An extended review of a 2023 book by Matthew R. Anderson
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McGill-Queen's, 2023. 192 pages. $29 (ebook $17)
In my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the so-called Feast of Cohen is a popular event. The annual winter concert in St. John’s is devoted to the music and poetry of the legendary Canadian artist Leonard Cohen (1934–2016).
It was launched in 2001 by local producer and musician Vicky Hynes. A post-Christmas and New Year’s festival, it has transitioned into one of the longest-running festivals of Cohen’s music and the second longest-running globally.
It features a rotating cast of local musicians at a well-known intimate hall in the capital city. It serves to keep Cohen’s music before the public, as well as a way of warding off post-Christmas blues.
It resurfaced in my mind when I took up this book to read and review.
Author Matthew R. Anderson teaches biblical studies at Concordia University and St. Francis Xavier University. He creatively places Cohen as a conversation partner with the Apostle Paul.
At first, the reader may be thrown off. How can Cohen and Paul be compared? Indeed, how can apples and oranges be compared? Admittedly, there are many differences between the two figures, but there are also some striking similarities, for example in their Jewish backgrounds and countercultural ideas about love. The author’s task is to wrest the parallels and contrasts from the words. The reader is encouraged to meet the two again, some for the first time, others for the nth time.
Anderson is clearly enamoured with Cohen and his thoughtful lyrics, and I must also admit to admiration of Cohen’s works. I recall the first time I heard his “Hallelujah” and its famous lines, “I’ll stand before the Lord of Song / With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.” Initially I did not understand his words to be an encounter with the divine, thinking of them only as nice catchy phrases and catchy tune that lodged in my mind. The words resonated with me, and have stayed with me ever since. I often hum the song when writing.
There are other songs one can call upon as representative of Leonard Cohen, including “Almost Like the Blues,” “Born in Chains,” “Traveling Light,” “I’m Your Man,” “Everybody Knows,” “Bird on a Wire,” and “You Got Me Singing.”
Such Cohen excerpts are here accompanied by texts from Paul’s writings.
Cohen was a master of language but, at the same time, he was marked by countless flaws. But then, so was the Apostle Paul, so am I, so are you. However, our shortcomings need not detract from our appreciation of the saint and the artist. “Putting them side by side quickly moves from the entertaining to the illuminating,” as Anderson suggests.
At the end of each chapter, Anderson’s text meditations from Paul and Cohen are followed by further reading which can be consulted, along with an extensive bibliography.
Anderson is not shy about tackling heavy topics in the writings of Paul and Cohen, whether that be women, masculinity, their place within Judaism, and their preoccupation with Jesus, among other topics.
To me the chapter of enduring significance is “Leonard and Paul as Witnesses to Brokenness and Redemption.” They become poetic prophets of both divine and human love.
The usefulness of this short book is enhanced by more than 20 pages of tightly packed notes and a nine-page bibliography.
This is an easily digested comparison that will whet the reader’s appetite for more of Cohen and perhaps Paul. A compelling and engaging portrait such as this one is bound to appeal to a wide variety of readers, from fans of Cohen and scholars of gender, to the basic reader of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The practical lessons to be gleaned about Cohen and Paul can leave a lasting impression. I was captivated.
Prophets of Love can, in the terms used by the Newfoundland festival, be fairly labelled as a veritable “feast of Cohen and Paul.”
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