Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

Apply in person.It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime. So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. One of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published, Ishmael has earned a passionate following among readers and critics alike. This special twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a new foreword and afterword by the author, as well as an excerpt from My Ishmael. TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL. In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanity’s origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves? Praise for Ishmael “As suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year.”—The Austin Chronicle “Before we’re halfway through this slim book we’re in Daniel Quinn’s grip, we want Ishmael to teach us how to save the planet

Though hardly any plot to speak of lies behind this long dialogue, Quinn's smooth style and his intriguing proposals should hold the attention of readers interested in the daunting dilemmas that beset our planet. . Apply in person.") and thereby meets a wise, learned gorilla named Ishmael that can communicate telepathically. Quinn also traces these problems back to the agricultural revolution and offers a provocative rereading of the biblical stories of Genesis. Despite some gross oversimplifications, Quinn's ideas are fairly convincing; it's hard not to agree that unrestrained population growth and an obsession with conquest and control of the environment are among the key issues of our times. The unnamed narrator is a disillusioned modern writer who answers a personal ad ("Teacher seeks pupil. Through Ishmael, Quinn offers a wide-ranging if highly general examination of the history of our civilization, illuminating the assumptions and philosophies at the heart of many

A good message I really liked this book despite the rather implausible story line, though its true value lies in the underlying message it contains. The premise is that we humans (most of us anyway) consider ourselves to be the epitome of evolution, thus giving us the right to exploit anything and everything in our environment. I have long felt that the tribal life. Mark Montebello said An essay in narrative form. I found 'Ismael' to be a sort of essay in narrative form (told by a gorilla) in the anti-civilisation (or beyond civilisation) genre. Though the book never mentions it explicitly, the theme is reminiscent of what is sometimes called the Easter Island effect, and warns against its extremities. Perhaps for someone new to the theme the novel might come . "The bars of the cage" The concept of captivity and not being able to find “the bars of the cage” is used as a metaphor for our culture and how it relates to our thoughts and our behavior of that culture. Ishmael talks about how we are lost and captive in these invisible bars; we cannot see what is keeping us in; therefore the way out becomes more confusing. We