The Story of B (Paperback)

by Daniel Quinn (Author)
Key Phrases: totalitarian agriculture, animist vision, obscuring lenses, Great Forgetting, Law of Life, Herr Reichmann (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Quinn returns to fiction after a five-year hiatus with a sequel of sorts to Ishmael, winner of the Turner Tomorrow Award in 1991. Like its controversial predecessor, this book is not really a novel, but an extended Socratic dialogue that promulgates the same animist solutions to global problems that the author recorded last year in his spiritual autobiography, Providence: The Story of a Fifty-Year Vision Quest. The narrator, Jared Osborne, is a priest of the Laurentians, a fictional Roman Catholic order under an ancient, covert mandate to stand watch against the coming of the Antichrist. Although skeptical, Jared is enjoined by his superior to investigate Charles Atterley, an expatriate American preacher known to his followers as "B." Allowing Jared into his inner circle in Munich, B soon dispels both the concern that he is the Antichrist and the shivery intimations of apocalypse that make the opening chapters darkly intriguing. Through long, often numbingly repetitive parables and speeches, B instructs Jared in the solutions to overpopulation, ecological despoliation, cultural intolerance and other ills that have dogged civilization since the time of "the Great Forgetting" 10,000 years ago. B's smug pontificating and his disciples' unquestioning devotion reduces them to interchangeable mouthpieces for Quinn's philosophies. As a result, Jared's spiritual conversion away from Roman Catholicism and toward Quinn-ism, intended to be the book's dramatic high point, falls painfully flat.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Quinn, author of the best-selling cult classic Ishmael (LJ 12/91), returns with another quasispiritual tale about a priest who awaits the arrival of the Antichrist.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (November 3, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553379011
• ISBN-13: 978-0553379013
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (139 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,442 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important book, April 26, 2000

By	J. Buxton "cantabile" (Waltham, MA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is, at the very least, an interesting book to read whether you end up loving or hating it, agreeing or disagreeing with the arguments. After reading some of the other reviews, I have a few comments. First, it is a work of fiction and not a historical narrative. Quinn doesn't use too much data to support his assertions, but as a work of fiction the story is just as effective in my opinion. I thought the two most interesting ideas the book offered were (1) the realities of the population explosion and how our culture is prepared (or not prepared) to deal with it and (2) the notion that the "fall" depicted in the Bible corresponds directly in time with the use of totalitarian agriculture. Some have interpreted the book as very anti-Christian, but I think his point is that "dogmatic" or "doctrinal" Christianity has contributed to our cultural problems. Quinn is not really criticizing the Spirit of Jesus' message (or the message of any other founder of the world's major religions), but rather the institutions that have been formed that don't permit a vision of any other way of life. Also, I don't think the book paints a picture of doomed planet as some have suggested, but rather a doomed CULTURE. There is still hope for humanity through changed minds (not, as Quinn points out, through more programs perpetuated by the same culture already in place).

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thousand piece jigsaw puzzle before your eyes, February 19, 2001

By	Thomas Lapins (Orlando, Florida USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Quinn put a thousand scattered pieces I had in my head and put them into one incredible horrific jigsaw puzzle. The story is ok. It's the "public teachings" that are at the core of both this story and his purpose. We can't face the truth about ourselves. We have to believe that we are God's chosen, that which is removed and above nature. We wrote the history books, the bibles, the science books, the culture of human beings. It's all slanted in our favor and honor. Of course it is. How can we speak the truth without self-destructing as individuals and a culture? Too bad we can't face our place in the universe and upon the Earth. We're not so bad. Just full of ourselves. This book will shake you to your foundation. It will leave you a bit lost and empty. But what is lost and empty can be found and filled again. Intuitively I knew the truth before I read the book. A great thank you for putting it together so profoundly and so clearly.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you read Ishmael you must read this!, November 29, 1999

By	Bill MacDonald (Ottawa, ON) - See all my reviews

This is the followup to Ishmael and if you've read Ishmael, you must continue with this. This is the story of a Laurentain priest who is assigned to investigate a man known only as B, who is spreading the word. The Laurentains have a special mandate: to identify and suppress the Antichrist. The story is fine but is secondary to the message of saving the world. What was revealed in Ishmael is brought into blinding clarity here. We're in big trouble folks. We may not realize it but I can guarantee after reading this you too will realize things must change regarding population growth or we will extinct ourselves. The increasing rates of population doubling over the past 10,000 years stunned me. Please please read this and pass it on to others. This is the most important novel you will read.