Account of how the fearless leader hoodwinks yet another pidgeon. Too bad Toomer & the rest of them couldn't honor & respect those who truly deserved it...their wives & mothers.

I suppose the motivation for writing this book in the words of Gurdjieff in Beelzebub's Tales would be: 'to destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, rooted in him, about Gurdjieff himself".

I always thought that Gurdjieff took care that his own image was not without tarnish; this has been explained as his way of getting his followers not to identify the man with the teaching. Paul Beekman Taylor completes this work and achieves a clear separation, without leaving us any shadow of doubt.

Gurdjieff according to Mr. Taylor was a womanizer, father of his sister Eve and about half a dozen (if not more) of other children, who Gurdjieff left to their mothers to raise shunning all resposibility like plague (at least he did so with Eve). His Gurdjieff wrote appallingly childish letters in bad taste to Mr. Taylor's mother, Edith Annesly Taylor, who said of Gurdjieff: "He is not a nice man", and kept coming back to him like a jojo for about 25 years.

Jean Toomer, one of the many lovers of Edith Taylor, comes out much cleaner. As Gurdjieff would say: "very handy, no children, just handkerchief".

Nobody is a prophet in his own country; only very few of Gurdjieff's relatives, official or unofficial, seem to have learned from him about the things he taught. Mr. Taylor is almost family, but he learned at least one thing. His book has a one page record of the conversation he had with Gurdjieff in 1949, in which he said: "Come see me in New York, you pay me for summer here with story there, at Child's. Story is breath, life. Without story man have no self." Gurdjieff died before Paul Beekman Taylor told his story to him.

Now 50 years later he achieves with his story a good increase of the distance between Gurdjieff the man and his teaching.

Paul Taylor's book has two perspectives. One is that of an insider who grew up within the Gurdjieff movement. His mother was Gurdjieff and Jean Toomer's lover. His own father remains an unsolved mystery. He tells many stories of the rather Bohemian love affairs the various members of the entourage "enjoyed" -- although they mostly sound miserable and crazy.

Taylor, an English professor at the University of Geneva, also manages to put Jean Toomer and Gurdjieff into a larger academic perspective -- commenting on Toomer's race, and Gurdjieff's proximity to other philosophers and writers of his period.

The book is well-written -- maintaining at one time a personal perspective, and a wider, more objective, academic perspective. For Gurdjieffians and Toomer fans alike -- the book is highly readable and informative.

-- Kirby Olson