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Title: Idiots in Paris: Diaries of J.G. Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett, 1949 by Elizabeth Bennett ISBN: 0-87728-724-4 Publisher: Weiser Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful book, with information rarely available elsewhere
Comment: Wonderful book, with information rarely available elsewhere.

I see it as an honour, be be able to write this review today, on J.G. Bennett's birthday, June 8.th.

This book is a collection of accounts written by J. G. Bennett and his wife Elizabeth during the three months preceeding Gurdjieff's death in 1949. It is detailed report of what was really happening during that time, a very good recollection of journeys vividly structured and reported.

In Elizabeth notes you find, that the memories of the dinners and lunches rituals, at Rue des Colonels Renard in Paris, with the 'toast of the idiots', are meticulously recorded and clarifying.

One very impressive description made by Elizabeth is her personal experience of Mr. Gurdjieff's death:

"We arrive at the chapel a little before six. I had not meant or wished to see his body;...
I was overwhelmed by the force that came from him. One could not be near his body without feeling unmistakably his power. He looked magnificent; composed, content, intentional, for want of a better word. Not simply a body placed by someone else. He was undisguised, nothing was concealed from us. Everything belonging to him, his inner and outer life and all the circumstances and results of it, were there to be seen, if one could see. What force there was in him then! I have never seen anything in any way like it." Idiots in Paris / pag.104- about Mr. Gurdjieffs death.

Rating: 5
Summary: necessary for students of the life of Gurdjieff
Comment: This one tells us much about Gurdjieff, and by the way, much about the kind of student he attracted, people like Bennett--who might be one of the most gullible men who ever lived (he was later duped out of his estate by some other even more phony guru, as documented in Madam Blavatsky's Baboon). For all his brilliance, even in old age G. was very crafty, manipulative and superstitious, as revealed here (he thought the caves at Lascaux were painted by Atlanteans!). Also, the quality of the Bennetts' writing really sets this apart from some other books in the genre; it is compulsively readable.