Customer Reviews

My Ishmael

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1 star:		(9)

 

 

Daniel Quinn has finally found the proper target with his "concurrent sequel" to his rightfully popular "Ishmael." Ishmael, a mountain gorilla, enters into telepathic dialogues with his students. In this book, Ishmael's student is a twelve year old girl. The adult mindsets and idealism Ishmael dealt with in the previous book are replaced by a cynical, street-wise young adult. Julie, who is as close to an orphan as you can get and still have a resident parent, is inspired by the newspaper advert: "Teacher seeking pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world." Although she hasn't a clue how to accomplish that desire, she feels compelled to give it a go.

If you've read "Ishmael," don't assume this book is redundant. Ishmael himself is reluctant to teach one so young. After all, what could a 12-year-old accomplish? Any reader of this volume might entertain the same doubts, but Quinn's adept talent has Ishmael query Julie on what she believes and why. He's patient [unlike most adults with children] and his "teaching" is, in reality a means to make Julie examine her beliefs. Ishmael is able couch his questions in terms Julie can understand. Step by step, Ishmael prods Julie into greater awareness of that world she desires to save. In the beginning, of course, she doesn't even know what's wrong with the world. Her vague disquiet is given focus as Ishmael's questions prod her thinking.

Julie becomes aware that the basic tactic of civilization is to "lock up the food." From this situation everything else that circumscribes our lives follows. Working for wages, a hierarchical society, religion and other trappings of "culture" that bind our existence. Ishmael shows what an innovation in human experience this tactic is, and how recently imposed. Locking up the food and creating a structured society, according to Ishmael, has led to an immensely powerful Mother Culture. Mother Culture lays down and enforces the rules of society. She's created a prison, which will require re-thinking about culture in order for us, the prisoners, to escape.

Not all societies, however, subscribe to these rules. Mother Culture has created the Taker society, while those remaining outside her domain, Ishmael dubs the Leavers. The division is nearly absolute, with the Takers striving to take all, while the Leavers have survived by leaving what they don't need. Quinn assures us that the separation is neither inevitable nor absolute. But changes in outlook are necessary if the Takers are not to destroy the planet.

Quinn's excellent style keeps a "message" book from becoming a "preaching" book. That's no small accomplishment, given the immensity of the task. He reassures us that he understands the Taker society will not revert to a pure Leaver culture. In order to survive, however, it will be necessary for the Takers to "talk to their neighbours." Not just the folks next door, but all the rest of life. This is not a reversion to a simpler life, but an expansion of knowledge and understanding. It's hardly a drastic step, but it hasn't been taken. My Ishmael encourages you to take that first step. A better world is certain to follow, since that first step must inevitably lead to others. Buy this book for your children or even your neighbour's children. It may be too late for older folks to learn the lessons, but it's their world starting tomorrow.

This is the "official" sequel to Ishmael. Basically, it is Ishmael revisited by a twelve-year-old girl. Although the first fifty pages of the book will bore you to tears if you have read the first novel, it deals with different issues and is definitely worth reading. Two main problems are covered in this volume. First, Quinn asks a very pertinent question: Why do we have to work hard eight hours a day, five days a week? Has it always been that way? The answer is a sounding "NO!" Many people are not satisfied with their life because of a job they don't really like. Just ask people you know if they would stop working if they won one million dollars. I'm sure most of them will say "yes, of course, my job is not fulfilling, I'd rather do something else!" But, still,they go to work every day just because they don't have the choice: no job means no money, which means no food. However, Quinn points out that it was not like that before food was put "under lock and key." That is, in ancestral cultures, you just had to go grab the food you needed where you knew you could find it. At one point in our culture, however, we produced so much food with agriculture that we needed to store it, thus leading to a new class of people: those who did not work in the field anymore as they had to manage the way food was stored. These people found that life was easier that way, and they soon realized that as long as they were in control of the food distribution, they could take it easy by letting the others work hard. And to protect this new "gold mine" they hired guards, who thus also had the priviledge not to work hard as long as they kept the food away from those who worked for it. And this is what led us to the way things are now: a large class of working people who spend many hours a day in an environment they despise, and a small class of priviledge people who have a much eaiser and enjoyable life. The second point of the book is the one of education. Have you ever wondered why you spent so many years of you life in school? Do you ever use just a tenth of what you've learned? Did not it bore you to death to go over the same things, over and over again? What our cultural myths tell us is that this is necessary in a competitive society like ours to learn about many things, and that repeating the materials is necessary for students to master everything, as they don't seem to get it the first go around. Quinn first explains why our education really takes that long, and then claims that if students cannot learn the materials properly it is because it is not meaningful to them. In ancestral cultures there is no formal education, but it is fair to say that tribal children know much more about life than "civilized" ones. Indeed, the education of the former kids is made in context, just by observing what adults do. However, in our cultures we are totally separated from the real world and thus we do not make the necessary connections to really master anything. Meaningfulness of what we learn is the essential thing we are missing; let's change this!

Daniel Quinn's My Ishmael is the third installment in his "Save the Earth" trilogy (Ishmael, The Story of B, and finally, My Ishmael). In this book, Ishmael, the telepathic gorilla, attempts to seal up some of his many loose ends found in Quinn's previous two installments by relaying his knowledge to a 12 year-old girl. I liked the first two books enough to keep on reading, however, Quinn's style takes a grain of salt to take it all in.

The entire concept of the Quinn's books are to convey to the reader that we "civilized" humans have developed, and entrenched ourselves, in a system of living that is doomed to fail. It's not an anti-capitalism, pro-socialist treatise per se, however, most of the tenets of capitalism could be found flawed in Quinn's assessment. Basically, Ishmael (Quinn) has determined that native peoples have survived for hundreds of thousands of years longer than "civilized" peoples because: a) tribal cultures don't lock up their food so that you have to buy it (this locking up of food results in poverty, war, and dissent, according to Quinn); b) hunter/gather societies (with some agriculture) have been able to sustain their likelihood without disrupting family, wealth (in tribal terms), prosperity, and the environment.

Contrary to this, are the tenets of our "civilized" society. They lock up food (a substance that should be free to all humans just like air or water) and place it in the power of the wealthy who then redistribute it to those who can pay for it. This basic concept (capitalism, essentially) spawns a vast array of problems: poverty for those that can't afford to pay for the simple necessities of life (no tribal system would allow any of its members to go hungry, simply because that would mean the degradation of the tribe); family degradation, war over who owns what, and crime in general because basic necessities are no longer open for the taking. Also, this "civilized" system can only grow and live if it constantly consumes (with no regard to replacing that which it consumes). So, on this note, Quinn is quite right; we cannot continually consume. There is simply not enough resources to sustain our population (and what do we do when we run out of resources? Traditionally, we destroy or displace other populations to gain their resources).

So, we're all supposed to revert to some grand-scale tribal system (also known as socialism to some)? The 12 year-old girl asks exactly this. Ishmael (Quinn) makes a strong point here that he has never suggested such a thing. He is merely pointing out the flaws, and suggesting a starting point to fixing the problem. I can buy that on some levels, but mostly, he is suggesting that tribal systems are better than our current system, which is true on many levels, but a tribal system of living would be impossible with over 6 billion people on the planet (which, to Quinn's defense, he poignantly acknowledges).

Overall, it's a good read even if it leaves the reader with a million more questions (which I supposes is the whole point). Quinn leads the reader to believe in each of these books that his message is complete when in fact, it is far from it. He leads one to believe that he's done his job as a "Save the world" teacher when in fact he leads much to be desired. However, with that said, Quinn's book is definitely worth reading (start with the first book Ishmael). Even his conclusions are naive, they raise some vital questions about where our culture is heading. With all his flaws, Quinn is a must, if only to get you thinking in a completely different direction: can we continue to consume without replenishment, and while capitalism has proven extremely fruitful, is there a better form of capitalism that is more conducive to global prosperity on all levels?

Almost as thin on plot but deep in thought as ISHMAEL, this sequel to Quinn's award-winning 1992 novel delivers another series of telepathic, Socratic dialogues between a thousand-pound gorilla (Ishmael) and, this time, a twelve-year-old student (Julie Gerchak). Like the Ishmael's other pupils, Alan Lomax (the narrator of ISHMAEL), and Charles Atterly (the itinerant preacher in the 1996 STORY OF B), Julie is also motivated by "an earnest desire to save the world" (pp. 3; 8).

Quinn's three Ishmael novels are essays, really, disguised as fiction. And although it is not as strong, perhaps, as his other two novels, Quinn's sequel builds upon his provocative ideas about man's relationship to the world. His enlightened gorilla observes that we are prisoners of Mother Culture, who tells us through newscasters, school teachers, presidential candidates, talk shows, popular songs, church sermons and even our parents "that humans are innately flawed and utterly doomed to misery" (pp. 27; 95; 128). She discourages us from asking questions, and says "never disagree" (p. 132). We live on the verge of cultural collapse in a ten-thousand-year-old "Taker" society that encourages us to forget our misery through "festivals, revels, pageants, temple solemnities, pomp and circumstance, bread and circuses, the ever-present hope of attaining power, riches and luxury, games, drama, contests, sports, wars, crusades, political intrigue, knightly quests, world exploration, honors, titles, alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution, opera, theater, the arts, government, politics, careers, political advantage, mountain climbing, radio, television, movies, show business, video games, computers, the information superhighway, money, pornography, the conquest of space--something for everyone, surely, to make a life worth living" (p. 115). So we look to "religions, spiritual fads, gurus, prophets, cults, therapies, and mystical healings--without ever being satisfied" (p. 117). Education, Ishmael observes, only serves to regulate the flow of competitors into the job market and consumers into the Taker economy (pp. 136; 144), and our economic system only allows a "handful at the top to make out like bandits," while a lot of others "live at the bottom in the toilet" (p. 171).

Ultimately, Ishmael's revolutionary message is that there is no one right way for people to live (p. 217), and that if we want to save the world, we should ignore Mother Culture and listen to our own demands instead.

G. Merritt

As much as I hate to admit it, Daniel Quinn has not succeeded at his most recent attempt to "save the world" . In his efforts to write a compelling story, he focuses far too much attention to the details of the story itself and leaves many of his ideas without support. It's one thing to denounce organized education as we know it, however, to substantiate this claim by saying that " for thousands of years before schools people had been reading..." is simply preposterous. You don't need a degree in anthropology to know that until quite recently actually, most of the world was not literate. Perhaps the author meant to say that in tribal cultures reading was and is less NECESSARY ? Another example of an unsupported argument in the book is Quinn's use of contemporary gangs and cults as paradigms of functional tribal systems. While these groups meet some of the criteria for so- called tribal communities, the fact that these societies are overwhelmingly destructive to many of the individuals they serve makes them antithetical in nature to the possibility of an harmonious world. I loved Ishmael and The Story of B and found the ideas therein to be both challenging and intelligent. This sequel, however, is just not up to par.

A terrific companion book to "Ishmael." My only complaint is that it wasn't long enough, but I think that's probably the point: Daniel Quinn doesn't claim to have all the answers, and he expects each of us to do our part in furthering these ideas. Ishamel was the first Quinn book I read, and it rocked my world. I don't go a single day without thinking of Ishmael in some way, large or small. I believe that every educator in the "civilized" world should be required to read My Ishamel; if they don't get it the first time, then they should read it a second or third until they do understand.

For a related but different slant on the ideas of Quinn's books, check out Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan. She takes us on a walkabout with the "real people," an aboriginal tribe in Australia. Five stars for that one too.

I wasn't going to type a review of this book, but something needs to be said. This is a sequel to Ishmael, not only because it was written after, but because it builds from ideas in the previous novel. My Ishmael begins with a basic review of principles the book is based on. It then proceeds into new territory with a new character who is more responsive to Ismael and reacts in a different way than previous characters. This is the book that assured me that Quinn wasn't suggesting a return to a 'primitive' lifestyle. But again, the focus of any Daniel Quinn book is to provoke you do develop new ideas of your own. It is not a 'how to' book, nor is it plot centered. Read this book with an open mind, and you might be suprised what it leaves you with.

The ideas Daniel Quinn restates in My Ishmael once again color the way all of "civilization" and it's antics can be viewed. We are not the superior race we dream we are. The craving to slow down is an ancient drive to return to living within the "leaver" laws. But it is hard to substaniate Quinn's comments on ancient societies unless you have studied them extensively (there is a lot of speculation but little "fact" available.) Quinn's ideas are unique, profound and well stated in Ishmael's sequel but they could use some fleshing out. His characters are cute but give no real challenge to his philosophies. I liked the book because I like Quinn's philosophy, not because it is a literary masterpiece.

Maybe I made a mistake of not reading Ishmael before reading My Ishmael: A Sequel. I was aware of the concepts in Ishmael, the talking gorilla, the fate of society, our culture, etc., but I was not aware of what exactly was brought up in Ishmael that might be re-treaded in this sequel for a more youthful readership.

The book follows the same pattern of Ishmael, except the narrator this time is a twelve year-old girl writing about her talks with the gorilla Ishmael four years after they took place. For a twelve year-old she bandies words like "Vis a vis" and "Ipso facto" a little too naturally to be believable, especially when most of her interjections are of the likes of "Gee" and "Duh". But this can be chalked up to a middle-aged man trying to dump copious amounts of heavy thinking through the narrative of a girl, so it is not that big of a deal. (Though the frequent pauses of ten minutes or longer in the conversations hint that Quinn does not grasp how long ten minutes is when silently starring at a person, especially a gorilla.)

I had read The Story of B before reading this, so I was a least aware of what Quinn is trying to do with these books. Judging from what I learned in The Story of B, My Ishmael tells enough of what was said before to familiarize the reader and then takes his ideas down a different path. In this case the gorilla Ishmael's discussions discuss our culture, the problems we all have, the purpose of education, and ultimately tries to help the narrator, and hopefully the reader to come to terms with the fate of our culture in this world and what might be done to help things. No definite solutions are given, but Quinn does a better job of trying than anybody else I have encountered. For that I must give him respect.

The first third of the book comes in jumps and starts, setting up for the middle third which makes for the best and most edifying reading. Somewhere three quarters into the work the thinking ends and a plot begins. A plot should be a good thing for a novel, but in a world where a talking Gorilla tries to play a modern day Socrates to a girl about how to save the world, the plot is more or less distracting. Nevertheless, My Ishmael gave me ideas and thoughts I would never had without reading it, and for that it is worth reading.

My Ishmael is another thought-provoking look at our destructive lives. The difference between "My Ishmael" and the other books in the series, though, is that Quinn offers insightful solutions. The use of a 12 year old girl offers a completely different take on the situation than Quinn has ever gone down. It was a good path to take, though. It is more important for the youth of the world to read Quinn's books than it is for adults. In my experience, adults who have read Quinn's books do not like them; they either don't see a problem, or they take his criticism personally. All of the young people I have spoken to have liked the book, though, because it is a real and present danger for us. Quinn's use of the curious young girl as the main character brings the book down to a younger level. It is still excellent to read as an adult, but compared to the other books in the series, it really reaches out and makes sense to young people. Instead of the stuffy lecturing of "The Story of B" or the contemplative learning style of "Ishmael" this book is fresh and upbeat. I recommend it to everyone I speak to, and I think it should be required reading for high schoolers everywhere.