Horror Book Reviews
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Title: Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit |
Review of Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
- 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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Comments for Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
- Posted on 2008-10-21
The Story of a Teacher/For Quinn is Just a Preacher
The story of a teacher seeking a student, but not just any student! You! In page after page, the author, speaking through his "teacher" in the form of an 800 lb gorilla, demonstrates his complete ignorance of even the most basic principles of population and economics. Quinn almost urges a return to the hunting and gathering lifestyle never minding the fact that this prescription would shave the earth's population thinner than the hair on a baboon's bottocks. If I had read this book when I was young, I may have been taken in by Quinn's primitive arguments. But in my old age, I recognize that his logic belongs to an age of ignorance something like 8 million years ago, when we branched off from the gorillas. Interesting given his choice of avatars.
Score: 1
- Posted on 2008-10-12
Life Changing Novel
I teach English at an inner-city high school and I wrote a grant to be able to teach this book to my students. It was my greatest success thus far and I attribute it all to the incredible ideas that Quinn develops throughout this novel. He challenges us to reconsider our concepts of humanity (which have led us to chaos) in order to find new ideas with more meaning. Needless to say, my students were engaged. One student said the novel saved him from suicide. Pretty powerful stuff.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-09-25
Thank you Ishmael
This book changed my life.
Like a fish swimming in the ocean who takes water for granted, we can't help but take our own culture for granted. It has become invisible to us, because we live in it. This book will make it so you can see it again. Once you start to see it, you won't be able to make it become invisible again.
If you've ever wondered how things got this bad, you should read this book. Prepare for a paradigm shift.
Score: 5 - Posted on 2008-09-18
Original, Thought-Provoking and Intriguing
While I read 2 to 3 hours per day, this is not a book I would have chosen to read on my own (mostly because it is fiction). I read it only because an authoratative figure asked me to. I'm glad he did. I enjoyed the story and the insight. What the author, Daniel Quinn, has done, however, is simply to identify the invention that ultimately allowed man to build civilizations. Inasmuch as civilization is the cause of most of society's ills, the book challenges us to think about the necessity of civilization. Though written in an easy, highly readable style, I was left unfullfilled at the end. Perhaps this is why author Quinn has written other books on the same theme, to solidify his argument. I recommend the book, only because it is a delightful story and it does something man has a natural tendency to resist...educate man...
But Daniel Quinn's talents could perhaps be better used on another area of civilization-politics. Explain those deceptions, as I have done in Don't Weep for Me, America: How Democracy in America Became the Prince (While We Slept), and the duped among us will really feel the shock.
Score: 5 - Posted on 2008-09-16
Step out of the box!
It is hard to explain but Ishamel by Daniel Quinn, takes careful reading and re-reading and is well worth the effort. It is not written with unfamiliar words or complex sentences, but it challenges everything you perceive as "normal" in our society. This novel is designed for people who are sceptical of the answers to big questions.
I encourage you to put the library to good use, or to purchase gently-used. The copy I borrowed is printed on recycled paper, on the back page, under the author bio, look for: "Text printed on recycled paper; A Bantam/Turner Book".
Score: 5
