linear, coherent fashion. Key scenes repeat themselves, and there is no timeline the reader can follow. Reception Initial sales were poor. It sold better in the US than in Canada, but did not see significant sales until after Cohen achieved success as a singer-songwriter. The novel attracted the attention of critics, and was met with much controversy. Critic Robert Fulford called Beautiful Losers "the most revolting book ever written in Canada", while also stating it was "an important failure. At the same time it is probably the most interesting Canadian book of the year". He reported a few days later that a Toronto bookstore had not managed to sell any of the twenty-five copies it stocked eight days after publication. Critics were less shocked by the breaking of taboos than the general public was. Instead, they objected to the novel's complexity of allusion and representation, and the demands it put on the reader due to its incoherence and indeterminacy. It would take another generation of postmodern Canadian literature before Beautiful Losers would breach the canon. In 1966, the CBC called Beautiful Losers "one of the most radical and extraordinary works of fiction ever published in Canada", and quoted a critic from the Boston Globe who positively compared the work with the fiction of James Joyce. However, they also quoted from the previously mentioned negative review from the critic Robert Fulford. In 1967, Desmond Pacey called Beautiful Losers "the most intricate, erudite and fascinating Canadian novel ever written". In his 1970 monograph on Cohen, Michael Ondaatje called it "the most vivid, fascinating and brave modern novel" he had read. Beautiful Losers had been translated into eleven languages by 1990, and the sales of both of Cohen's novels have surpassed a million copies; Beautiful Losers had topped three million in sales by 2007. Legacy Beautiful Losers has entered the canon of Canadian literature, and has been given much credit for having introduced postmodern literature to Canadian fiction. The poem beginning "God is alive. Magic is afoot" was arranged as a song by Buffy Sainte-Marie and first recorded on her 1969 album Illuminations; the song was covered by Chris Thile on his 2021 album Laysongs. Beautiful Losers was the inspiration for the song "Let's Be Other People" by the English band The Wonderstuff on their album Hup. An excerpt from Beautiful Losers appears in The Young Ones (TV series) associated book "Neil's Book