G.I. Gurdjieff: The War Against Sleep

Anyone who has ever tried to work out what exactly Gurdjieff was trying to say, by reading the Beelzebub books, or Meetings with Remarkable Men, will appreciate the need for some assistance. Wilson handles the problem well, with a mix of historical context and interpritation. Certainly, for me, he has put his finger on the heart of the matter, the war against sleep. It is easy to be dismissive of Gurdjieff, in part because of a lamentable and mostly inaccurate identification of the man with scoundrals like Crowley (on the one hand) and the Theosophists (on the other). Wilson manages to bring out the human in the philosopher (much as Francis Wheen has more recently done for Karl Marx). One comes away with the impression of Gurdjieff as trustworthy, humourous, and having tremendous inner strengh and self-discipline ... all of which sounds a good combination. The book's focus on the motif of "Life is real only when I am" is something that has stayed with me ever since first my reading a decade or more ago. After having read more widely, I cannot think of a better Gurdjieff primer than this book.