked novels, Marcia Pally takes Cohen seriously as a religious thinker, a mystic for the post secular age, in the words of Aubrey Glazer. Pally swaps out Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Irving Layton and Federico Garca Lorca in favor of Rosenzweig, Heschel, Levinas, and Wolfson as she recontextualizes Cohen as a poet engaged in a lifelong wrestling match with the Almighty. The listeneror reader, in this casecomes out the winner. -- Seth Rogovoy, author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet, USA
From This Broken Hill I Sing to You is must reading for those like myself who are torn between our devotion to Leonard Cohen's work and our dismay at his personal history with women. By painstakingly charting the poet/singer's lifelong struggle to reconcile his covenantal relationships (with God and women) with his real-life behavior, Marcia Pally has forged a deeply compelling new covenant between Cohen and us, his acolytes. To which, I say Hallelujah! -- Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founding editor of Ms. magazine & author of Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female & Jewish in America, USA
Marcia Pallys From This Broken Hill I Sing to You is a superb book, from Moshe Halbertals inspired foreword to the piercing last chapter on Leonard Cohens last creed. The writing is sophisticated and accessible, fully up to the task of realizing the deep philosophic-anthropological and theological dimensions of Cohens work. The subtitle of the book, God, Sex Politics in the Work of Leonard Cohen, is only partly accurate - the book far more. There is a movement of the study of Cohens terse verse, and this book summarizes that work well and advances it with a decided focus on Cohens struggle with the tortured relationship between the mortal and the eternal. As someone whose relationship with Old Priest was rooted in theological discussions (Lurianic Kabbalah), it is such a pleasure to see his depth so beautifully and originally articulated. -- Rabbi Mordecai Finley, spiritual counselor to Leonard Cohen, spiritual leader of Ohr HaTorah congregation, and professor of liturgy, mysticism and Jewish ethics, USA
I have always loved Leonard's work, and loved him personally, and knew that HE was the man along with Beatles, whose work would survive musically. Marcia Pallys masterful book reveals that as a poet, songwriter, philosopher and ultimate mensch, Leonard Cohen, his work and his spirit are here for ALL TIME!! -- David Amram, one of the "Twenty Most Performed Composers of Concert Music in the United States" and collaborator with Leonard Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie, Dustin Hoffman, Charlie Mingus, Elia Kazan, Odetta, Jack Kerouac, Betty Carter and Tito Puente, USA

Author Bio

Marcia Pally is Professor in Multilingual Multicultural Studies at New York University, USA, and held the Mercator Guest Professorship in the Theology Faculty at Humboldt University-Berlin (Germany), where she is now a regular Guest Professor.