What do you think?
Rate this book
Ishmael #3
My Ishmael
An extraordinary and startlingly original sequel to Ishmael
“Enthralling, shocking, hope-filled, and utterly fearless, Daniel Quinn leads us deeper and deeper into the human heart, history, and spirit. In My Ishmael , Quinn strikes out into entirely new territory, posing questions that will rock you on your heels, and providing tantalizing possibilities for a truly new world vision.”—Susan Chernak McElroy, author of Animals as Teachers & Healers
When Ishmael places an advertisement for pupils with “an earnest desire to save the world,” he does not expect a child to answer him. But twelve-year-old Julie Gerchak is undaunted by Ishmael’s reluctance to teach someone so young, and convinces him to take her on as his next student. Ishmael knows he can't apply the same strategies with Julie that he used with his first pupil, Alan Lomax—nor can he hope for the same outcome. But young Julie proves that she is ready to forge her own spiritual path and arrive at her own destination. And when the time comes to choose a pupil to carry out his greatest mission yet, Ishmael makes a daring decision—a choice that just might change the world.
Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy:
ISHMAEL • MY ISHMAEL • THE STORY OF B
“Enthralling, shocking, hope-filled, and utterly fearless, Daniel Quinn leads us deeper and deeper into the human heart, history, and spirit. In My Ishmael , Quinn strikes out into entirely new territory, posing questions that will rock you on your heels, and providing tantalizing possibilities for a truly new world vision.”—Susan Chernak McElroy, author of Animals as Teachers & Healers
When Ishmael places an advertisement for pupils with “an earnest desire to save the world,” he does not expect a child to answer him. But twelve-year-old Julie Gerchak is undaunted by Ishmael’s reluctance to teach someone so young, and convinces him to take her on as his next student. Ishmael knows he can't apply the same strategies with Julie that he used with his first pupil, Alan Lomax—nor can he hope for the same outcome. But young Julie proves that she is ready to forge her own spiritual path and arrive at her own destination. And when the time comes to choose a pupil to carry out his greatest mission yet, Ishmael makes a daring decision—a choice that just might change the world.
Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy:
ISHMAEL • MY ISHMAEL • THE STORY OF B
293 pages, Paperback
First published November 3, 1997
336 people are currently reading
6386 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Quinn
53 books1,895 followersI had and did the usual things -- childhood, schools, universities (St. Louis, Vienna, Loyola of Chicago), then embarked on a career in publishing in Chicago. Within a few years I was the head of the Biography & Fine Arts Department of the American Peoples Encyclopedia; when that was subsumed by a larger outfit and moved to New York, I stayed behind and moved into educational publishing, beginning at Science Research Associates (a division of IBM) and ending as Editorial Director of The Society for Vision Education (a division of the Singer Corporation).
In 1977 I walked away from SVE and this very successful career when it became clear that I was not going to able to do there what I really wanted to do...which was not entirely clear. A few months later I set my feet on a path that would change my life completely. It was a path made up of books -- or rather versions of a book that, after twelve years, would turn out to be ISHMAEL.
The first version, written in 1977-78, called MAN AND ALIEN, didn't turn out to be quite what I wanted, so wrote a second, called THE GENESIS TRANSCRIPT. Like the first version, this didn't satisfy me, so I wrote a third with the same title. THE BOOK OF NAHASH, abandoned unfinished, was the fourth version.
When I started writing version five, THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED in 1981, I was sure I'd found the book I was born to write. The versions that came before had been like rainy days with moments of sunshine. THIS was a thunderstorm, and the lines crossed my pages like flashes of lightning. When, after a few thousand words I came to a clear climax, I said, "This MUST be seen," so I put Part One into print. Parts Two and Three followed, and I began searching for the switch that would turn on Part Four... but it just wasn't there. What I'd done was terrific -- and complete in its own way -- but at last I faced the fact that the whole thing just couldn't be done in lightning strikes.
And so, on to versions six and seven (both called ANOTHER STORY TO BE IN). I knew I was close, and version eight was it -- the first and only version to be a novel and the first and only version inhabited by a telepathic gorilla named Ishmael.
ISHMAEL was a life-changing book. It began by winning the Turner Tomorrow Award, the largest prize ever given to a single literary work. It would come to be read in some 25 languages and used in classrooms from mid-school to graduate school in courses as varied as history philosophy, geography, archaeology, religion, biology, zoology, ecology, anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology.
But in 1992, when ISHMAEL was published, I had no idea what I might do next. My readers decided this for me. In letters that arrived by the bushel they demanded to know where this strange book came from, what "made" me write it. To answer these questions I wrote PROVIDENCE: THE STORY OF A FIFTY-YEAR VISION QUEST (1995).
But there were even more urgently important questions to be answered, particularly this one: "With ISHMAEL you've undermined the religious beliefs of a lifetime. What am I supposed to replace them with?" I replied to this with THE STORY OF B (1996).
The questions (and books) kept coming: Why did Ishmael have to die? This gave rise to MY ISHMAEL: A SEQUEL (1997), in which it's revealed that Ishmael was not only far from being dead but far from being finished with his work as a teacher. The question "Where do we go from here?" was the inspiration for BEYOND CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY'S NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE (1999), a very different kind of book.
With these questions answered (and 500 more on my website), I felt I was fundamentally finished with what might be called my teachings and ready to move on.
I had always taken as my guiding principle these words from André Gide: "What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it.
In 1977 I walked away from SVE and this very successful career when it became clear that I was not going to able to do there what I really wanted to do...which was not entirely clear. A few months later I set my feet on a path that would change my life completely. It was a path made up of books -- or rather versions of a book that, after twelve years, would turn out to be ISHMAEL.
The first version, written in 1977-78, called MAN AND ALIEN, didn't turn out to be quite what I wanted, so wrote a second, called THE GENESIS TRANSCRIPT. Like the first version, this didn't satisfy me, so I wrote a third with the same title. THE BOOK OF NAHASH, abandoned unfinished, was the fourth version.
When I started writing version five, THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED in 1981, I was sure I'd found the book I was born to write. The versions that came before had been like rainy days with moments of sunshine. THIS was a thunderstorm, and the lines crossed my pages like flashes of lightning. When, after a few thousand words I came to a clear climax, I said, "This MUST be seen," so I put Part One into print. Parts Two and Three followed, and I began searching for the switch that would turn on Part Four... but it just wasn't there. What I'd done was terrific -- and complete in its own way -- but at last I faced the fact that the whole thing just couldn't be done in lightning strikes.
And so, on to versions six and seven (both called ANOTHER STORY TO BE IN). I knew I was close, and version eight was it -- the first and only version to be a novel and the first and only version inhabited by a telepathic gorilla named Ishmael.
ISHMAEL was a life-changing book. It began by winning the Turner Tomorrow Award, the largest prize ever given to a single literary work. It would come to be read in some 25 languages and used in classrooms from mid-school to graduate school in courses as varied as history philosophy, geography, archaeology, religion, biology, zoology, ecology, anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology.
But in 1992, when ISHMAEL was published, I had no idea what I might do next. My readers decided this for me. In letters that arrived by the bushel they demanded to know where this strange book came from, what "made" me write it. To answer these questions I wrote PROVIDENCE: THE STORY OF A FIFTY-YEAR VISION QUEST (1995).
But there were even more urgently important questions to be answered, particularly this one: "With ISHMAEL you've undermined the religious beliefs of a lifetime. What am I supposed to replace them with?" I replied to this with THE STORY OF B (1996).
The questions (and books) kept coming: Why did Ishmael have to die? This gave rise to MY ISHMAEL: A SEQUEL (1997), in which it's revealed that Ishmael was not only far from being dead but far from being finished with his work as a teacher. The question "Where do we go from here?" was the inspiration for BEYOND CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY'S NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE (1999), a very different kind of book.
With these questions answered (and 500 more on my website), I felt I was fundamentally finished with what might be called my teachings and ready to move on.
I had always taken as my guiding principle these words from André Gide: "What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 537 reviews
November 7, 2007
My Ishmael is, of course, the sequel to Daniel Quinn's novel Ishmael. This book focuses on much the same subject matter as the first book. Namely, that the agricultural revolution gave rise over time to the modern-day Taker culture. With this rise the Taker's put forth the attitude that they were in control of their own destiny and chose to live in a seemingly unnatural way. They decided for themselves to conquer the world without care of the consequences to all other life. Quinn's main assertion is that mankind (modern Taker culture) needs to find a better way to live lest they totally destroy themselves and do irreparable harm to the rest of the planet.
The book's perspective was told as the dialogue between a 12-year-old girl named Julie and the philosopher/gorilla Ishmael. The book is insightful because we see things in their dialogue that answer questions left hanging in the first novel. However, the dialogue itself is very weak and it's hardly believable that a 12-year-old girl is going to have some of the mature conversations she does with Ishmael. In fact, some of the dialogue begins to read like a rant from the writer.
One of the more irritable things I found with this book and with Quinn in general is his sitting on the fence attitude. He continually extols the virtue of tribal (aka Leaver) culture while lamenting our own culture. However, when asked specifically if he is saying we should all revert to a more primitive form of living he will say, "no no no you have to find your own way to live." When asked what this own way is he'll respond, "you're an inventive people..so invent!" So much for practical solutions.
My Ishmael is worth reading because of the questions it generates. Questions about our way of living and if it's the best way to live. Questions about attitudes concerning wealth, government, education, gangs, and cults are all discussed within this book. More importantly, though, are the questions that Quinn fails to answer or fails to consider which render his writing a little less significant than he intends it to be. I'm going to put important questions for the reader to keep in mind when reading this book below:
1.) Quinn constantly asserts that religion is something the Taker culture had to invent to put forth a myth about how things came to be this way. Also, that only our modern culture would have to of had a myth to explain the downfall of man and a need for prophets to tell us how to live. If these ideas are true why did Stone Age peoples have shamans and have a myth about the downfall of man? Why did New World Indians have medicine men? If prophets are a nonsensical waste of time considering they only inflict their view of how to live on people then what does Quinn consider himself?
2.) If tribal cultures know the way to live which works and have been around for hundreds of thousands of years...what makes Quinn so sure that modern Mother Culture with her inventiveness, ingenuity, and intelligence won't figure it out down the line?
3.) If primitive life was so vastly superior to modern life why the short life-spans of primitive peoples? Could it be that living in that lifestyle was a fairly tough existence where you were not expected to live a long life?
Obviously there are many other valid points Quinn makes in the novel. One of them is that our legal system is messed up. Another is that schools aren't really doing that great of a job. None of these points are shockingly original but are well worth considering how to change.
Quinn for the most part continually puts forth a pessimistic feeling in his writing. I share much with Jared Diamond in the belief that for all our current mistakes humans have an amazing ability to meet the challenge presented before them. Will they do it? Only time will tell.
The book's perspective was told as the dialogue between a 12-year-old girl named Julie and the philosopher/gorilla Ishmael. The book is insightful because we see things in their dialogue that answer questions left hanging in the first novel. However, the dialogue itself is very weak and it's hardly believable that a 12-year-old girl is going to have some of the mature conversations she does with Ishmael. In fact, some of the dialogue begins to read like a rant from the writer.
One of the more irritable things I found with this book and with Quinn in general is his sitting on the fence attitude. He continually extols the virtue of tribal (aka Leaver) culture while lamenting our own culture. However, when asked specifically if he is saying we should all revert to a more primitive form of living he will say, "no no no you have to find your own way to live." When asked what this own way is he'll respond, "you're an inventive people..so invent!" So much for practical solutions.
My Ishmael is worth reading because of the questions it generates. Questions about our way of living and if it's the best way to live. Questions about attitudes concerning wealth, government, education, gangs, and cults are all discussed within this book. More importantly, though, are the questions that Quinn fails to answer or fails to consider which render his writing a little less significant than he intends it to be. I'm going to put important questions for the reader to keep in mind when reading this book below:
1.) Quinn constantly asserts that religion is something the Taker culture had to invent to put forth a myth about how things came to be this way. Also, that only our modern culture would have to of had a myth to explain the downfall of man and a need for prophets to tell us how to live. If these ideas are true why did Stone Age peoples have shamans and have a myth about the downfall of man? Why did New World Indians have medicine men? If prophets are a nonsensical waste of time considering they only inflict their view of how to live on people then what does Quinn consider himself?
2.) If tribal cultures know the way to live which works and have been around for hundreds of thousands of years...what makes Quinn so sure that modern Mother Culture with her inventiveness, ingenuity, and intelligence won't figure it out down the line?
3.) If primitive life was so vastly superior to modern life why the short life-spans of primitive peoples? Could it be that living in that lifestyle was a fairly tough existence where you were not expected to live a long life?
Obviously there are many other valid points Quinn makes in the novel. One of them is that our legal system is messed up. Another is that schools aren't really doing that great of a job. None of these points are shockingly original but are well worth considering how to change.
Quinn for the most part continually puts forth a pessimistic feeling in his writing. I share much with Jared Diamond in the belief that for all our current mistakes humans have an amazing ability to meet the challenge presented before them. Will they do it? Only time will tell.
January 28, 2013
With all of the negative reviews posted here I felt compelled to counter a bit. This may be a complete waste of time as there are many that see modern civilization as the apex of human development. Some of us disagree, some of us very strongly. I dropped out of High School as a Junior, precisely due to the critiques offered by Ishmael (Quinn). Our current education system serves no other purpose than to produce complacent, docile, and obedient employees. After dropping out of High School I spent the next few years reading everything from Crowley to Nietzsche to Locke to Yeats. I've been at it ever since, including obtaining degrees in higher education. My master's thesis in many ways mirrored the themes that Ishmael conversed about, and yet I had never read the book.
Interesting how some reviewers accuse this book of being for "hippies". If by that you mean people that feel with their hearts as well as think with their heads, then perhaps your assessment may be close. Excessive drug consumption can also help one to clear out all that cultural/social brainwashing that so many hold to as if it were some absolutist dogma handed down from some psychotic, sociopathic god from on high. Sorry folks, it is concocted by people in power to keep the rest of us good little slaves in our places. Whoops, naughty Marxist thinking; yes I'm a political heretic, among things.
For those of us who have experienced "homelessness" at some time in our lives, especially if you have spent long periods in wilderness settings, Ishmael's truths hit all the more home. Evolution is only the real "law" at work in this universe. The more we try to live in accordance with our own evolutionary nature the happier we will be. As long as idiots are running the show prohibiting everything good in life and forcing us all to dance to their greedy power hungry tune, with leisure time consisting of sports, news, and sit-coms that portray all men as idiots, all women as conniving divas who merely tolerate men, and children that show no sign of life or independent thought, let alone any respect for their elders. With this paradigm,there will continue to be increased mental illness and overly medicated machines that used to resemble human beings. Young men will continue to slaughter innocents, unhappy women will continue to fill their empty lives with hook-ups, unrealistic expectations, and prostituting themselves in marriages to men with money, and children will see a world without goodness and hope, preferring brutality towards their peers or suicide.
So all of you pseudo-intellectual middle class micro-brew beer drinking brats who can string together an eloquent sentence but have no knowledge about the local flora and fauna, or how to kill, clean, and cook an animal for dinner, or how to construct a shelter of any type whatsoever, well, keep not having kids and evolution will take care of the rest. Cheers. For the rest of you....
If you only read one more book for the rest of your life, make it this one.
Interesting how some reviewers accuse this book of being for "hippies". If by that you mean people that feel with their hearts as well as think with their heads, then perhaps your assessment may be close. Excessive drug consumption can also help one to clear out all that cultural/social brainwashing that so many hold to as if it were some absolutist dogma handed down from some psychotic, sociopathic god from on high. Sorry folks, it is concocted by people in power to keep the rest of us good little slaves in our places. Whoops, naughty Marxist thinking; yes I'm a political heretic, among things.
For those of us who have experienced "homelessness" at some time in our lives, especially if you have spent long periods in wilderness settings, Ishmael's truths hit all the more home. Evolution is only the real "law" at work in this universe. The more we try to live in accordance with our own evolutionary nature the happier we will be. As long as idiots are running the show prohibiting everything good in life and forcing us all to dance to their greedy power hungry tune, with leisure time consisting of sports, news, and sit-coms that portray all men as idiots, all women as conniving divas who merely tolerate men, and children that show no sign of life or independent thought, let alone any respect for their elders. With this paradigm,there will continue to be increased mental illness and overly medicated machines that used to resemble human beings. Young men will continue to slaughter innocents, unhappy women will continue to fill their empty lives with hook-ups, unrealistic expectations, and prostituting themselves in marriages to men with money, and children will see a world without goodness and hope, preferring brutality towards their peers or suicide.
So all of you pseudo-intellectual middle class micro-brew beer drinking brats who can string together an eloquent sentence but have no knowledge about the local flora and fauna, or how to kill, clean, and cook an animal for dinner, or how to construct a shelter of any type whatsoever, well, keep not having kids and evolution will take care of the rest. Cheers. For the rest of you....
If you only read one more book for the rest of your life, make it this one.
September 24, 2010
There are books that illuminate the world in new ways to us. Rarely have I read a book that sheds light on my own existence the way this book did. It isn't so much that it's a fun read, or even that it's a well written book. The fact is it makes you think. I believe this makes many who read it uncomfortable. It questions the bedrock of our society in ways that aren't easily dismissed. Some people hate this book for that. Others find it hard to read. I think the more deeply rooted in mainstream culture one is, the harder it will be for them to even ask the questions this book gets you to ask.
This is why I recommend everyone read this book. I have pestered my mother's book club to no avail, and so I turn to all of you.
Read this book. Think about the questions. If you're looking for shakespeare, look elsewhere. If you're looking for someone who challenges your ideas, look here.
This is why I recommend everyone read this book. I have pestered my mother's book club to no avail, and so I turn to all of you.
Read this book. Think about the questions. If you're looking for shakespeare, look elsewhere. If you're looking for someone who challenges your ideas, look here.
November 24, 2025
I thought at first this would be a sequel to "Ishmael" but it is more of a parallel story. In this one, Ishmael the Gorilla communicates his questions and critiques to a young girl, Julie. The discussions that they engage in are thought-provoking, just as in the first book.
I think it and "Ishmael" are must-reads.
I think it and "Ishmael" are must-reads.
June 3, 2020
شموعيل يا اسماعيل
اين كتاب يك شاهكار به تمام معنا و تجربه اي بي نظير براي من بود ، از نويسنده اي كه كوچكترين شناختي ازش نداشتم
داستان درباره فردي نا اميد و نويسنده هست كه به طور اتفاقي توي روزنامه آگهي معلمي رو ميبينه كه دنبال شاگردي هست كه براي نجات دنيا انگيزه داشته باشه
اما اين استاد انسان نيست ، يك گوريل با يك سرنوشت عجيب هست كه زماني كه براي اجراي سيرك ها به قفس ميوفته مردم نظاره كننده اون رو "جالوت" صدا مي كنند ، به طور اتفاقي يك يهودي كه كل خانواده ش رو توي جنگ از دست داده با اين گوريل مواجه ميشه و به اون شخصيت جديدي ميده :"تو جالوت نيستي تو اسماعيلي (شموعيل)" و رابطه اي كه بين فرد يهودي و گوريل شكل ميگيره سبب ميشه تا گوريل با اسم جديدش به تحصيل مفاهيم انساني و تاريخي بپردازه
و بناي كل كتاب پرسش و پاسخ فرد نويسنده با شموعيلِ گوريل هست
تاريخ زندگي انسان ، شكل گيري اسطوره هاي خيالي و خرافات ، دوره هاي مختلف بشري و خلاصه اينكه چي شد بشر به اينجا رسيد مباحث اصلي كتاب هستند
كتاب سنگيني بود براي من ، خيلي خوندنش راحت نبود اما بسيار پر مغز و قابل تامل بود
اين كتاب يك شاهكار به تمام معنا و تجربه اي بي نظير براي من بود ، از نويسنده اي كه كوچكترين شناختي ازش نداشتم
داستان درباره فردي نا اميد و نويسنده هست كه به طور اتفاقي توي روزنامه آگهي معلمي رو ميبينه كه دنبال شاگردي هست كه براي نجات دنيا انگيزه داشته باشه
اما اين استاد انسان نيست ، يك گوريل با يك سرنوشت عجيب هست كه زماني كه براي اجراي سيرك ها به قفس ميوفته مردم نظاره كننده اون رو "جالوت" صدا مي كنند ، به طور اتفاقي يك يهودي كه كل خانواده ش رو توي جنگ از دست داده با اين گوريل مواجه ميشه و به اون شخصيت جديدي ميده :"تو جالوت نيستي تو اسماعيلي (شموعيل)" و رابطه اي كه بين فرد يهودي و گوريل شكل ميگيره سبب ميشه تا گوريل با اسم جديدش به تحصيل مفاهيم انساني و تاريخي بپردازه
و بناي كل كتاب پرسش و پاسخ فرد نويسنده با شموعيلِ گوريل هست
تاريخ زندگي انسان ، شكل گيري اسطوره هاي خيالي و خرافات ، دوره هاي مختلف بشري و خلاصه اينكه چي شد بشر به اينجا رسيد مباحث اصلي كتاب هستند
كتاب سنگيني بود براي من ، خيلي خوندنش راحت نبود اما بسيار پر مغز و قابل تامل بود
September 9, 2023
شگفت انگیز و قابل تامل
حیف که این کتاب خیلی تو ایران شناخته شده نیست و براش تبلیغات نشده.
مخلوطی از فلسفه،محیط زیست و تاریخ...
مکالمه یک مرد به عنوان دانشجو و یک گوریل در مقام استاد...
نگاهی از زاویه جدید به آفرینش،تکامل،دین و وضع بشر...
فکر کنم اولین ریو فارسی رو دارم براش مینویسم،امیدوارم خوانندگانش بیشتر بشن و ریو های فارسی بیشتری براش ثبت بشه،چون واقعا ریو نویس خوبی نیستم.
گیرش بیارید و بخونیدش...
شاید اگر خوانندگانش بیشتر بشن،ناشران به فکر ترجمه و چاپ بقیه کتابهای این نویسنده که در واقع ادامه همین هستن بیفتن و ازش محروم نشیم
حیف که این کتاب خیلی تو ایران شناخته شده نیست و براش تبلیغات نشده.
مخلوطی از فلسفه،محیط زیست و تاریخ...
مکالمه یک مرد به عنوان دانشجو و یک گوریل در مقام استاد...
نگاهی از زاویه جدید به آفرینش،تکامل،دین و وضع بشر...
فکر کنم اولین ریو فارسی رو دارم براش مینویسم،امیدوارم خوانندگانش بیشتر بشن و ریو های فارسی بیشتری براش ثبت بشه،چون واقعا ریو نویس خوبی نیستم.
گیرش بیارید و بخونیدش...
شاید اگر خوانندگانش بیشتر بشن،ناشران به فکر ترجمه و چاپ بقیه کتابهای این نویسنده که در واقع ادامه همین هستن بیفتن و ازش محروم نشیم
January 20, 2009
A hippie grocery store clerk suggested this to me. That should have warned me off right there. From her breathlessly enthusiastic description of a psychic gorilla with The Secrets to Existence, I erroneously thought it would be a playful, Tom Robbins-esque lysergic carnival ride.
That is NOT what I got.
If this had been written as a pamphlet to be handed out by wide-eyed hippies on street corners, I probably would have considered it to be a more honest work. Instead, we're presented a cardboard cut-out lead character, whose sole duty is to punctuate the talking gorilla's pronouncements with monosyllabic agreements.
I might have been swayed by the underlying philosophical bent of the book, but I was having problems with the way the story presented its ideas. However, I was giving it (and the author) the benefit of the doubt, until about halfway through. Then I got to a section where Ishmael (the gorilla) asks the lead character a question. She basically says that she has no idea what the answer might be. Ishmael then gives the Correct Answer, to which she responds, "gee, you're right", and Ishmael continues with his novella-length monologue. What?!? She didn't need to be convinced by a well-constructed argument? He didn't need to give background information to support his claims? Just "I say this is true" and "yes, it is true because you say so"? That's how the whole book seemed to me: "I say this is true, and it is true because I say it is." It was at this precise point that I actively began resenting the book, and by extension, the author.
Often it seemed that Quinn was writing this in an attempt not to scare away the non-hippies. "Technology is not the answer. But don't worry, though: you don't need to throw away your VCR. But we shouldn't build any more VCR's." Okay, well, won't those without VCR's wonder why they don't get one? Quinn should have grown some ideological balls, and gone straight into the Luddite, "let's all go live in the woods beside an open-ditch latrine" territory that he was only tiptoeing around.
By the end of the book, I was so disgusted with it that when the chick was enlisted to help sneak Ish out of the country, and says to the reader that she won't tell you the excuse they used to convince her mom to let her fly to Africa with possible white slavery merchants, I didn't even flinch. Instead, I just rolled my eyes and thought, yeah, Quinn couldn't figure that out on his own, either, huh?
That is NOT what I got.
If this had been written as a pamphlet to be handed out by wide-eyed hippies on street corners, I probably would have considered it to be a more honest work. Instead, we're presented a cardboard cut-out lead character, whose sole duty is to punctuate the talking gorilla's pronouncements with monosyllabic agreements.
I might have been swayed by the underlying philosophical bent of the book, but I was having problems with the way the story presented its ideas. However, I was giving it (and the author) the benefit of the doubt, until about halfway through. Then I got to a section where Ishmael (the gorilla) asks the lead character a question. She basically says that she has no idea what the answer might be. Ishmael then gives the Correct Answer, to which she responds, "gee, you're right", and Ishmael continues with his novella-length monologue. What?!? She didn't need to be convinced by a well-constructed argument? He didn't need to give background information to support his claims? Just "I say this is true" and "yes, it is true because you say so"? That's how the whole book seemed to me: "I say this is true, and it is true because I say it is." It was at this precise point that I actively began resenting the book, and by extension, the author.
Often it seemed that Quinn was writing this in an attempt not to scare away the non-hippies. "Technology is not the answer. But don't worry, though: you don't need to throw away your VCR. But we shouldn't build any more VCR's." Okay, well, won't those without VCR's wonder why they don't get one? Quinn should have grown some ideological balls, and gone straight into the Luddite, "let's all go live in the woods beside an open-ditch latrine" territory that he was only tiptoeing around.
By the end of the book, I was so disgusted with it that when the chick was enlisted to help sneak Ish out of the country, and says to the reader that she won't tell you the excuse they used to convince her mom to let her fly to Africa with possible white slavery merchants, I didn't even flinch. Instead, I just rolled my eyes and thought, yeah, Quinn couldn't figure that out on his own, either, huh?
June 14, 2022
Daniel Quinn is absolutely phenomenal. After finishing the 3rd book in this series it’s safe to say that JK Rowling has been knocked down a peg in my “authors I’d have liked to have coffee with” rankings.
This, like all of Quinn’s work, packs a ton of compelling thoughts into a condensed & engaging format. Having previously read Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene (the basis for much of the backbone of this work) made the story all the more powerful/easily comprehensible.
Beyond the core message of this book, I really enjoyed watching Julie and Ishmael’s relationship unfold as it couldn’t be further from the dynamic in the original ‘Ishmael’.
Not my personal favorite of the 3 Ishmael books, but an easy 5 star from me.
This, like all of Quinn’s work, packs a ton of compelling thoughts into a condensed & engaging format. Having previously read Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene (the basis for much of the backbone of this work) made the story all the more powerful/easily comprehensible.
Beyond the core message of this book, I really enjoyed watching Julie and Ishmael’s relationship unfold as it couldn’t be further from the dynamic in the original ‘Ishmael’.
Not my personal favorite of the 3 Ishmael books, but an easy 5 star from me.
Read
March 20, 2008It's not that I didn't like this book. I did. But, instead of writing this book in a form which uses dialogue between the characters, Quinn should have simply written a discourse on his beliefs of the world. While his theories and ideas were extremely interesting, the dialogue became tiresome very quickly. I had to put the book aside because, honestly, it started to irritate me.
So, Mr. Quinn, if you are reading this, spare us the monotony of boring dialogue and just write a dissertation containing your thoughts on society next time. It would be a really facinating book!
So, Mr. Quinn, if you are reading this, spare us the monotony of boring dialogue and just write a dissertation containing your thoughts on society next time. It would be a really facinating book!
November 18, 2020
شموئیل رمانی خردمندانه و بی پروا
پر تعلیق و مبتکرانه
نقد زندگی انسانها توسط یک گوریل فیلسوف.
چقد حیف که بعضیا میگن کتاب میخونیم سرگرم بشیم.
این کتاب برای سرگرمی نبود برای فکر کردن بود .
شموئیل بخاطر سوالاتی که اینجاد میکنه ارزش خوندن داره.
سوالاتی درباره نحوه زندگی ما
و اینکه آیا این بهترین راه برای زندگی هست؟
سوالاتی مربوط به نگرش ما در مورد ثروت ،دولت،دین،آئین ها و...
هدف هیچ وقت این نبود که ما تنها بازیگران این صحنه باشیم. ظاهرا هدف خدایان این بود که این سیاره باغی باشه که از موجوداتی خودآگاه و خردمند پر باشه.
پر تعلیق و مبتکرانه
نقد زندگی انسانها توسط یک گوریل فیلسوف.
چقد حیف که بعضیا میگن کتاب میخونیم سرگرم بشیم.
این کتاب برای سرگرمی نبود برای فکر کردن بود .
شموئیل بخاطر سوالاتی که اینجاد میکنه ارزش خوندن داره.
سوالاتی درباره نحوه زندگی ما
و اینکه آیا این بهترین راه برای زندگی هست؟
سوالاتی مربوط به نگرش ما در مورد ثروت ،دولت،دین،آئین ها و...
هدف هیچ وقت این نبود که ما تنها بازیگران این صحنه باشیم. ظاهرا هدف خدایان این بود که این سیاره باغی باشه که از موجوداتی خودآگاه و خردمند پر باشه.
July 24, 2011
I loved Ishmael and I would highly recommend that book to anyone and everyone, but My Ishmael turned out highly disappointing. Quinn tries to convey many similar ideas as in Ishmael, but in this book, Ishmael's lessons are targeted to a twelve-year-old girl. Being very careful not to wantonly dismiss a twelve-year-old's capability for such powerful and culturally dissident ideas, I honestly do not think, based on my own experience as a twelve-year-old girl not THAT long ago, that she could process the teachings of Ishmael at all, let alone so effortlessly. The dialogue is also not in the voice of a twelve-year-old girl at all, or any living human you might encounter. It is very dry and stale. These points highly lowered Quinn's authorial authority for me in this text. I stoppped reading halfway through. I'd rather read Ishmael again and not have Quinn's powerful ideas discredited by a shoddy effort to resummarize his previous insights.
May 30, 2010
Holy cow, this book makes me think I'm a hippie. Once you get past the fact that it's a telepathic gorilla, which is easy to do at the beginning (near the end it's not as easy but you're too into the story to care), it's one of those books that really makes you think about our society. A quick read, and "Ishmael" is another book written from the point of view of one of the other characters and actually won the 1991 Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award (fiction with positive solutions to global problems).
August 26, 2022
Borrowed this from the library, thinking I needn’t buy the third in the trilogy of Ishmael-books, cuz surely I wouldn’t find much more gold in this, that wasn’t already ‘marginaliad’ in my copies of the two first books... but alas. I’ve now finished it and already ordered my own copy yesterday as I have sheafs of papers with notes from within the book... and I simply need to reread this book over and over again.
January 31, 2015
Firstly, the whole message Ishmael gives is something I love and agree with completely. So, the book is not getting 3 stars for the philosophy. It's great. However, the dialogue is very very very very stiff a lot of the time. And not just from the psychic gorilla. That's understandable. The humans don't really sound like actual people, they sound like college lectures almost. A twelve year-old girl sounds thirty-five sometimes. My attention lulled a lot in some areas, but most of the concepts are things I'm already familiar with. Still, if you're critical of what amounts to Western Culture and looking somewhere to start a journey with that critical eye, this is a fantastic book to get you on your way. In that regard, it gets a full score. Excellent starting place for examining life as we know it.
July 3, 2018
Really makes you think about how wrong we've gone as humans. We had it right at one point and then we abandoned all that worked to reinvent the wheel. The way we educate, the way we control food, the way we produce to consume, and our obsession with control and security. We moved away from a society where everyone looked out for everyone else because they knew they needed each other to a society of accumulate as much as you can because you don't know how much you're going to need and nobody has got your back if you do have a time of need/struggle. Really makes you think about what you can do personally to cultivate more of a modern day tribal society rather than the every-man-for-himself society we live in now.
February 6, 2011
This is a story that will change the way you view our educational system and view society as a whole. I wish it was required reading in every high school across the country. It is a book I give as a gift to every student I know when they graduate.
April 4, 2017
Starts out really good but gets a bit tedious towards the end :)
June 21, 2025
Ishmael returns to my life!
I was looking for a copy of this for years, and finally found a hardcover version at Juniper Books in Windsor, Ontario. Ishmael is one of my favourite books of all time, so I was eager to read this one.
As expected, it's nowhere close to the genius that is the original. This one - the 3rd book in the series - has some good chapters, and follows much of the same recipe as the first one, but lacks a few things that the first one captured so perfectly.
I thought it could have used more of a narrative throughout the book, rather than just conversation. And, in places, it did feel a little rushed, as if Quinn had to wrap things up in a certain number of pages.
I'm sure there are reasons for these two things, but these are things I definitely noticed.
Long live Ishmael!
I was looking for a copy of this for years, and finally found a hardcover version at Juniper Books in Windsor, Ontario. Ishmael is one of my favourite books of all time, so I was eager to read this one.
As expected, it's nowhere close to the genius that is the original. This one - the 3rd book in the series - has some good chapters, and follows much of the same recipe as the first one, but lacks a few things that the first one captured so perfectly.
I thought it could have used more of a narrative throughout the book, rather than just conversation. And, in places, it did feel a little rushed, as if Quinn had to wrap things up in a certain number of pages.
I'm sure there are reasons for these two things, but these are things I definitely noticed.
Long live Ishmael!
December 13, 2023
In direct contrast to my review of Ishmael (#1), this may be the best philosophical novel written in the past few decades. Daniel Quinn does an even deeper dive down the rabbit hole of the origin of mankind and culture, and how the destructiveness and greed of our world came to be. Readers of Quinn's work, including The Story of B, would surely have a different perspective on society and how cultures react to certain groups of people. Additionally, Quinn ends the book with a much more satisfying and happy ending than his other writings. All in all, My Ishmael, is a must read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 3, 2019
A very cute book that reframed how I viewed human history, particularly the agricultural revolution. The question is, how do we look back to our forefathers and change our society today before we wipe ourselves off this planet? The author comes back time and again to the idea that the species that are still around adapted and survived. We, however, have not done so as modern humans. This would be a great book club read!
March 18, 2022
This whole series was great. I think I like this book the best in the series. I like how Ishmael educated this 12-year-old girl. The escalator in the store had me laughing. The message of the book is similar to the first book, but using a totally different point of view, I think it was a lot clearer, a lot more actionable ideas. Beautifully done fiction that connects to reality. Lovely book!
January 3, 2024
Pretty good. Easy read. Two people can get two totally different messages out of the same source of information. Alan’s and Julie’s Ishamels were different. I will read The Story of B next if I can find it at the library. Also, I hope I don’t get charged late fees. Environment. Education. Takers and leavers. Kinshasa, Zaire. Tribal living. Many different ways not just one way of living.
April 10, 2024
Good expounding on ideas introduced in books one and two. Quinn’s take on the school system came across highly conspiratorial, but he did raise some good points. Narrative on this one was Meh. However, it was interesting to finally hear him intorduce potential improvements to our way of living. Lots of good for thought!
October 14, 2019
Another fantastic book by Daniel Quinn. I wasn't as engaged in the beginning of this one as much as I was in Ishmael and The Story of B, but this one picked up speed and quickly became the book that tied the other two together both in narrative and in ideas. Great book!
August 29, 2022
This is the third in a series dedicated to the teachings of Ishmael, a gorilla. I won't spoil with details here. The author, Daniel Quinn, has won prestigious awards given for books (novels in this case) that outline global calamities, their origins and offer solutions. The themes include: ethics, sustainability, global catastrophes and, my favorite, the assumption of human supremacy. They are not fast reads, but they are fascinating and endlessly stimulating books. N
December 20, 2019
This one will stick with you.
September 24, 2025
This trilogy has completely changed the way I see the world!
December 30, 2021
Hands down, one of the worst books I've ever read. 1/5 of the book is like a fever dream (the end), there's vaguely pedophilic writing throughout (describing a twelve-year-old girl as an "alluring nymphette" or a "minx", plus a repeated emphasis on 'adulthood' being connected to sexual maturity), but the biggest problem with this book is that is parades about, saying how horrible things are done in our society, then points to tribal societies to show there are other ways of doing things, but then turns around and quickly clarifies that we can't do things like that, there will have to be another way, but then offers nothing. There are some decent points in this book, but the arguments fall apart after a few questions or counter-points, which is ironic since the gorilla/author tries to position the book as a philosophical discussion, but it's basically him just presenting half-formed ideas as brilliant insights and then having a child say "Wow" or "Gee, I never thought about that", never once questioning a thing, which is the opposite of the whole 'question everything that is told to you as fact' premise.
There's a major issue with people lacking critical thinking skills and the number of reviews praising this book are evidence of that
There's a major issue with people lacking critical thinking skills and the number of reviews praising this book are evidence of that
November 20, 2020
Amazing
This trilogy is changing my life. This book is no different. I really like Julie as a main character too.
This trilogy is changing my life. This book is no different. I really like Julie as a main character too.
July 5, 2024
My Ishmael follows the journey of Julie Gerchak who responds to an advertisement in the local paper. Sounds a lot like the initial book, Ishmael, which makes sense because in many ways it is the same book. We come to find that both books take place at the same time, just with two different characters. The stories are told in an almost identical fashion with the message being almost identical in both. But it’s an important message and again I find myself thinking about this book even though I’ve completed it. Quinn did a nice job of making My Ishmael into more of a story at the end and tied the two books together skillfully.
Is there hope for human kind? Quinn seems to thinks so but his ask is large. In My Ishmael he does a much better job of laying a foundation for what can be done. Even though the answers don’t follow a step by step methodology that we are all accustomed to, he does attempt to show what he feels would set humanity in the right direction.
Is there hope for human kind? Quinn seems to thinks so but his ask is large. In My Ishmael he does a much better job of laying a foundation for what can be done. Even though the answers don’t follow a step by step methodology that we are all accustomed to, he does attempt to show what he feels would set humanity in the right direction.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 537 reviews