Where’s the action?” Ishmael sits in his “office” and lecture-asks till the book’s end. Halfway through Ishmael, I said, “Nothing is happening in this book. Ishmael teaches that we’ve been fond of killing those who get in our way ever since Cain zonked Abel - according to the Bible, earth’s first murder.

We see a raccoon, and instead of wanting to kill (or, better? - ignore or re-locate) it, we summon the Pest-Away truck and pay to exterminate every raccoon, and who knows what else, in the neighborhood. He divides humans into Leavers (inhabitants of underdeveloped regions, who still largely hunt and gather) and Takers, the rest of us, who rape the earth by degrading it with our agricultural tools, pesticides, fertilizers, and over-planting. I kinda knew that already and have heard it many times (being not 20-something anymore). And through his myriad questions I got his pessimistic point. Quinn masquerades as the gorilla masquerading as Socrates. At times I remembered past therapy sessions. Ishmael uses the Socratic method to pull answers from his eager student. The main, and title, character, Ishmael, is a knowledgeable, negative gorilla who dominates the book as he educates his student, a young man aching to save the world (sound familiar, 20-somethings?).

But Quinn probably wisely predicted that most people wouldn’t finish a 266-page essay on man’s ruining the earth, mainly by destroying its biodiversity. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, by Daniel Quinn, discusses two characters, about whom we learn little, and tells no story, because it’s an essay in (filmy) disguise. Hey, I thought a novel was supposed to comprise character development, description, and plot. Sycamore Book Club Reads Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

Ishmael daniel quinn review