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Summary: Brilliant!
Review: A remarkable work of startling clarity and depth. Ishmael dares to reveal another perspective of human history other than the arrogant and anthropocentric one drilled into our brains from birth. Ishmael's message is inescapable.
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Summary: Mind- and life-changing
Review: So, what should I say to this experience? It's the most important I've ever read. I read a lot, you know, but this one was and is different. It changes your life, well, mine in fact. I know there are people who can ignore what Quinn says about the world, but mostly this book changes everything. It's impossible to think or live on as before you read it. You should and nearly must read the other books by him and the ones he recommends. If you are at least a bit interested in changing this world, your life and our future read this book and then go on. I'm no lost teenager any more. What about you?
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Summary: Words Can't Describe
Review: I will keep my review very simple. THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE...only for the better...
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Summary: The Best Book
Review: Personally, I hate books. I hate almost all novels. I like computer books (I own a computer solutions company - Blue Media Solutions). This book was recommended to me by someone I don't remember now (I'm dying to figure out who it was).Anyway, I read this book about 2 years ago from a library. I was in AWE. I was amazed, astonished, shocked, ... I don't know how to explain it. This is a very good book... an amazing book... the best book... I just re-ordered it a couple days ago (got the book today). I can't wait til I reread this book, read My Ishmael, then read this one other book by Daniel Quinn, and move on to the finale, The Story Of B. I have no novel books on my bookshelf (its only technical books). These D. Quinn books will be the only ones on my shelf now. I strongly encourage you to read it. Help save the world. This is a passionate, emotional, yet very education and astonishly interesting book.
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Summary: The New Bible
Review: Do yourself a favor. Buy all of Daniel Quinn's books, read them and then throw away your Bible to make room for them on the shelf.
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Summary: Book for Reraders with an Earnest Desire to Save the World
Review: A friend of mine recommended this book to me in 1992. When she described to me the book's premise, a dialogue between a telepathic gorilla and a not-so-subtly dense man, I have to admit, I was not exactly eager to buy a copy. Thankfully, she persisted, and when finally she just presented me with a copy of it, I began to read... and read... and read... to find that she was right when she told me that what the book is actually about is something you have to read for yourself to discover. My history prior to reading Ishmael had involved efforts to address problems regarding the environment and social justice. I had always been frustrated at the conventional devices for change, never quite able to communicate exactly where my frustrations lay. I did know that my frustrations were rooted in a sense that what I was doing was having little more effect than trying to stop a dam from breaking by stopping up the cracks with tissue paper. I also knew that the changes needed were much more than any amount of political persuasion, noble savage idealism, scientific sequestering, philosophical masturbation, or religious transcendentalism could possibly produce. It has been seven years since my first reading of Ishmael, and this book's profound impact on me, my goals, and my overall cosmology has not wavered since, but has in fact increased exponentially, particularly with reading Mr. Quinn's follow up pieces, The Story of B and My Ishmael. In Ishmael, Daniel Quinn manages to cut to the heart of our culture's various ailments without resorting to any of the expected conventions of our time. The reason for this, as Mr. Quinn clearly illustrates, is that these conventions are as much a result of our culture's ill paradigms as the problems they occasionally attempt to remedy. But this does not even begin to touch on the depth of insights contained in this masterful work. Mr. Quinn synthesizes 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. Most importantly, he successfully fleshes out the root of what it will take for any significant and lasting change to be made. The premise of the conversation between man and ape is more a metaphorical framework, a vehicle for the eye-opening ideas therein, than a device to provoke an emotional response. Nonetheless, one cannot help feeling a sense of loyalty and affection for the humorously smug (and rightly so) gorilla we come to know as Ishmael. And we owe a debt of gratitude to the book's fictitious narrator. His dense skull need not be taken personally as an estimation on Quinn's part of the mentality of his readers. It is a practical device that makes this book comprehensible to even those readers with little prior understanding of the laws of biology, the principles of evolution, or the various other foundations of this piece, and merely requests the patience of those readers who do have knowledge of such subjects. And for those readers who find this man's ignorance occasionally frustrating, you will find humor and respect in how Ishmael himself responds. At least, if you do not, you will find a role model for the patience you will need to develop if you wish to be a part of provoking such change yourself. My involvement and concern for issues such as the environment and social justice have not wavered either, but have merely changed their expressions... to ones more effective in the long run and with a deeper, more practical understanding and a sense of hope that I had not known before. Deeper and more profoundly mind-altering than any book on conspiracy theories, celestine prophecies, or back-to-the-woods survivalism - by the simple virtue of its depth and profundity laying in its unabashed stripping of our cultural mythologies - Ishmael is truly a book for any reader with an earnest desire to save the world.
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Summary: Please try to understand............
Review: This book is a good book because it opens up the eyes of the reader. It does, or should if the reader receptive enough, this in a number of ways (1) It alows one to look at our culture objectively (2) It proves that what we're doing is wrong (3) It should alow us to view philosophy in a whole new light ie. Philosophy is the attempt to answer human problms with human answers but has no real place in nature. like the picture of Nietsche pondering the drawing of rabbit/duck. It is not important that it looks like a rabbit or a duck because it is neither! it's a lines on paper. (4) It tries to make these topics available to everyone, and that is the most important point. That is why the book is not written brilliantly. That is why the book may seem slow and does not ripple with great new ideas. Hardly any of them are new, but they alow the blind to see, which is good. while i was reading this book i was not surprised by anything, but i was very pleased at every line because i finally had found a book that i could show others and know they would understand. There are problems however. Ishmael fails to explain how it could have been any different. He shows that every culture that did not use agriculture was distroyed, a fact, but it does help his arguement. We are not the descendants of the leavers but the takers. So it would seem, and i think this is the greatest fear amongst takers, that if we become leavers, and give up our weapons, it's not the wild animals or the hardships or the natural selection, it's the fact that at anytime a group of takers can come along and kill us all. So what do we do? that's the real question.
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Summary: The Matrix is real, for a rose by any other name,..
Review: Wake up, Neo...The Matrix has you.. and so you may discover that a gorilla can help you become "unplugged". No review or paraphrasing can summarize this book. Just like Morpheus said, "No one can tell you what the Matrix is, you have to experience for yourself". So it is with "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. If you like animals and you have ever felt as if you've been held captive by our society, then you must read this book. You may find that it is almost devastating how well a gorilla articulates feelings you've been unable to express your entire life. Beware however, for the reading of this book may bring feelings of alienation to you.
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Summary: Interesting ideas, but a terrible book
Review: The ideas contained in this book are fascinating; they are presented and explained in an interesting, occasionally gripping way, although there is an abundance of smugness and intellectual snobbery. Were Ishmael a book of essays, I would call it a great read. However, it isnt such a tract; it is presented as a novel, in the loosest sense of the term. It is essentially about Ishmael, a gorilla (who is, of course, far faaaaaaaar wiser than any human) and his student, a nameless writer, and their series of discussions about the nature of mankind and its place on earth. Well, I say discussion, but it isnt really; the gorilla of course has all the answers, and the man is presented as a devout student who is in awe of the other's wisdom. The deck is totally stacked; the writer reacts to everything with disbelief, only to strike his brow in wonder when he is proven worng by the brilliant simian. Anytime it seems to be a dialogue is really just Ishmael patronizing the man. The few attempts at suspense or emotion are laughable. Even the interesting ideas are often marred by the self-righteous presentation. But it isn't a totally worthless book, it is eye-opening.
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Summary: wonderful!!
Review: I read this book 8 years ago and it had a huge impact on me. It made me consider the role humans have on our planet. I loved that the teacher in this book was an animal, as it helped me look through the world and civilization through its eyes. I wish I could make everyone read it, and only hope that they love it the way I do.
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