Beelzebub's Tales:Second Pass.

[Johnno]

I'm reading this book aloud as suggested by Gurdjieff suggests in his preface. I'm try to do around 12 pages a day.

Anyone done the same?

What I'm finding is that I'm really having to pronounce some of the "difficult words" and absorbing a lot of what would usually be missed speed reading. Seems to be effective.

 

[Azur]

I'm reading this book aloud as suggested by Gurdjieff suggests in his preface. I'm try to do around 12 pages a day.

Anyone done the same?

What I'm finding is that I'm really having to pronounce some of the "difficult words" and absorbing a lot of what would usually be missed speed reading. Seems to be effective.

I haven't experienced that one yet. But the mechanism mentioned was explicitly used in a book called 'Riddley Walker', by Russell Hoban. Not only that, but there's quite a bit of green language that emerges (and emerges, and emerges, often on the same passage). The book, albeit set in an post industrial setting, is an allegory for searching in any age or setting. It is about SEEing.

Recommended. Not for it's plot line, but for what YOU can see and corroborate to your current situation (and the attendant "environment"). It is almost completely without Time (line?) as a factor, with the possible exception of where you try to make it fit.

Mind you, once you get adept at "reading" it, you may have to remind yourself NOT to skip, or think you know what is being said (the intent of G and Hoban, here.)

Enjoy.

 

[Anders]

Hi Johnno,
I remember reading that Gurdjieff suggested reading his books three times and that he suggested reading it to each other and then swapping over. This is probably what you are referring to.
Along that vein of thoughts, I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to have some of Laura's books in mp3 format, so that people can listen to it to work etc over and over. The same could also be done with Gurdjieff and Mouravieff and other important books. It would activate our listening ability.

I'm reading this book aloud as suggested by Gurdjieff suggests in his preface. I'm try to do around 12 pages a day.

Anyone done the same?

What I'm finding is that I'm really having to pronounce some of the "difficult words" and absorbing a lot of what would usually be missed speed reading. Seems to be effective.

 

[Craig]

I remember reading that Gurdjieff suggested reading his books three times and that he suggested reading it to each other and then swapping over. This is probably what you are referring to.

Well I don't think he mentioned that in Beelzebub about swapping... maybe at the time he was alive, among students, in one of his talks. Who are you going to swap it over with anyway? The instructions are:

I find it necessary on the first page of this book, now ready for publication, to give the following advice "Read each of my written expositions thrice. First - at least as you have already become mechanized to read all your contemporary books and newspapers, Second - as if you were reading aloud to another person, And only third - try to fathom the gist of my writings. Only then will you be able to count upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings. And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your understanding you will obtain the specific benefit for yourself which I anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.

Obviously, it might not be possible to actually read it aloud - considering other people - and I notice he says "as if". Well, does anyone think that might include just verbalising it in the mind and imagining there was somebody present?

Along that vein of thoughts, I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to have some of Laura's books in mp3 format, so that people can listen to it to work etc over and over. The same could also be done with Gurdjieff and Mouravieff and other important books. It would activate our listening ability.

I believe there is an audio version of Beelzebub's Tales available somewhere on the internet... yep, here.

 

[primechild]

Second Reading - I'm thinking of just reading it out loud to the air (words in actual voice have a different feeling/power than just said in my mind)

I'm only on first reading (the regular way, Its hard for me not to stop and try to think of what he is trying to say, some of it is really funny, and I do try pronounce some of the words [exactly as they are spelled, as in reading it in spanish] :( only in chapter with "The Terror of the Situation" lol terror of the situation

Primechild
________________________________
There is no way in which the much-needed changes to the world and to humanity will be achieved by trying to improve either. Those who try to do so are merely using their struggle to improve the world as a way of avoiding improving themselves. They are playing the usual deplorable game of demanding of others what one is too lazy to carry out oneself. Yet such illusory succes as they achieve does not absolve them of having betrayed not only the world, but themselves. -Jean Gebser

 

[Johnno]

Reading it aloud actually makes you read it with expression so I suppose the feeling centre is involved. Although I am reading it softly!

The first pass is the *usual* mechanical way one reads, the second involves the feeling centre the third pass he emphasises thinking about it. One seems to have each centre reading it in this fashion.

 

[MaskedAvatar]

Q. Who are you going to swap it over with anyway?

A. I have found over 3 years or so that oral reading sessions of 30-40 minutes, with intent and with a special focus on the invented language, make for good foreplay.

 

[Gimpy]

Is everything a joke to you?

Just curious

Gimpy

 

[Johnno]

OK, I have just finished the first book of three books within this volume- so that's 410 pages done , "reading aloud as if to another person".

My initial post was on the 13th of November and it's now the 19th of December. That's 36 days, so I've done around the required 11 pages a day. It has been a very good read as I have picked up a lot of subtleties I would have missed speed reading. The pronounciations are coming easier as time progresses.

I can pronounce the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash as if it were an English word and Trogoautoegocrat etc.

Being Partkdolg duty I'm still having problems getting my mouth around!

 

[thorbiorn]

Well, what I have tried is to write all the strange words down from every page of the whole book. It became a lot, my idea was to get some familiarity with the words,s o they would not annoy me when reading. Some of the words are mixes of several languages it seems. So far I have not read all three books, but decided to take it step by step, so I read the first book three times, taking some notes on the way so I can go back and cross reference if I like. I must say I have enjoyed doing it this way.

 

[CarpeDiem]

I can pronounce the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash as if it were an English word and Trogoautoegocrat etc.
Being Partkdolg duty I'm still having problems getting my mouth around!

Well, what I have tried is to write all the strange words down from every page of the whole book. It became a lot, my idea was to get some familiarity with the words,s o they would not annoy me when reading. Some of the words are mixes of several languages it seems.

i'm around the middle of the book (first pass). For some reason i can't make more than 5-10 pages a day, often even less! and then after just some time i make interwals so i'm slower than a tortouse with the Tales! Those strange unfamiliar words with which G uncessantly bombards my thinking process send me nuts every time i see one of them. i have so strong desire to send the book flowing against the wall, so if i did that every time i thought about it, the book would have been thorn into pieces a time ago.
Like Thorbiorn, i have a separate notebook where i write down these weird G words. I tried to brake them down as anagrams - didn't work;
these words don't give me associations neither in russian, nor in italian, english .... maybe they are mastermixes of sillables in several different languages, as Thorbiorn suggested above. I can't get the meaning from Russian words, that's for sure

 

[thorbiorn]

these words don't give me associations neither in russian, nor in italian, english .... maybe they are mastermixes of sillables in several different languages, as Thorbiorn suggested above. I can't get the meaning from Russian words, that's for sure

Example:
In your post you quote Johnno, who mentions the word being-partkdolg-duty, in which being, part, and duty are all English words. One can contemplate whether 'part' concerns 'being' or 'duty' or both, and if 'part' refers to something that is less than the whole or if 'part' has to do with the act of seperating.

The strange word in the compound 'being-partkdolg-duty' is 'kdolg'. Here I see the main word as 'dolg', which associates with the Russian word that is transliterated as the same and means 'a duty' or 'a debt'. There is also the word 'dolgij' which means 'long'. 'K' in 'partkdolg' could refer to the Russian preposition that denotes 'to, towards, in the direction of, for, of, to' depending on the context.

This compound therefore does make some kind of meaning apart from being described as "conscious labors and intentional sufferings" (see page 485); and "being-part" being explained on page 802 (Penguin Compass)

This should not be taken to mean, that I believe all the odd words make sense, however I also do not know all the 18 languages that Gurdjieff claimed to be familiar with.

I think some of the reasons, why he uses these words are explained in the introduction to the book, where he says, that the languages available to him for expression do not have the richness that allow him to say, what he wishes. He also makes a note of the fact that we each perceive a word differently, depending on what associations we have created around it as we learned it and began to use it. And of course he is interested to insure that the reader is not reading in auto-mode, he desires active thinking.

As for the reaction of CarpeDiem I think Gurdjieff expected that. That is why he tells the story of the Kurd that bought and ate the red chilli. And if you have read well the story of Karapet of Tiflis, who at the end of his life was in charge of the steam whistle at Tiflis railway station, you will have one more clue as to why he calls the speaker Beelzebub.

What however is curious to all this, is that in the third book of the trilogy, Life is Real Only Then, When 'I Am' Gurdjieff for himself unknow reasons on one occasion used the whole of the kitchens chilly supply and since no other food was available, they all had to eat it.

What this may tell us apart from it being ironic, is anybody's guess. But, I am thinking that not only are Beelzebub's Tales difficult to read, they were also difficult to write and 'to live'. Just how much work went into these tales you will see from some remarks in his last book.

thorbiorn

 

[j0da]

I'm reading it for the first time, and can't go through more than fifteen pages in a row without becoming drowsy. However, every once in a while I stumble over such a refreshing remark or joke that it really helps in such crisis. Grammar is killing me, but killing me softly. And.. I won't ever look at apes they way I did before :D

 

[radish]

I think one reason for the prompting to read this book aloud could be in order to expose the reader to the effect of being knocked off their feet, and slowing them down, to focus the attention. It almost seems like G went out of his way to avoid standard sentence structure. Of course I'm reading it in English and who knows what is lost in translation. But in the introduction, G elaborately prepares the reader for his "unorthodox" writing style, making no apology for it.

When I came across the word "Sacred Aieioiuoa" I silently howled with laughter. This spellinlg defies any attempt to pronounce it aloud. (I'm just up to page 186.)

 

[Cyre2067]

What i did on my first pass was to read a chapter a night, juxataposing it with something else during the day, whether it be High Strangeness, Dolan's UFO book, or some piece of fiction for a relax. Also just finished Meetings w/ Remarkable Men, which pretty much answered a lot of my questions 'about G's life'. It also made me very interested in reading Life is only Real b/c of the convo's he alludes to including there.

But it took me about 2-3 months reading nightly, just little bits.