Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson: An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life Man - All & Everything/First Series [Hardcover]

Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1992

Gurdjieff, in his writings, intended to "awaken" people to their own inner possibilities and potential. "Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson", the three books that constitute the first series in Gurdjieff's trilogy "All and Everything", distills the essence of his ideas. This book examines life on earth from the viewpoint of beings belonging to a distant world, led by the "all-wise Beelzebub", who is able to perceive the weaknesses and follies of humanity and, through his compassion, can point the way towards possible regeneration. Through this cosmic allegory, Gurdjieff demonstrates a methodology for the spiritual growth of mankind.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Editors' Note

Gurdjieff wrote Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson from 1924 through 1931, and continued in later years to make significant revisions. Before his death in 1949 he entrusted the book and his other writings to Jeanne de Salzmann, his closest pupil, with instructions for future publication. Mme. de Salzmann had followed Gurdjieff for over 30 years and played a central role in his decision in the l940s to organize the practice of his teaching.

Gurdjieff wrote Beelzebub's Tales in Russian and Armenian, and the original manuscript was typed and revised in Russian. An English translation was produced in successive steps at the Prieuré. It consisted initially of a word-by-word interlinear translation with each word in English placed above the corresponding Russian word in the typescript. Reworked by different pupils at different times, the translation was finally edited by the well-known author and editor A.R. Orage, mostly in New York. Although he worked closely with Russian speakers and, indeed, Gurdjieff himself, Orage knew no Russian and was unable to read Gurdjieff's original text.

The English version was first published in 1950, just a few months after Gurdjieff died. He had overruled objections that the translation needed more work, insisting that the time had come to launch his ideas into the mainstream of Western thinking. As the English text was the initial publication of the book in any language, it was assumed by many readers to have been written or specifically approved by Gurdjieff. Although a prefatory note stated that the original was written in Russian and Armenian, the significance of this was easily disregarded in the absence of a published edition of the original Russian text. The note also stated that the author had personally directed the translation, and Gurdjieff had often been present when the translation was read aloud to English-speaking pupils and visitors.

What few readers knew was that, in fact, all of Gurdjieff's work in completing the book was in Russian. His spoken English, like his spoken French, was effective and memorably colorful for his purposes as a teacher in conversation with his pupils, but since his arrival in Western Europe in the early 1920s, he had not taken the time to master either language. He could not have judged, much less approved, the English text and had to rely on Mme. de Salzmann, who was fluent in Russian and English, for reassurance that the meaning was preserved. Gurdjieff did not approve the writing style of the English translation.

Although before his death Gurdjieff had insisted on immediate publication, he reportedly acknowledged that the English book was a "rough diamond" and asked Mme. de Salzmann to revise it at a later time. Her first priority was to prepare the French edition based on the Russian manuscript, a task that was not completed until 1956. Thereafter, she began work with selected American pupils to revise the English language version. The primary aim was to bring it closer in substance to the Russian text, using the widely admired and well accepted French edition as a model. A secondary but important aim was to have it correspond more faithfully in style to Gurdjieff's Russian writing, particularly to make it as clear and understandable as the Russian. Mme. de Salzmann herself worked for a number of years with the editorial team and then left them to complete the project. The revision, despite interruptions, was finally completed more than 30 years later. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Gurdjieff was born in Alexanderpol in 1877 and trained both as a priest and physician. For some twenty years he travelled in the remotest regions of Central Asia and the Middle East, moulding his thought. On his return he began to gather pupils in Moscow, and from this base his ideas began to spread worldwide. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1135 pages
• Publisher: Viking (1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670841250
• ISBN-13: 978-0670841257
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,205,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reading this is itself an act of G's "conscious labor", May 16, 2003

By 

C. Gardner (Washington D.C., D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson: All And Everything: 1st Series (Compass) (Paperback)

This is one of the best works of spirituality ever written. Gurdjieff admits in his forward ("The Arousing of Thought"'s Warning to the reader) that he tried conveying his "wiseacring" in a straightforward, "newsworthy" manner but found that it failed miserably. So, being enamored his entire life by both the form and content of the "1001 Nights", he tried another approach. The genius of his writing is that it not only imparts information to you the reader, but performs or enacts the "cosmic principles" he's discussing in the very way the sentences are constructed (which many people find extremely difficult, overloaded, and dense). But his book was intentionally composed in a rhythmic & musical fashion. The sentences have distinct cadences (many of them have multiple embedded clauses) which when read aloud, as Gurdjieff recommends, are apt to put one in a strange state of mind. It takes a while to acclimatize oneself to the rhythm, but once one does it becomes easier to intuit--with something other than the "intellectual center"--the ideas behind the words. His neologisms are also meant to dislocate, but they are simply combinations of Russian, Armenian, and newlyminted words.

About the content: Gurdjieff's system is often lumped in with many other fads and gurus' elixirs under the moniker "new age". Which is ironic, considering that these ways of being are apparently thousands of years old. But what feel-good new age movement starts with the axiom that human beings are basically in varying degrees of a hypnotic state, possessing only a shred of what Western philosophies call free will? (and that shred only "awakens" sometimes in "peak experiences" when the three centers work together--mortal danger, sexual union, etc., when the ego drops away). Yet this axiom is not asked to be taken on "faith" by Gurdjieff. His is a hard-headed empiricism--indeed, he thought most of humanity incapable of "faith". He never claimed sagehood nor superhuman powers of himself, and was quite satisfied to turn people away and even shock them with behavior at odds with the European conception of a guru. One can only really grasp Gurdjieff's starting point--"Man is asleep"-- by either already being convinced of this truth, or by doing experiments in conscious attention to convince one such.

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most important books ever written., August 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson: All And Everything: 1st Series (Compass) (Paperback)

Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub Tales to His Grandson" is not your everyday type book. Its intentions are not to entertain, but to shock the reader into conscious awareness of the many mechanisms that control his/her own life. Ions after his fall from heaven we find Beelzebub completely transformed through experience into the wisest of beings. In a interplanetary mission to keep our galaxy in order, Beelzebub makes use of a delay to teach his grandson about many things of importance, and especially about those strange beings on the planet earth. The funny thing is that the reader becomes the grandson, and it is Gurdjieff whom teaches us about the reality of our unconscious "living". It is a book not intended to be an easy read, the book demands us to make great conscious efforts to understand the content and to keep alert. However, any effort put into the book is petty in comparison to the gain. "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" gives us a choice to remain the automatons we are, or to take a step into realizing our potential as conscious beings. It is one of the most important books...ever.

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An acquired taste, March 21, 2001

By 

Myron Makewater "redcrosseknight" (Laramie) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson: All And Everything: 1st Series (Compass) (Paperback)

But the taste for this text is, in my opinion, very worth acquiring. The comparisons that come most readily are to Moby-Dick, The Faerie Queene, and to Blake at his best. But I've read this book three times in less than two years; the others only once. This book, my friend, can be addictive.

Obviously, not everyone feels compelled to read difficult books again and again. If you don't feel up to reading 1,238 pages of legitimate weirdness (in a good sense) repeatedly, with full attention, then this book is probably not for you.

However, I wholeheartedly recommend this book for the patient, the openminded, and the good-humored. You won't regret the effort. I agree with the reviewer below: Once you've finished this, you'll understand what it is you've taken in.

It should also be noted that Gurdjieff's sense of humor is more subtle than one might think. He repeatedly toys with the expectations of his reader in ideosyncratic ways that might be easily missed without a heads-up.

Cheers!