Preview
  • Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall

  • By: Christophe Lebold
  • Narrated by: Vlasta Vrana
  • Length: 19 hrs and 38 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall

By: Christophe Lebold
Narrated by: Vlasta Vrana
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $29.95

Buy for $29.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Leonard Cohen has aimed high: to be all Jewish heroes at once. Like Jacob, he struggled with angels. Like David, he sang psalms and seduced women. But he never ceased doing what he did best: going from city to city and reviving our hearts. Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall follows the singer’s cosmopolitan life from Montreal and New York to the Greek island of Hydra and examines his perpetual dialogues with himself, God, and avalanches.

We see how six decades of radiant pessimism and a few thousand nights in hotel rooms transformed a young Jewish poet who longed to be a saint into an existentialist troubadour in love with women and a gravelly voiced crooner who taught a thousand ways of dissolving into love.

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art. Gracefully blending biography and essay, he interrogates the mission Cohen set out for himself: to show us that darkness is just the flip side of light.

©2024 Christophe Lebold (P)2024 Audible Inc.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Editorial Review

A deep look at a songwriting genius
Leonard Cohen always defied easy categorization. A writer who penned two novels before becoming famous as a singer-songwriter, he was a crooner who loved a well-cut suit, a poet who lived in austerity, and a Sabbath-observing Jew who practiced Zen Buddhism. Reveling in seduction as much as solitude, his work was both voluptuous and spare, metaphysical and sensual. Christophe Lebold’s biography does more than embrace these seeming contradictions; the contradictions, in fact, are the point. We all contain multitudes, and Cohen’s writing, Lebold tells us, “restores us to the full weight of our lives.” First published in French in 2013, this deep philosophical analysis of Cohen’s six-decade career is finally being released in English and in audio for the first time. As Cohen said upon the book’s release three years before his death, “I am deeply respectful of the mind that has produced this book.”— Phoebe N., Audible Editor

What listeners say about Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

as much an analysis as a biography

You have to be a real Cohen fan to hang in through this overly long book. However, for those who do hang in, it effectively fills in some gaps and places Cohen's work in the context of his life and personal struggles. I'm glad to gain a better understanding of the quiet man I saw only in passing as he listened to jazz in a Montreal club.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!