Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (original 1992; edition 1995)

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! Behold the majesty of Curious George as he gets all dialogue-y on your ass! Your encounter will leave you changed! You, too, may find yourself flinging poop at civilization along with our simian savior!

A telepathic gorilla develops something like consciousness, is happily able to flower under the attentive stewardship of a George Soros-type philanthropist and waxes philosophical to a disenchanted idealist. This book stinks of anthropological and ecological platitudes which I think you would be better served acquiring by taking a few puffs of the wacky weed and watching the Pearl Jam video for Do the Evolution.

And something that seems to be missing from every review of this book I’ve read thus far -- the story’s narrator is barely unnerved by a telepathic gorilla. I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but if I ever tell you that my dog is talking to me, please contact the authorities. I’m sure I’ll thank you for it later. I mean, David Berkowitz does it, and he’s a serial killer; this guy does it, and he wants to roll back civilization to the hunter-gatherer stage. I’m down with Mother Earth and all that jazz, but psychopathology is psychopathology. ( )

This book was VERY interesting. I liked how the author had a point of view to express and he gently led you along to a point where you could see things the way he sees them. It was quite a journey!

Of course, many of his foundational principles were fallacious... So I can't say that I agree with half the things he said, but I thought he made some good and thought-provoking points. I liked that he is trying to use the knowledge he has to make the world a better place. Good for him! ( )

Ishmael is a story about stories and the stories we tell ourselves and our societies to justify what we do and why we do it.

Now I'll try to explain that: I read Ishmael for a class on human nature and one assignment was to articulate a characteristic I believe is essential to human nature. Before starting this book, I had already begun considering the idea that an essential part of human nature is storytelling - explaining why things are the way they are and how they got this way and other "just-so"s of life. Ishmael is just such a book.

I'm not going to say this will change your life, but it - hopefully - will make you take a closer look at the assumptions you make about life, the world, and humanity's place in it. ( )

A fantastic book. ( )

This was read for ENG 360A Class taken in 2007.

Readings Environmental Novel English Class required book.

I really liked this book. ( )