The Saint and the Old Man (fourth quarter)

In the fourth and final quarter of the book, the story's main focus is on Catherine Tekakwitha's life just before her death and how she became a saint after her demise. Just like Jesus, she was resurrected on Easter day. She was described as a virgin saint, a pure saint with a skin that glows white. This of course symbolizes racism because only after her passing did Catherine became a white saint. it refers to how the religion is fixated on the purity of whiteness. 

In the epilogue, we are introduced to an old man with pedophilic tendencies. He seems to be running away from his life choices while also being chased by the police. This is how Leonard Cohen concludes his story. He leaves us more confused now than we were a the beginning of the novel. He leaves us to interpret the ending. Personally, we think that this novel is the story of one man. The unnamed man, F., and the old man are one entity and we are reading about his life.

This is a painting of Saint Kateri Takawitha (Catherine Takawitha).

FINAL THOUGHTS

FINAL THOUGHTS ON BEAUTIFUL LOSERS

Here we are at last, at the very end of this book, it’s been quite a very peculiar journey to get here. In this final part, we will express the final thoughts that we had while reading the last pages of this novel. We asked ourselves many questions during this particular read, here are our questions:

What lessons did we draw from the novel? 

 One of the things that we learned from this book is that it serves as a reminder not to trust the wrong people. We also learned how complicated a relationship can be with someone. The last thing that we learned about this novel is that we should be comfortable with ourselves. In the book, F. and the unnamed character are not able to be 100% honest about who they are. 

What element(s) was most significant for us personally? 

 The main character and F. are hiding their sexuality. The unnamed character is submissive to F. Love is blind because, during this novel, we understand that F isn’t a good person for the protagonist, but he doesn’t see it because he is in love with F. Like at some point in the book F beats the unnamed character and he influences him to take drugs. These elements were very significant to us. 

What was the main message in this novel in our opinion? 

That sometimes life can be complicated, confusing and frustrating but one way or another you remember the good times that you had with your loved ones and those are the memories you should hold on to. The other main message in this novel in our opinion is that we should accept who we are and our decisions even if it is not accepted in society. We should fight for who we are and what we want. 

 Last but not least… Did we all see any links between elements in our novel and something in our world, more personally or as a society? Honestly, we just saw that some people are better than others and that life can be this big gigantic mess but that’s the beauty of it too. We also see that some beliefs in society and religion still haven’t changed, not even today which disappoints us a little to be honest. Sexuality is really more present in the world today. Indeed, there’s an excess of sexuality just like in Beautiful Losers. 

That was it, thank you for taking the ride with us, while we were reading Beautiful Losers.