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Summary: The Story of a Teacher/For Quinn is Just a Preacher
Comment: The story of a teacher seeking a student, but not just any student! You! In page after page, the author, speaking through his "teacher" in the form of an 800 lb gorilla, demonstrates his complete ignorance of even the most basic principles of population and economics. Quinn almost urges a return to the hunting and gathering lifestyle never minding the fact that this prescription would shave the earth's population thinner than the hair on a baboon's bottocks. If I had read this book when I was young, I may have been taken in by Quinn's primitive arguments. But in my old age, I recognize that his logic belongs to an age of ignorance something like 8 million years ago, when we branched off from the gorillas. Interesting given his choice of avatars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Life Changing Novel
Comment: I teach English at an inner-city high school and I wrote a grant to be able to teach this book to my students. It was my greatest success thus far and I attribute it all to the incredible ideas that Quinn develops throughout this novel. He challenges us to reconsider our concepts of humanity (which have led us to chaos) in order to find new ideas with more meaning. Needless to say, my students were engaged. One student said the novel saved him from suicide. Pretty powerful stuff.
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Summary: Thank you Ishmael
Comment: This book changed my life.
Like a fish swimming in the ocean who takes water for granted, we can't help but take our own culture for granted. It has become invisible to us, because we live in it. This book will make it so you can see it again. Once you start to see it, you won't be able to make it become invisible again.
If you've ever wondered how things got this bad, you should read this book. Prepare for a paradigm shift.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Original, Thought-Provoking and Intriguing
Comment: While I read 2 to 3 hours per day, this is not a book I would have chosen to read on my own (mostly because it is fiction). I read it only because an authoratative figure asked me to. I'm glad he did. I enjoyed the story and the insight. What the author, Daniel Quinn, has done, however, is simply to identify the invention that ultimately allowed man to build civilizations. Inasmuch as civilization is the cause of most of society's ills, the book challenges us to think about the necessity of civilization. Though written in an easy, highly readable style, I was left unfullfilled at the end. Perhaps this is why author Quinn has written other books on the same theme, to solidify his argument. I recommend the book, only because it is a delightful story and it does something man has a natural tendency to resist...educate man...
But Daniel Quinn's talents could perhaps be better used on another area of civilization-politics. Explain those deceptions, as I have done in Don't Weep for Me, America: How Democracy in America Became the Prince (While We Slept), and the duped among us will really feel the shock.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Step out of the box!
Comment: It is hard to explain but Ishamel by Daniel Quinn, takes careful reading and re-reading and is well worth the effort. It is not written with unfamiliar words or complex sentences, but it challenges everything you perceive as "normal" in our society. This novel is designed for people who are sceptical of the answers to big questions.
I encourage you to put the library to good use, or to purchase gently-used. The copy I borrowed is printed on recycled paper, on the back page, under the author bio, look for: "Text printed on recycled paper; A Bantam/Turner Book".
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