- Paperback: 263 pages
- Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group; Reissue edition (31 Dec 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0553375407
- ISBN-13: 978-0553375404
- Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 1.8 x 20.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 23,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?
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First Sentence
The first time I read the ad, I choked and cursed and spat and threw the paper to the floor. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
The first time I read the ad, I choked and cursed and spat and threw the paper to the floor. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Despite a mildly frustrating Q&A format, this is a deep and (beneficially) mind-altering work that can re-shape how you think about almost everything. So, why so few reviews for this masterful work over here, when there are over 800 on Amazon.com?
Quinn synthesises numerous schools of thought - primarily anthropology, history, biology, and theology - in such a way as to paint a truly all-encompassing portrait of how we got here. The basic premise is as accurate as it is appalling: a classic catch-22:
A. Father Culture teaches us to produce more food that we can use.
B. We reproduce in direct correlation with the amount of available food.
C. The more we reproduce, the more food we need.
Yes, it is an over-simplification but it's still truth. This work uncovers our cultural myth that it's OK to keep consuming, destroying the environment, producing more food and multiplying our population at insanely unhealthy levels.
In several later books Quinn takes this further. "My Ishmael" is basically a repeat of "Ishmael" and slightly disappointing because of that but "Story of B" explains that our current focus on agriculture is basically at "war" with nature and only really became that way with patriarchy. Many open-minded archeologists are telling - off the record - of more and more clues that patriarchy suddenly, about 6,000 years ago, came in from nowhere, overwhelmed, and radically changed our direction from, the peaceful lifestyle enjoyed for hundreds of thousands of years previously. Ancient times were by no means brutal and backwards, as we've been brainwashed to believe.
For instance, dating of the "pre"historic Jomon culture has been regularly pushed back over the last decade and is currently identified as having begun at least 100,000 years ago and having lasted for well over 50,000 years, maybe double that, in an astonishingly stable manner. They enjoyed a comfortably abundant, healthy, and aesthetic lifestyle involving stunning pottery, trading, travel (very possibly global) and commmunal co-operation - within groups (no "chiefs"), with neighbouring societies (no defensive fortifications), and with nature (such as a regular "harvesting" of fruit and nut orchards but not intensive farming). We CAN choose a different way from the current "dominate and destroy" culture, a transformation to a world of harmony, diversity and flexibility, in partnership with all living things, not least our earth.
Some complain that Quinn is stating the obvious. For me, it was an exciting new angle on our culture, another veil lifted.
Quinn synthesises numerous schools of thought - primarily anthropology, history, biology, and theology - in such a way as to paint a truly all-encompassing portrait of how we got here. The basic premise is as accurate as it is appalling: a classic catch-22:
A. Father Culture teaches us to produce more food that we can use.
B. We reproduce in direct correlation with the amount of available food.
C. The more we reproduce, the more food we need.
Yes, it is an over-simplification but it's still truth. This work uncovers our cultural myth that it's OK to keep consuming, destroying the environment, producing more food and multiplying our population at insanely unhealthy levels.
In several later books Quinn takes this further. "My Ishmael" is basically a repeat of "Ishmael" and slightly disappointing because of that but "Story of B" explains that our current focus on agriculture is basically at "war" with nature and only really became that way with patriarchy. Many open-minded archeologists are telling - off the record - of more and more clues that patriarchy suddenly, about 6,000 years ago, came in from nowhere, overwhelmed, and radically changed our direction from, the peaceful lifestyle enjoyed for hundreds of thousands of years previously. Ancient times were by no means brutal and backwards, as we've been brainwashed to believe.
For instance, dating of the "pre"historic Jomon culture has been regularly pushed back over the last decade and is currently identified as having begun at least 100,000 years ago and having lasted for well over 50,000 years, maybe double that, in an astonishingly stable manner. They enjoyed a comfortably abundant, healthy, and aesthetic lifestyle involving stunning pottery, trading, travel (very possibly global) and commmunal co-operation - within groups (no "chiefs"), with neighbouring societies (no defensive fortifications), and with nature (such as a regular "harvesting" of fruit and nut orchards but not intensive farming). We CAN choose a different way from the current "dominate and destroy" culture, a transformation to a world of harmony, diversity and flexibility, in partnership with all living things, not least our earth.
Some complain that Quinn is stating the obvious. For me, it was an exciting new angle on our culture, another veil lifted.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Years after the tragedy of the holocaust, many people pointed their fingers at the German citizens and asked why they never bothered to do anything about Hitler's actions. Their excuse was that they did not know what was really happening. In a few generations our children and grandchildren will point that same finger at the people of our culture and ask why we never tried to stop the rampant destructuion of our planet. Unlike the Germans under Nazi rule we have no such excuse. We have been warned by Ishmael!
26 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Buy this at the same time as "The Story of B" and "My Ishmael" becuase they form a kind of unofficial trilogy - "Ishmael" laying the ground foundations of Quinn's theory, "The Story of B" expanding and adding to those ideas and "My Ishmael" completing the set by showing how the decline of our culture can be averted.
It would be too hard to outline Quinn's theory about why our society (and only our society) works so badly, but if you have ever thought that there must be something better than living a life working hard to gain things which are free, such as food, then this book is for you. If you have ever felt hollow or unfufilled by your life and the way you live it, then this book has one important message for you - it is not your fault. I hope my enthusiasm for this book will encourage you to read it, because I can honestly say it has changed my life. Everywhere I look I see elements of Taker culture and I want to scream at the top of my lungs and show everybody what is wrong. I want to open their eyes. I'm sure you don't understand what I'm talking about unless you've read the book, but if you buy it then you will.
The revelations I had whilst I was reading this book, "The Story of B" and "My Ishmael" were so amazing I felt sick, elated, depressed but mostly a sense of enormous relief. It is not every single human in our culture that is wrong, there is nothing wrong with us. It is our society...our society that imposes laws that it knows will be broken and then is suprised when they are, our society that thinks humans are God's over other animals, out society that has abandoned the way Tribal societies lived and survived with for hundreds and hundreds of years, our society...Please, I urge you to buy this book, there is nothing more I can say. Buy this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not what I was expecting
I'd been looking forwards to reading this one for ages, yet when I finally did I just found it hugely disappointing. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mike N
A fabulous book
This is a lovely book. Daniel Quinn cleverly uses the interactions between a human pupil and his teacher, an ape, to convey his ideas on the history of our culture. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Tompsonkingsley
Ishmael paperback
The book should have been described as being old. It has obviously been on a shelf for a long time and is quite readable, but I don't like handling it as the pages are very... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Mrs. W. M. Kent
Simply beautiful.
Theres not much more I can say than what has already been said by other reviewers. I will just say there are two types of people that will read this book. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Shaun Carter
Amazing!
This is an amazing book. It opens your eyes and gives a completely different perspective of how are things in our culture and make you think about everything we're doing to... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Claudia
Product of a sentimental and sheltered intellectual's life
The essence of Quinn's argument for me came in Ishmael's reply to the question of what happens in the Leavers' society (his ideal) when there is a drought and the natural food... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Pimlico reader
With Neo-Malthusian gorilla gone, is there hope for The Third...
"Ishmael" is a political pamphlet written in the form of a novel. The main character is a defrocked hippie who answers a strange ad in a magazine, apparently an ad placed by yet... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Ashtar Command
pretentious
A couple of people told me that this was 'the book I had to read'. The 'plot' was a thinly disguised method for Quinn to preach his philosophy, and the way he did it really made me... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mr. John Mitchell
Very thought provoking!
At first, this book starts really weirdly. It is about a man who answers an advert in the newspaper - "teacher, seeks student" - and when he arrives at the address given, he finds... Read more
Published 19 months ago by miss_spookiness
Life changing... if you are in your teens.
A decent enough read, but he doesn't half waffle on. I'll save you reading the first FOUR chapters: man is not the pinnacle of evolution.
Published 22 months ago by scep
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