The Story of B

Rating:
Summary: mind-blowing
Review: all of daniel quinns books will change your view of the world for the better. my life has changed considerably after reading this book, and his others. it's time for us to take charge and change minds. if you're looking for a new author to explore, look no furthur. quinn is THE MAN

Rating:
Summary: yowza, why isn't quinn more well known?
Review: after reading ishmael by quinn, i had to read the story of b. all i'm saying is "whoa." quinn doesn't cease to revolutionize my mind with his books. this guys provides so much insite and depth in the story of b.

i am sure that most of you who have arrived at this review got here through recommendations from friends and stuff. all i'm saying is believe the hype! this is another great read. i mean, think about it, invest a few days/weeks of your time and you just might be rewarded for the rest of your life.

for real, that's the way i see it. it took my 3 months to finish this book (busy at work) and it was well worth it. it's not boring, it doesn't drag, it doesn't preach either.

it just presents you with some information and you can make your own decisions from there. better than frying your brain with MTV, mega blockbuster movies, or mindless video games right? check it out, it's worth the investment.

and by the way, read the lectures in the back of the book as you go along, don't wait till the actual end of the book. good luck. email me at: [e-mail] and let me know what you guys think!

Rating:
Summary: Read it!
Review: I read the Quinn's trilogy and found Ishmael to be the best of all. The Story of B is thought-provoking and brings forth many interesting ideas and makes intelligent arguments. It would be unfair to compare it with Ishmael. If you have read Ishmael, then it would be hard to satisfy your highest expectations.

The Story of B is the natural sequel for Ishmael. I would recommend it to all Quinn readers.

Rating:
Summary: Better than "Ishmael"? You bet!
Review: Thus far I have read three of Quinn's books - first "Ishmael," which I've read twice, then "My Ishmael," and now "The Story of B," which I can definitely say is my favorite of the three. However, I would advise anyone new to Quinn to start with "Ishmael," as it lays the foundation for his ideas. "The Story of B" takes the ideas from "Ishmael" further and looks at them in more depth. "My Ishmael," is one that you can either read or not. While it isn't a bad book, it's pretty much just a new way of packaging everything Quinn had already said in "Ishmael."

Those who are already familiar with Quinn will know that his basic message is that our culture (NOT to be confused with the entire human race) is slowly and blindly destroying itself. He describes our culture as a "monster that is literally devouring the world - and will end by devouring itself if it isn't stopped" (pg. 88). The story he uses to frame his arguments in this book is as follows: Father Jared Osborne is a Catholic priest sent to Europe by his superiors in order to investigate a man known to his followers as B. This mysterious B has been traveling throughout Germany, spreading ideas that have the Church concerned he may be the Antichrist. Osborne is instructed to break into B's group of followers and determine whether he is or isn't as dangerous as he seems.

I found it interesting that this book was written from the perspective of a Catholic priest, secure in his faith (initially, at least), whereas "Ishmael" was narrated by a disillusioned everyday citizen who already felt he had been "lied to" by "Mother Culture." This has the effect of presenting a direct challenge to doubting readers, whereas "Ishmael" more or less preaches to the choir (i.e. those who already suspect that something isn't quite right with the way we're living). While I'm afraid "The Story of B" may still, to some degree, preach to the choir, I do believe it is more powerful and convincing than "Ishmael" was (though I loved "Ishmael" as well).

"The Story of B" also takes great steps in making itself palatable to a broader audience. It combines "Ishmael"-style dialogue-learning with a series of lectures. These lectures are presented in a separate section at the end of the book, but should be read as the story progresses, whenever the reader is signalled to do so. The protagonist in "The Story of B" may also be more sympathetic for readers than the protagonist of "Ishmael." Osborne, unlike the narrator of "Ishmael," is clearly an educated and intellectual man. Many readers of "Ishmael" were turned off by the narrator's apparent dimness (though this was just a device Quinn used in his attempt to make his ideas more accessible). While Osborne still has his dim moments, "The Story of B" does put more responsiblity on the reader to analyze what they're reading and draw their own conclusions.

One thing I particularly like about Quinn's style of writing here is that he presents his ideas in "meal-sized" chunks. Each chapter is broken up into smaller sub-chapters, providing plenty of good stopping places if the reader needs time to sit back and absorb something they've just read. And even if you do read the whole thing in a few long sittings, the story is structured in such a way that you'll get the necessary "thinking breaks" anyway. Whenever Quinn thinks his readers need a break from the heavy idea-driven stuff, he gives the protagonist himself some time off in a more plot-driven series of events.

What really made "The Story of B" stand out for me, however, is that it calls the reader to action, whereas "Ishmael" merely got the reader thinking. This book starts off much as "Ishmael" did, with the protagonist simply taking in ideas and not generating many of his own, but halfway through it takes a drastic and somewhat shocking change of direction. I wasn't sure if I liked this at first, but as I read on it became very clear what Quinn was doing, and I think he's quite successful. Anyone who found themselves stimulated by the ideas in "Ishmael" will no doubt find even more material of interest in "The Story of B."

Rating:
Summary: Is there anything lower than a 1 star?
Review: For all his ranting about the environment and how we are wasting it, Quinn sure didn't have any problems using countless trees to excrete his drivel. The back of the book should have been warning enough: "B claims to be enunciating a gospel written not on any stone or parchment but in our very genes, opening up a spiritual direction for humanity that would have been unimaginable to and of the saviors of traditional religion...blah blah."

Quinn is an author who desperately wants to be known for thought-provoking prose, adult anarchy and thinking light-years ahead of his generation. Unfortunately, his writing is elementary at best, his "fresh ideas" are mere common sense anyone with a mind has already considered, and to say he is borrowing from Voltaire and Confucious would be a compliment.

Quinn says he hopes to make all question their "most cherished beliefs." What he has failed to realize throughout his sophomoric attempts to address humanity, post-modernism and culture - is that these ideas are something we have ALL thought through, at one time or another, and their rejection or acceptance has LED us to our current beliefs. You are teaching us nothing new, dear boy, and your book can be summed up in Solomon's words as "Vanity. Nothing new under the sun."

Rating:
Summary: Great look at history and a hopeful promise to the future.
Review: The Story of B is what could be called the middle book of Daniel Quinn's trilogy about the thoughts and influences of the talking gorilla known as Ishmael.

Unlike Ishmael or My Ishmael ("A Sequel" to Ishmael, though the third in the series), the gorilla is not present and the story focuses on one of Ishmael's proteges. A man commonly called "B". Romping through Europe, tracked and confronted by the narrator (who's diary we are purportedly reading) who is investigating him to see if B is potentially the Antichrist (a theory far less fantastical than one would think), it is a very compelling read.

Certain portions of the novel appear as endnotes, transcriptions the narrator has made of B's speeches and should be read not at the end of the book, but as the story progresses. It is these ideas, the speeches of B, which Quinn uses as the foundation for the message he is trying to convey in both this book and his two Ishmael books. The very simplified gist of it is that our -- humanity's -- view of the world and history is dangerously askew. We, all of us, have forgotten a crucial step in our timeline when humans went from content, tribal, happy people to over-worked, "civilized", and confused people. From gathering and hunting for a few hours a day and living with tribes, to farming or working twelve hours a day and living in massive cities. From there, B and his followers take the narrator and the reader on an adventure to explore this rift in our collective history and to see how it affects everything we are. Ultimately the problem remains that this lifestyle, the one adopted with the advent of "The Great Forgetting", will destroy us all. Everything in the world is at risk of the pains of our progress.

I must admit the novel does a far better job explaining and detailing this than I have just done. It is a very smooth and engaging read. Only bogging down in one over-long scene in a park that I still think could have been fleshed out better. But that is a trifle matter in a very engaging and extremely thought-provoking work. The plot dovetails nicely with the Socratic dialogues that are at the core of the message. In the end the story leaves the reader maybe as a convert, maybe as an activist, and maybe not, but at least carrying an idea in their mind that cannot be shaken free.

Rating:
Summary: Passable, not vision-changing
Review: I found The Story of B for $1.00 at my local discount store. (I should mention, however, that I did not get into Quinn by reading Ishmael or any of its sequels and am not a member of any of the Ishmael/Quinn societies that are cropping up all over the country. I am simply a reader of books who found one that he liked and wants to tell people about it.)

It turned out to be quite the page-turner, but not in the way you might think. We're not talking about The DaVinci Code, here, merely a book that I retained interest in from the beginning to the end--enough so that I didn't even mind being shuffled back and forth in the book to read the speeches made by "B" (as the title character is known), having to use two bookmarks in the process, something I haven't done since I read Infinite Jest.

Jared Osborne, a priest who is slowly progressing through his idea of the "50 steps of losing one's faith," has been sent to investigate a man named Charles Atterley (aka "B"), a public speaker with a large following, to see if he suits the criteria they have predetermined to be the Antichrist. Yes, I know, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're not a Christian. Along the way, Jared listens to the speeches made by Atterley and becomes his chosen apprentice. These concepts are earth-shattering at the same time they are potentially earth-healing.

The Story of B is actually less a novel than a fictional Socratic dialogue between "B" (so named because of his practice of, like the "A" of Adultery in The Scarlet Letter, of Blasphemy) in his various manifestations and Jared, the lapsing priest. The arguments are presented convincingly and they just may be true, but I'm not sure that this book is going to change anyone's "vision" the way it would like. To me, it was simply a passable entertainment that filled time efficiently.