Daniel Quinn's Ishmael

I just finished it and I'm curious to hear some opinions.

For the uninitated, The Library Journal may be able to get you up to speed:

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Ishmael, a gorilla rescued from a traveling show who has learned to reason and communicate, uses these skills to educate himself in human history and culture. Through a series of philosophical conversations with the unnamed narrator, a disillusioned Sixties idealist, Ishmael lays out a theory of what has gone wrong with human civilization and how to correct it, a theory based on the tenet that humanity belongs to the planet rather than vice versa. While the message is an important one, Quinn rarely goes beyond a didactic exposition of his argument, never quite succeeding in transforming idea into art. Despite this, heavy publicity should create demand. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/91.

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The dude pretty much nails it all right there. The Socratic dialogue between Ishmael and the narrator slowly works it way through an alternative view on human history that reinterprets biblical texts, celebrates so-called "primitive" cultures, and condemns all post-agricultural revolutionary civilization as arrogant or -- to use a word Socrates would have favored -- decadent.

The main premise of the book is that our human civilization is what Ishmael refers to as a "Taker culture." We have prioritized and ranked earth's inhabitants, placing ourselves on top. Since the agricultural revolution we have worked to elevate ourselves above the primitive lives of beasts. In the process, we've nearly destroyed the Earth and its non-human inhabitants through pollution, short sighted agriculture techniques, war, and overpopulation, all the while feeling that it was our right to do so. In short, as Ishmael himself alleges, we see "the Earth as made for man, not man as made for the Earth."

Quinn should be lauded for laying everything he had to say out in a straightforward easy to understand manner. However, the book is certainly not conventional literature. There's barely any plot or character development and because the bulk of it is taken up by the sort of teacher-student question-and-answer sessions favored by Socrates the book it reminds me most of is not a novel but actually Plato's Republic.

If you're looking for an eco-minded novel, this is not the place to go. If you are interested in a very readable alternative account of human history that readily finds faults in the way we live and is willing to point fingers, this is your book.

The book has had a pretty significant effect on a large amount of readers, much more visable an effect than most novels at least (Virginia Wolff rolls in her grave as I type). If you want info about how people have reacted to the book, check out The Ishmael Community online.

Has anybody read this? Many reviews on Amazon claim that the logic of its arguments are weak and easy to counter but none of them actually do their homework and back up their claims with fact. What's so bad about this book? It certainly isn't hippie idealism.

P.S. I feel kinda guilty posting about this book for some reason. It seems to be the sort of thing that your average college dope reads before deciding they need to change the world by dying their hair red and failing all their classes. I just want to get the word out, yo. Feel free to voice any opinions you have. I don't want to come off as some kinda hippie missionary. I just want to talk about books.

I got my copy at the White Elephant Resale Shop for 50 cents. Now that I'm finished with it I'm diving back into a half finished paperback edition of Jose Donoso's The Garden Next Door.