Rating: 
Summary: Where it led me
Review: The story of Ishmael was not the guru type book I thought it would be. It did not answer all the questions in my universe. But I will give it 5 stars because it did what really great books do, it made me ask better questions. No more questions of how to live in this society. A lot of questions of how I want to live as a human on a daily basis get asked now. Deliberate lifestyle is something I have worked for a long time. This book gave me a new way of looking at what I am doing and where it is leading me in relation to the rest of the society that I live in.
Rating: 
Summary: neither/nor
Review: First of all, this is not a "novel." Nor is it "an adventure of the mind and soul" (at least not for my unadventurous mind and soul). It is an attempt to construct an argument: that our society is on the brink of disaster, because it is founded on the erroneous proposition that humanity owns the world. When Quinn tries to shake things up by switching from faux-Socratic-dialogue mode into some kind of story, he falls flat on his face with an annoying digression ("I pray about teeth...") that seems to have absolutely no point other than killing Ishmael, which Quinn could just as easily have done with a falling piano or something.But the ludicrousness of the plot is not really relevant; "Ishmael" is, at heart, an argument, not a story (I only wish Quinn had realised that...). So what about that argument? Well, first of all, Quinn is not really as even-handed as he makes himself out to be. His whole book is founded on a MORAL platform, not an ecological one; it seems to me that the reason he doesn't come out and say "Western civilization is bad" is not because of any real objectivity, but because of a pusillanimous post-whatever unwillingness to be explicit about his metaphysics. Hey, Quinn, I got news for ya: "life is better than death" is a moral proposition, as you should know, if you've read your Nietzsche aright. It's not self-evident; just ask Keats. And it's no good trying to evade the question by considering the ecological rather than the personal level; the question is exactly the same there. Is Earth really better than, say, Neptune, just because it has life? I'm not saying that this kind of question should not be answered, or that it is unanswerable; I have absolutely no problem with metaphysical moral standards, per se. But, in this kind of argumentative writing, one should always be as explicit as possible about these things, and Quinn essentially puts one over on us by assuming that we'll agree with him. (A related issue is Quinn's use of the idea of "gods": he explicitly says that he's using the gods only as a kind of image, but then he goes ahead and says things like "the Leavers are the people who live in the hands of the gods," a blatantly moralizing aphorism which is correct, given what Quinn means by "gods," but which is still offensive because its morality is kept hidden.) As far as metaphysics goes, my real beef is not with the proposition that life is better than death (although I would modify it and say that the real distinction is: CONSCIOUSNESS is better than UNCONSCIOUSNESS), but with the proposition that all life is the same. Judging from this book, Quinn doesn't seem to think that human life is any different from, say, hyena life. The only evidence to the contrary is a veiled suggestion toward the end of the book that other forms of life might eventually become sentient in a human-like way, which I think is just silly. Quinn doesn't consider the valuable things that our culture has produced: art, philosophy, and science come to mind. The fact remains (though this may be my ignorance speaking) that only the two cultures that we think of as "Western" and "Eastern" have developed these things extensively; they also happen to be the only surviving "Taker" civilizations (although in this book Quinn ignores the Eastern civilization and insists that only Indo-European culture belongs to the Takers). It seems to me that only in the situation that Takerism produces can these things develop beyond the level of folk disciplines (only in the case of art can one argue that this may not really be a development, and even there I would dispute that argument); I also believe (metaphysically!) that these things are good IN THEMSELVES. It not just whether you live, but how you live. Basically, I'll admit it, I agree with Quinn. Our culture does need to change, drastically. I don't believe that we will put an end to all life on the planet, or even to our life as a species, but I do think that we will lose much of what we have achieved (the good along with the bad) if we continue to use the world as we have been using it. But I don't think that Quinn's REASONS are good enough, and I don't think that his solutions are any good at all (he doesn't really go into them much in "Ishmael," but from his web-site I gather that they pretty much amount to breaking everything down to the smallest possible local level, so Quinn's dream civilization is basically indistinguishable from radical right-wing anti-big-governmentism). So, basically, I give Quinn three stars 'cuz he's got an interesting case to make and he makes it reasonably well (although the idea that our culture is headed for inevitable death is expressed in an almost equally convincing and infinitely more aesthetically valuable way in "Gravity's Rainbow"). I then take away one star because he tries to sneak his moral substructure past us. Also, there are a few factual points that I think he got wrong, but they're relatively unimportant. So, read the book if you want, it won't kill you. Just take what Quinn says with a grain of salt.
Rating:
Summary: A very good book with an important lesson.
Review: While reading through most of the already present reviews before I read this book, I found many of the following words or phrases: tedious, boring, long, no plot, and plain stupid. I disagree with all of the above. This book will and already is changing a lot of peoples minds. It isn't tedious, boring, or long, I didn't put it down since I picked it up and read it in 2 days. It has a plot, a thin one, but that wasn't the point of the book. It was supposed to "show a creative and positive solution to a world problem." It does. It isn't stupid. Calling it supid is like saying your ears are tuned into Mother Culture too much. I also heard one person say something like, "He wants us to live by natural means." First, natural is a horrible word because, where else to live but nature? Are we not in "nature"? Second, if you mean in the woods, he doesn't mean that, and you really misread this book. We couldn't live that way...
Rating: 
Summary: Who Calls Whom "Ishmael"?
Review: Dan Quinn's "controversially" award-winning book, "Ishmael," a novel in the form of a Socratic dialogue (mainly), has as its subject--in Carter/Reagan "Amerikuh," when the work was begun--the burning question: "How did things come to be (so screwed up) the way they are?" The answer, as seen through the consciousness of the eponymous character, a sentient, telepathic (also: homeless and desparate) silver-back Lowland gorilla raised among men, is through the culture of farming. In "Ishmael," as in its (fraternal-- or is it sororial?) twin, "My Ishmael," as well as in their North European apostate cognate, "The Story of B," Quinn unpacks the disastrous consequences to humanity considered generally --and all other life forms on the planet as well-- of the late Neolithic and still contemporaneous practice of "locking up the food." Through his lavishly intelligent and well-read simian protagonist, Quinn paints the picture of "white," "Western" techno-positivist culture as a strange, unwieldy, cruel, wasteful, extravagant contraption which, someone--hopefully expert and trustworthy--has assured us, is a working airplane parked on a mountain top. In this view, we've all crowded onto this contraption and then, before anybody really knew what happened, the "flight to the future" has begun. We're in the air! You are free to move about the ecosystem... but it is too late to return to the safe haven from which the flight departed. Quinn is among a small but dedicated cadre of writers, thinkers, and activists (Gary Snyder, the poet, is another) who wonder how "flight" is much distinguishable from falling, until you try to land. And they all predict the landing--hard or soft--is imminent. Quinn's take on these issues seems new and refreshing, seen through the strangifying eyes of some (presumptively) lost, animal soul. Taking the point of the "leavers" (groups of Pleistocene hunter/gatherers that "took" only what they needed to subsist), as opposed to the "takers" (our lot, who exterminate anything we cannot domesticate for profit), he fills in, over three books beginning with Ishmael, a detailed outline of the ways in which the consequences of locking up the food, around 10,000 years ago are worked out in the decline and decease of anything wild. Unnoticed, or at least unremarked, by other reviewers is the unacknowledged debt that _all_three_ of Quinns' novels owe to an author whose name never appears in any of Quinn's works, of which I am aware, nor in the criticism of Quinn's ouevre. The works are literary the step-children of one of the US's major ecological thinkers: Paul Shepard (d. 1996), lately emeritus professor of biology at the Claremont Graduate School. Shepard's insights and views, developed through no fewer than 10 books ("Nature and Madness,"in 1982 is the one to which the greatest debt in Ishmael is owed), and countless articles in both scholarly and popular presses, are the very fundament from which the wise ape, Ishmael (not coincidentally, the patronym of the "lost" tribe of Israel, and the name of Melville's most memorable castaway) inveighs against the thoughtless cupidity of the agrarian lifestyle, and decries the "mark of Cain" in the fair skinned farmers of the Trans-Caucasus, whose regimentation of the cycles of nature produced and compelled "taking" as both "history" and "narrative" upon the heirs of Abel. Quinn is at his best and most original (though his hermeneutics are not innocent of Shepard's thought) in his exegesis on Genesis, a tale that has at its middle a seeming paradox that Quinn's perspicuous ape unravels in a wonderful and provocative fashion. This first book, "Ishmael," provides an almost macroscopic view of things; a view from the 'systems' perspective; in the subsequent (chronologically, but concurrent, fictionally) "My Ishmael," the reader gains a more microscopic, institutional analysis, and gains new insights into the rationality of the practices of fatal cults, gangs, and youthful unease and turmoil. I taught this book as the introductory text in graduate and undergraduuate classes in education for six years and learned something new each time. Students have returned after several years to remark how the book(s) changed their lives. It is a shock to see oneself as a "taker" and the object of such righteous opprobrium; especially when you are primed by the voice of your culture to consider yourself the epitome of progressive care and concern for nature. Quinn reminds us that we do not escape the burden of the actions undertaken with our indifference or acquiescence. Its a needed reminder.
Rating:
Summary: A new perspective from a unheard from voice!
Review: This was a wonderful read, very refreshing and thought provoking. Learning the REAL life lessons and history of the world from the Voice of a Gorrilla. I still quote the author on topic of man's Human Chauvinism. We're so arrogant as to think that WE are the purpose of creation, from Ishmael's (the gorilla) point of view, that is our real delemma, we think we own, and use up our earth resources. There may be other species who don't agree. I love the idea of listining to sage advice from another of god's creatures. I recommend this book highly, and advise to share it with your kids. Thanks.
Rating:
Summary: Our headlong rush to catastrophe
Review: Quinn provides an unusual mix of novel, philosophy, religion, history, and science to try to wake our culture up to the fact that we are rushing headlong to the catastrophe of overpopulation. The sequels, "My Ishmael "and "The Story of B" develop the argument from different perspectives.
Rating:
Summary: Good or bad, it's worth reading
Review: Quinn provides many new and fresh ideas to the way we as people are living our lives and where they are going. Even if you didn't like the book, it makes you think. Every page poses a question about our culture that Quinn forces us to ponder. In all, this book is a must read for everyone.
Rating:
Summary: how we can get back thinking about how it all started!
Review: Simply want to say that this has nbeen an enlightning reading. We forgot the way life could be different and why for. Instead of thinking about religions and other faiths I would say that it's important to focus our attention on the magic of the old laws of life and sociality. It has to be read!
Rating:
Summary: This book will change your life!
Review: Very rarely would someone put their personal integrity at stake for endorsing a text unconditionally. After reading this book, I have learned of the subject matter and about reality. This book is a must read for anyone that wants a new perspective on reality.
Rating:
Summary: Socratic dialog with gorilla!
Review: The use of Socratic dialog with Ishmael, is a clever way to engage the reader in Quinn's view about the role and origin of agrarian culture in our environmental crisis. The idea of unspoken myths of "mother culture" presented here (in contrast to the spoken myth as described by Joseph Campbell), is, in my opinion, the book's most valuable contribution. Once engaged in this view, it is easy to find examples of Leavers and Takers. Recently on PBS was the story of the Viking failure in Greenland. These conservative Protestants considered it sinful to adopt the seal skin cloths of the Inuit, but the European styles were ill suited for the Arctic. It is the Inuit that still inhabit Greenland today (see also, Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo by Ken Harper) Ishmael's presentation is unique, but the views have been covered elsewhere. Some of the more interesting twists such as the Cain and Abel story were presented in Rene Dubos "A God Within". I would recommend friends of Ishmael also read Dubos, for another perspective.
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