ESSENTIALS
Jean Toomer | Author
Rudolph Byrd | Editor
Charles Johnson | Preface
$14.95NOW $7.50 hardcover
- $9.95 paperback | July 2003
- 128 pages with 2 photographs
- 1-58818-041-7 paperback | 1-892514-25-7 hardcover
- Philosophy | African American
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Available in paperback for the first time, a classic that finally places Jean Toomer in the company of Emerson, Gilbran, Rumi, and Thoreau.
“Essentials is essential reading.”—Henry Louis Gates Jr.
the book
Essentials is the perfect book of daily meditations for both the soul and the intellect, full of affirmation and wisdom for the times in which we live. This edition of Essentials is the first trade edition of the book. Presented in a compact format, it is full of insight as relevant to today's confusing and contradictory lives as when it was first written.
Privately published by Jean Toomer in 1931, Essentials is a timely, timeless collection of aphorisms by the acclaimed author of Cane, one of the most important books of the 20th century. Toomer reflects on topics ranging from the spiritual dangers of industrial society to the failures of modern religious and educational institutions. At the time he produced these maxims, Toomer was engrossed in study with Russian mystic and psychologist G.I. Gurdjieff, who devised a complex blending of Eastern religion and modern psychology. In his accompanying biographical essay, Rudolph Byrd provides background on Toomer's life and the philosophical assumptions that inform his writing, thus providing important context both for those familiar with Toomer and those new to his work. Essentials explores many of the same themes that emerge in Cane: the modern search for wholeness, connection, and resolution in an age of fragmentation, alienation, and exploitation.
the editor
Jean Toomer was born in Washington, DC and, after teaching in public schools in Sparta, GA, he became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, publishing his groundbreaking experimental book Cane in 1923. He lived in Chicago, where he studies with Gurdjieff, and later in Pennsylvania while working with the American Society of Friends and the Quaker Church.
Rudolph Byrd is the director of African American studies at Emory University in Atlanta and is the author or editor of several books including Jean Toomer's Years with Gurdjieff.
Charles R. Johnson teaches at the University of Washington and is and author of Middle Passage for which he won the National Book Award.
the praise
"A lost gem from one of the seminal figures of the Harlem Renaissance."—Bill Ott, Booklist
"Thoughtful, intelligent musings providing insight on life's tribulations and rewards."—Bill Ott, Booklist
"Can a black writer be too profound, too visionary, and too expansive for a general American readership? I would wager that this question about authors and audiences nagged poet-philosopher Jean Toomer his entire life."—Charles Johnson, author of Middle Passage
"Essentials embodies Toomer's attempt to grapple with the deepest mysteries of the human experience long lost to readers...Essentials is essential reading."—Henry Louis Gates Jr.
"An important book that belongs with collections of spiritual/pshycological/aesthetic aphorisms like Pascal's Pensees and Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil."—Diann Blakely, Nashville Scene
Selected "essentials"
"We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them."
"He who feels ashamed of ignorance can attain freedom."
"A symbol is as useful to the spirit as a tool is to the hand"
"The aim is not to measure effort but to make it."
"Shame of weakness implies the presence of strength."
"Meet life's terms but never accept them."
"Social ills are caused by man's wish to have results greater than his efforts."
"We are tired of not being intense."
"Everyone secretly expects and looks forward to the coming of some great event which will gloriously upset him."
"Depression is caused when we pass from a greater to a lesser state."
"There is no love, no faith, no trust, but what the world calls forth to violate."
"To understand a new idea, break an old habit."