Customer Reviews

My Ishmael

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Quinn is the man! You know a book is good when it tells you something that you already kind of know but with a clarity and confidence that defines what you'be been wanting to make of it. For those who deny the first book because, "A talking gorilla come on." are missing a bigger picture and are not giving the book its propper due. People should try to worry about the message not the messanger.

Ishmael started a lesson with Allen in the first book and teaches another similar yet very different lesson to Julie. My life is better for reading both these books and I know others who feel the same. You CAN make a difference and Ishmael sheds a little light on how. You can't find a solution if you don't know the problem. Daniel Quinn and Ishmail try to define that problem and it's up to you to help solve it! Great great books both Ishmael and My Ishmael. If you don't like Ishmael don't be too critical on those who do. Every negative review that I've read mentioned that "a talking gorilla" is rediculous, and the plot was boring, and the characters are dull and it's just a diolog, well that is basically true but I try to see the forest through the trees. My Ishmail is in fact very exciting as is Ishmael. I read Ishmael and immediately went out and bought the second book (My Ishmael) and couldn't put it down. Quinn offers an important message, even if you don't agree at least you can understand his message and maybe even offer another.

I wanted to write a positive review of My Ishmael but everyone else's reviews have covered all the great points. Instead I'd like to bring up the main character. She's a 12 year old girl named Julie. Perhaps its because Daniel Quinn was never a 12 year old girl, but it seems to me that her vocabulary and lines of thought don't exactly match the age. Even if you consider the character is 16 when telling the story. I thought this was annoying at first, then I realized something. The girl's age was perfect for the book. Her dialogues with Ishmael were perfect as well. It came to me when I considered that she was picking up what Ishmael was saying and taking it further because she had far fewer years of Mother Culture's taint on her. She still had the wide eyed quizical probing child in her. It made sense in that respect and I certainly didn't feel the same way towards her character after that. She did have a place, even if sometimes she seemed much older and wiser than she was.

Like Ishmael and Story of B, I am again absolutely amazed at what Quinn has accomplished here. Great job!

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.

After reading Ishmael I felt like my eyes and mind had been stretched wide open, but I had questions... Many of those were answered in My Ishmael, as well as offering some new ideas on adolescemce and our culture's ineffective educational system. Read it, read it, read it!

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.

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

This book explains, in language that makes sense, why the world is the way it is today. It is a gripping work that produces all kinds of thoughts and ideas. It provides a glimpse of what life would be like outside of the box we are in that prompts us to destroy the world.

My Ishmael has the potential of changing lives for the better. It is depressing in places, though, so don't read it if you want light humor!

I'm currently a college student studying to become a professional educator, and the thoughts Daniel Quinn brings to light on the hidden agenda of education in the Taker world are a paradigm-shattering eye-opener. Every teacher, administrator, and student should be so lucky as to read this book.

The tribal way is not the right way, nor even the best way, but a way that has worked well for untold millennia. Civilization is not the wrong way, but a way that DOES NOT WORK. It's time to move on.

Why do I feel so lost? Why is life so meaningless? What's the point? Don't want to buy what Mother Culture is selling? You don't have to. Read Daniel Quinn and begin to live outside the box.

After devouring Ishmael, I quickly purchased the sequel, My Ishmael, and was just as satisfied with the second. Daniel Quinn expands on his initial suggestions and gives even more ideas to think about - I really can't get enough of his theories!