Rating: 
Summary: The Hucklebery Finn of Esoterica?
Review: "Don't panic!" This book is nothing at all like Finnegans Wake. Alchemical writings take that prize, in which myriad epithets and terms are confusingly applied to the same procedures and subjects. This humorous book IS readable, and you know what you've read at the end of it. The plot is clear, wordplay minimal.Best suited to those familiar with basic ideas of the Gurdjieff work, Beelzebub's tales are related over several days' travel through space aboard a starship wandering down the Mississippi, conveying basic Gurdjieffian cosmology. Beelzebub is no demon, rather a highly-evolved entity who took issue with "certain unforeseeingnesses of certain Sacred Cosmic Individuals". Ahem. The relentless dependent clause motif turns the book into a rather engaging and humorous mnemonic enterprise which certainly sharpens the memory and concentration, a prime goal of all students of the arcane. Its style is infectious; you may find yourself thinking and speaking in elaborate dependent clauses for some time. Gurdjieff's critique of "the diminution of modern thinking" being that thoughts are insufficiently long... HOPING THAT YOU THE READER HAVE PROFITED FROM THIS REVIEW, PROFIT BEING AS IT WERE A PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF THAT DIVINE PRINCIPLE REFERRED TO BY THE THREE-BRAINED TERRESTRIAL AUTHOR JAMES JOYCE AS "THE C.O.D. PROBLEM", NAMELY, THAT "AS A MAN SOWETH, SO SHALL HE ALSO REAP", AND ARCH-SUBTLY REFERRED TO BY THE INCOMPARABLE MULLAH NASSER EDIN BY THE EXPRESSION "EVERY STICK HAS TWO ENDS", I WISH YOU CONTINUED SUCCESS IN ALL GOOD THINGS, AND PARTICULARLY IN THE READING OF BEELZEBUB'S TALES TO HIS GRANDSON, WHICH WORK....
Rating:
Summary: The Hucklebery Finn of Esoterica?
Review: "Don't panic!" This book is nothing at all like Finnegans Wake. Alchemical writings take that prize, in which myriad epithets and terms are confusingly applied to the same procedures and subjects. This humorous book IS readable, and you know what you've read at the end of it. The plot is clear, wordplay minimal. Best suited to those familiar with basic ideas of the Gurdjieff work, Beelzebub's tales are related over several days' travel through space aboard a starship wandering down the Mississippi, conveying basic Gurdjieffian cosmology. Beelzebub is no demon, rather a highly-evolved entity who took issue with "certain unforeseeingnesses of certain Sacred Cosmic Individuals". Ahem. The relentless dependent clause motif turns the book into a rather engaging and humorous mnemonic enterprise which certainly sharpens the memory and concentration, a prime goal of all students of the arcane. Its style is infectious; you may find yourself thinking and speaking in elaborate dependent clauses for some time. Gurdjieff's critique of "the diminution of modern thinking" being that thoughts are insufficiently long... HOPING THAT YOU THE READER HAVE PROFITED FROM THIS REVIEW, PROFIT BEING AS IT WERE A PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF THAT DIVINE PRINCIPLE REFERRED TO BY THE THREE-BRAINED TERRESTRIAL AUTHOR JAMES JOYCE AS "THE C.O.D. PROBLEM", NAMELY, THAT "AS A MAN SOWETH, SO SHALL HE ALSO REAP", AND ARCH-SUBTLY REFERRED TO BY THE INCOMPARABLE MULLAH NASSER EDIN BY THE EXPRESSION "EVERY STICK HAS TWO ENDS", I WISH YOU CONTINUED SUCCESS IN ALL GOOD THINGS, AND PARTICULARLY IN THE READING OF BEELZEBUB'S TALES TO HIS GRANDSON, WHICH WORK....
Rating: 
Summary: I read it twenty years ago and it is with me still ...
Review: ... in fact it remains the most interesting book I have ever read, and I have read many books across a wide range of topics and styles. The author is also a most interesting work. I would recommend this collection (mine was a three volume set) to everyone, but that would be ludicrous since it is not meant for everyone ... just anyone who is truly interested. Interested in what? Now that is a question! All I can say is that the tales Beelzebub relates to his grandson (Hussein, I believe it was) often anticipate or even describe what are eventually becoming scientific discovery and I suspect the trend to continue. Even if read for pure entertainment and mind expansion the book is worthy; yes even for some wonderful humor. Yet, it is difficult material which is made all the more so by the author's penchant for what appears to be deliberate 'covering up of the trail'. I expect to reread the book myself soon. Terms and concepts such as the great common trogoautoegocrat, the organ kundabuffer, gravitational space travel, stopinders, tescoanos, perturbations, (i vouch not for my recalled spelling) please me to this day! If it is false then it is at the very least sublimely creative. Meetings with Remarkable Men could serve as a good intro to the author, as well as numerous other works.
Rating:
Summary: Better than The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Review: After several false starts, I managed to read this amazingly funny and incredibly difficult work several years ago. It is not an easy read by any means. However, it is well worth it. It is astoundingly funny in a way that cuts deep, all the way to the core. For some reason the only parallels which came to mind was Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. However, on just about every level except ease of read, Beelzebub's Tales is markedly superior. This is an immortal classic and if you are a fan of immortal classics you cannot afford not to read this. 'nuff said!
Rating:
Summary: It's a Book
Review: Alternately funny, wise, incomprehensible, historic, and just plain barmy. Holy Heptaparaparshinokh, Batman, those pesky three-brained beings are at it again.
Rating:
Summary: Hrhaharhtzaha Frianktzanarali Kolhidshissi
Review: Altough this book is interesting, Gurdjieff uses some writing-style cryptography to render it very difficult (and sometimes unpleasant) to read. This goes from the first chapter's page-long sentences containing 12 to 15 comas to the rest of the book's unpronounceable page-wide words. What some others writers give out clearly in a few lines of clear text, he encrypt in 50 pages :( anyway, if you purchase this book, be ready to have a hard time reading it...
Rating:
Summary: The Most Important Book of the 20th Century
Review: Are you sure you are ready for this? Have you not noticed that it was by a peculiar sequence of events that has led you to this book, as if you were guided by some 6th circuit synchronicity (to be scientific). . . to this book?
Do not be alarmed. It is the nature of this work, and indeed, much of Gurdjieff's work that what is had on the cheap can never feed great actions.
This book is difficult. But it contains great wisdom for our age. The entire shebang is analyzed and discarded, and we are left to pick up the pieces. Only we are granted keys to understanding how we can begin to reconstruct a living civilization out of the corpse of the one that has been long dying, and long in need of a serious transfusion.
Gurdjieff is the catalyst of such a transfusion. And Beelezebub's Tales is his most important contribution thereto.
In his "Jail Notes", Dr. Timothy Leary says that he believed "Beelezebub's Tales to his Grandson" was the most important book of the 20th Century.
He may have a point there!
Dave Beckwith
Founder/President
Charlotte Internet Society
Rating:
Summary: A book you can live with
Review: At first this book can be perplexing, but something rings true. As your life transpires so does the understanding of this book. After 33 years and 3 readings more and more things become clear. I realized the author was not only addressing who I was but also who I would be. I treasure it and keep it among my most highly thought of books. I return to it again and again and always see something I had not seen before.
Rating:
Summary: An acquired taste
Review: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: I don't get it
Review: Everyone talks about how great Gurdjieff is, but I can't read this book without feeling like a practical joke has been played on me. First, it's long. Second, the setting and descriptions are ludicrous. Basically, I feel like Gurdjieff is either not telling me what he really knows, or he just has nothing to say. If you want to read a book on the mysteries, by a copy of the Kybalion at a half priced book store. At least I got it from the library.
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