Strange Life of Ivan Osokin P. D. Ouspensky ISBN: 1584200057 Book (Paperback) Lindisfarne Books $14.95 5 ½ x 8 ½ inches 192 pages May 2002

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“A brilliant fantasy ... written to illustrate the theme that we do not live life but that life lives us.” — Manchester Guardian “Some books are little-known, yet have a vast influence. Ouspensky’s seminal work has set off shivers of recognition that have res­onated for a century--even to the point of inspiring the Hollywood film ‘Ground Hog Day’. It’s unsettling, and mysterious, as literature probing the secrets of reality itself should be.” — John Shirley, author of Demons and Darkness Divided “Through confronting the deepest mysteries of time, Ouspensky's novel offers a profoundly contemporary and inspired vision of our common alienation from ourselves and of the one possibility of returning to what we are meant to be.” — Jacob Needleman, author of The American Soul “If I had my life to live over again” … Well, what would you do? Here is the story of Ivan Osokin, a young man who has squandered every chance life has given him. A failure at school, ruined financially, and rejected by the woman he loves, he finds himself at a dead end. He wishes to live his life over again so he can avoid all his mistakes. Then he meets a magician who gives him that chance. Strange Life of Ivan Osokin is a gripping, cinematic story by the great Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspensky. In his classic novel, set in the last years of Tsarist Russia, Ouspensky explores imaginatively one of the chief themes in his philosophical work: the idea of “eternal recurrence.” This is the fascinating idea, which also engaged Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, that we live our lives over and over again in a kind of endlessly repeating film, and that nothing will change in this ceaseless whirligig, unless we ourselves change-deeply and fundamentally. Peter D. Ouspensky (1878-1947) was one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century. Mystic, philosopher, mathematician, and writer, he was one of the first in the modern era to explore questions of higher consciousness and personal transformation. Strange Life of Ivan Osokin is Ouspensky’s only novel. Ouspensky’s other works include Tertium Organum, A New Model of the Universe, and In Search of the Miraculous.       See all titles by this author

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