The authors make it clear that Toomer rejected the racist ideologies of both 'blackness' and 'whiteness':

"And he had lived among blacks, among whites, among Jews, and in groups organized without racial labels around a shared interest such as literature or psychology, moving freely from any one of these groups to any other. One mark of membership in the 'colored' group, he said, was acceptance of the 'color line' with its attendant expectations; neither his family nor he had ever been so bound. To be in the white group would also imply the exclusion of the other."

It's a great book!

This is a great book focusing on a man who had the courage to reject society's efforts to impose a "racial" identity upon him. He steadfastly refused to be labeled "colored" (black) or "white" and considered classification the nemesis of mankind, a reflection of intellectual empty-headedness. A quote from the book: "Thus Toomer propounded the rather unpopular view that the racial issue in America would be resolved only when white America could accept the fact that its racial 'purity' was a myth, that indeed its racial isolation produced blandness and lack of character. On the other hand, racial purity among blacks was just as much a myth and only encouraged defensiveness and unconscious imitation, like that of an adolescent who defines his revolt against his parents by the very values he is trying to renounce. Race, he said, was a fictional construct, of no use for understanding people." We need more people like Jean Toomer today!

Previous critics have written about Toomer's biography, its interconnections with his art and the art of his contemporaries. However, no other critic to date have given so much prominence and meaningful prominence to the philosophical influence Gurdjieff had upon such black writers as Larsen, Schuyler, Thurman and Hurston. His interpretation is thoroughly grounded in firm intellectual work.

To Make a New Race is a must have book for all literary scholars and those interested in African American history. I received it this morning and haven't put it down since. Woodson does a fine job of decoding the influnce of Gurdijeff and Toomer on the writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance

Jean Toomer should not be classified as "African American." He rejected that racist "one drop" classification and deserves praise and admiration for doing so. Toomer's parents and grandparents were not "black middle class" but looked whiter than many Americans who call themselves "white."

Jean Toomer was one of the great literary figures from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920's. His signature work, Cane, is known by most people who have studied African-American literatureo. Lesser known to readers is this brilliant work, Essentials, published in 1931.

After his success with Cane, Toomer disappeared from the literary scene to pursue his own philosophical and psychological inquiries. He went against the grain of his time which believed African-Americans were not capable of exploring the world of metaphysics, let alone psychology. Toomer, way ahead of his time proved them wrong as he sought enlightenment in the teachings of George Gurdjieff. During this time (1924-1935), Toomer published this slim volume offering his attempts to grapple with the experience of what it means to be human.

Essentials is a collection of Toomer's ponderings in his search for wholeness in a fragmented world. Drawing on modern psychology and eastern religious belief Toomer falls into the comapny of Emerson, Thoreau and Gibran as he deals with that which is transcendent. He revives the use of aphorisms to convey timeless truths in a world which is incable of moving beyond its limited definitions of life.

Long ignored, this work gives us a glimpse of Toomer's metaphysical side. Through it we capture another alternative view of dealing with reality. It is essential reading for anyone interested in metaphysics, African-American literature, Toomer and as an example of a Black writer who refused to be limited by definitions of race for his life. Think on his words. Grow in the wisdom shared by a great literary giant of the 20th century.

Written back in 1923, CANE is one of the touchstones of African-American writing. Jean Toomer, despite his rather uncertain relationship with the African side of his ancestry, must be recognized as a founder. That said, this is a pale, difficult book, wandering sadly through the tempest-tossed fortunes of African-American life in the first decades of the 20th century. CANE is not for the casual reader, nor for those who want to be fed meaning. You must reflect, add to the text from your own knowledge and experience. The characters appear in pale colors, dressed in weariness and often verging on madness. Blue saxophone tones amidst the fogs of prejudice and blind hatred for all intelligent behavior by a despised minority. What more could a gentle man, human and tender, make of such craziness ? Poetry, broken images that pass slowly, pale by smoke, pale by moonlight, whisper of yellow globes, and decline of that distant hope that someday "they" would learn. Part of this book is poetry, part is prose, and part a strange play about a man named Kabnis ("Sinbad ?) who seems an unlikely traveller on life's roads. It is not a novel in any usual sense of the word, since it is made up of completely disparate parts with no connection other than that they describe the vicissitudes of African-American life in the South and in Washington DC. Plot is absent, as is continuity. This is a volume of ashen portraits, not much flattering. This is a volume worth more for its history than for its literary merit, yet it will touch you if you let it.

Not yet published were the forthright descriptions and defiance of Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, and many others. The bold fulminations of Malcolm, the brilliant oratory of King---not even dreamt of. Toomer asks---but through a mist of poetic images, through the circuitous meanderings of the oppressed---what have we done to deserve this fate? Who am I ? No firebrand he. "Wish that I might fly out past the moon/ And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower." This is hardly rebellion. But he wrote, he dared that. From our so-privileged vantage point of eight decades into the future shall we challenge him, shall we scorn him ? Let's praise him, for he began the trickle that turned into a mighty flood.

Written in Post-Emancipation America, Jean Toomer's novel Cane represented a strong voice within the African-American community during an era where segregation was a way of life, and lynching was (in some areas of the country) an accepted means to an end. A conglomeration of images and metaphors, Cane is honestly a difficult text to read and should not be considered merely as an "easy" set of poems, prose, and stories. There are many intricate layers of meaning within the phrasing and style of writing. The title is a double meaning in itself. Upon hearing the title, one may think that it refers to the biblical tale of Cain and Abel. This is an important aspect since some religious Christian followers interpreted the "mark" of Cain as blackness, therefore using religion as propaganda for pro-slavery agendas. In addition, readers who are more conscious minded to the dynamics of the early 1900's concerning race relations, and its history (specifically in the South) would find this text less confusing. Some sections, which stand out within the text, are "Becky", "Song of Son", and "Blood Red Harvest".

This is perhaps one of my favorite works of literature I've ever read. This piece of literature uses poetry and short stories to portray the vast experiences of Afican-Americans in America. This novel (of sorts) opens your eyes and does so subtly and beautifully through various characters and the experiences they go through or fight against. Although written over fify years ago, Toomer's work relates well to the problems/concerns of race in America today. I feel this should be a required work in studying Modern American Literature and the African-American Experience. If there is a firm "canon" ever established, this should be included.

Toomer was neither self-identified himself as African American nor as European American but sought to transend all racial existence.

Readers who call Jean Toomer "black" or "African American" are totally in error. He rejected that racist "one drop" classification and deserves praise and admiration for doing so. Toomer's parents and grandparents were not "black middle class" but looked whiter than many Americans who call themselves "white."

Don't get the wrong idea. This book IS an entertaining read, but that is about it. There are many books in the "Gurdjieff field." Several are vitally important and many are useful to varying degrees, but there are quite a few that are a mere litany of second hand accounts, innuendo and gossup. Such is The Harmonious Circle.

There are a few authors that do the subject justice: De Hartmann, Anderson, Peters, however, James Webb is NOT one of them. Other books are first hand accounts and though subjective too, reading of the difficulties that those students encountered, as well as the insights they experienced, can be useful to those seeking a path. On the other hand, this book is written by an author who is unfortunately not qualified to write about Gurdjieff (or his "followers"). This book is far from being "the best" (maybe the "best" of the worst).

Full of a few interesting stories and much conjecture, this is not a book for those looking at gaining a deeper understanding of the significance of Gurdjieff's ideas or an accurate picture of the man. However, water does indeed seek it's own level and for those wanting a good fix of the superficial, this book is for you - an easy read especially if you like reading rambling opinions. I'd be careful about buying this book as a gift. Try James Moore's Anatomy of a Myth, instead. I give The Harmonious Circle 2 stars because it might be of some use - like lining the cage of your American canary.

This book avoids the devoutly worshipful attitude of Moore, Patterson, Bennett and thier moon-mad ilk, and likewise doesn't fall into the pit occupied by the kinds of ignorant dismissals and outright misrepresentations of fact found in so many other books, like those fairly recent things written by some well-known Brits--a psychologist, a lit professor and a famous occult writer. This is a complete presentation of the lives of G. and O., drawing the only conclusion possible: G's ideas are a brilliant but derivative hash made out of a random assortment of old occult documents and a little bit of hearsay, and G. himself just yet another trickster guru--if we give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's that much. But the book says all this with a remarkable grace, depth and style; this man knows what he is talking about and knows how to say it. Rare in this genre.

Readers who call Jean Toomer "black" or "African American" are totally in error. He rejected that racist "one drop" classification and deserves praise and admiration for doing so. Toomer's parents and grandparents were not "black middle class" but looked whiter than many Americans who call themselves "white."

Nellie McKay's study of Jean Toomer is a careful and contexturalized assessment of Toomer and his writings. She resists the tendency in contemporary racial politics to applaud uncritically Toomer's assertions that he was not African American. As is quite obvious to anyone who has studied the 1920s in America, how one looked, as in skin color, was not the only factor that defined one's race; race was imposed brutally by a white institutional system using a variety of criteria; and it was also chosen by African Americans as a protest against the notion that the default American identity was European American. Toomer came from a long line of African Americans who made the political decision to define themselves as Negro despite their mixed-race heritage, in part as solidarity with those millions of darker skinned African Americans who could not "pass" into European-Americanness. Toomer broke with that tradition when he declared he was not Negro, a declaration made, interestingly, only after he had won fame for writing a book, Cane, that most, including his publishers, understood as a book by a Negro. Indeed, McKay's study was the first to interpret Cane as not necessarily a search for racial identity. This book deserves to be read as a needed antidote to the recent canonization of Toomer as a ideologist of post-blackness.

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

Readers who call Jean Toomer "black" or "African American" are totally in error. He rejected that racist "one drop" classification and deserves praise and admiration for doing so. Toomer's parents and grandparents were not "black middle class" but looked whiter than many Americans who call themselves "white."