Strange Life of Ivan Osokin: A Novel (Library of Russian Philosophy) - Softcover

P. D. Ouspensky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1584200057 ISBN 13: 9781584200055

Publisher: Lindisfarne Books, 2004

Synopsis

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, while not the original inspiration for our film Groundhog Day, was one of those confirming cos­mic affirmations that we had indeed tapped into one of the great universal problems of being. In a novel that itself reads like a very entertaining high-concept film, Ouspensky suggests the anti­dote to the existential dilemma at the core of Groundhog Day: that trapped as we are on the karmic wheel of cause and effect, our only means of escape is to assume responsibility for our own destiny and find the personal meaning that imparts a purposeful vitality to life and frees us from the limitations of our contempt."-Harold Ramis, filmmaker

About this title

Review:

'A brilliant fantasy.' -- The Guardian 'The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin is an early work. Originally a novel but later rechristened "Cinemadrama" in the early days of films, Ouspensky himself set considerable store by it, perhaps because it was the only purely imaginative work by a mind that was rigorously honest in facing up to the usual abuses of human imagination.' -- Gurdjieff International Review '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.' -- Consciousness Now (www.triadbooks.com)

Synopsis:

"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. A gripping, cinematic story exploring 'eternal recurrence' -- the idea that we live our lives over and over again, and that nothing will ever change unless we ourselves change.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lindisfarne Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1584200057
• ISBN 13: 9781584200055
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 188