“Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn – The Core Problems of Humanity

An ad is placed in the paper, telling only of a teacher seeking pupils. A disillusioned writer applies, only to come face to face with a surrealistic creature in the shape of a gorilla, named Ishmael. 

The book itself, also titled Ishmael, written by Daniel Quinn, is the story of how the writer and the gorilla telepathically debate through a philosophical dialog on various aspects, morals, actions, events and beliefs of human history, trying to get at the core of our problems, and how we may yet salvage ourselves.

Much of the book is modeled after Plato’s Republic, and virtually all the dialog between the two protagonists is philosophical in nature. Though there are various oversimplifications which make me raise my eyebrows, many of the thoughts are quite sound and definitely thought-provoking.

Just to give you an idea of what is discussed, they start at the very beginning, the creation of time itself, and they go on through the centuries, analyzing the most notable and peculiar events and actions to have happened through human history. 

They use those analyses as basis for their search for the real problems which lie at the core of modern humanity, such as our constant lust for war, power, control and conquest. They try to trace the problems all the way back to their roots, sometimes even going back to biblical times.

Naturally, Ishmael himself is a figment of the writer’s imagination, and as is always the case with philosophical books, in the end we only know that we know nothing. There are no definitive answers, just a bunch of possibilities, and it is up to us, the readers, to try and make sense of it all for ourselves. 

Though some people will hate the novel for being so open-ended, I believe that is what makes it so great; artists don’t often admit that regardless of the type of work that they do, once art is made public the creator’s interpretation becomes nothing but one of the countless possibilities.

If you feel in a pensive and philosophical mood, then I definitely recommend that you pick up Ishmael by Daniel Quinn; as far as this type of book goes, it delivers on every level, crafting an intriguingly surrealistic story where the ultimate pursuit is a subject virtually all of us are interested in.

---

Daniel Quinn (October 11, 1935 – February 17, 2018) Personal site Daniel Quinn is an American writer who used to publish educational textbooks. To this day his best-known novel is the unusual Ishmael, an effort which earned him the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award in 1991. Environmentalism is a recurrent subject in his novels, and he has even established his own philosophy which he refers to as New Tribalism.

---