LD4all Book Club: [Ishmael by Daniel Quinn]

sweet, and I would suggest Ishmael by Daniel Quinn :smile:

it gets you thinking and everyone can take something from it

Ooo I have such a history with this book. It completely influenced me for a while there, and by overcoming its many arguments I learnt to think in higher levels, which is also of course in great part thanks to that book. It’s been so long since I last read it. Let’s do it? Guys, this is a seriously engaging book. You will get passionate about its arguments (positively and/or negatively) but the story itself is a thrill.

I completely agree with Bruno :smile: It drastically changed the way I look at things.

Fine with me :content: Need to find it first though :tongue:

Is it online as far as anyone knows? :smile:

Funny, i have Ishmael on the list of the next batch of books i get. Heard nothing but good things about it and it seems the type i like - makes you think, isn’t a closed narrow (albeit those can be engaging as well) waltz through the story.

It’s a copyrighted work, so forum rules forbid us from posting links to online versions of it. If it’s not against the laws of your country (as it isn’t in mine), search around. :smile:

oops! sorry for the link, didn’t know about that.

It’s a book worth buying though, you’ll definitely want it on your shelf :content:

I’ll be back home in less than two weeks. I really had no time to get into Dracula, but I’m definitely joining in the new one, whatever you guys end up going with. :happy:

So is the situation still “deciding next book” or is certain now?

I found a copy of Ishmael while I was randomly looking through some shelves and read a few pages. It already looks interesting to me.

I have a copy of it and I would like to read it :smile: So I think we have decided? Or does anyone disagree?

Apparently not.

I’m currently at chapter 8, part (or whatever it is called) 6; and I find the novel pretty engaging. In fact, I’m trying to keep my reading speed down a bit so I can contemplate it at times.

The one detail that really draws my attention is the words being connected to the top of the page by lines at the title page and chapter beginnings.
(spoiler until chapter 1, part 6)

SPOILER - Click to view

At first it was intriguing because I thought that Ishmael, being the very much commended novel it is, wouldn’t include details like that just for the sake of aesthetics or anything like that. There had to be a reason for the lines. After Ishmael declared to his newly-found student that their subject would be captivity, those lines started looking like the strings of a marionette controlled by an unseen force.

One thing that pushed me away from the book a bit was…
(spoiler until chapter 1, part 4)

[spoiler]…the use of religious themes. Well, that was obvious from the name of the novel, but my lack of knowledge in that area made reading less enjoyable for me in the beginning. I had to read up a bit on religion after the ending for the 4th part, where Walter Sokolow references the namesake of Ishmael the gorilla and mentions that they had decided to name the newly-born child “Isaac” if it was a boy. I didn’t even realize that “Goliath” was also the name of someone until then, therefore the scene where Walter approaches Goliath-Ishmael in the menagerie and saying that he was not Goliath had made no sense whatsoever to me while reading it for the first time.

As I said, this is probably just because of my lack of knowledge, but I still think that the book was a bit unclear at that part. [/spoiler]

Other than those, the fact that…
(spoiler until chapter 8, part 2)

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…the “lessons” have a question & answer sort of plan in themselves helped me get used to the novel and its situation. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, I stop reading after Ishmael asks a question and try to answer it on my own. This was especially evident when the topic was the myth of Mother Culture and the rule(s) men considers himself exempt from. At those times, especially in the latter, having been able to find the answer/part of the answer expected by the teacher affected my view of the novel a bit.

One other detail that aided in me getting absorbed in the novel is that…
(spoiler until chapter 8, part 6)

SPOILER - Click to view

…the student is not named at all. This helps my imagining him alienated from the society and putting myself in his shoes. I don’t know if this is going to continue this way, but my bet would be on “the novel will end before we learn his name”.

Also, I keep a little notepad with me when I’m reading because I feel like I’m in a hunt for sentences that should be written down. I have a few that really do get to me, be it very basic sentences that induce haunty feelings or paragraphs that explain Ishmael’s perspective.

Anyway, that’s generally my thoughts at this point.

Found Ismael* at the library today so I’ll join too I have only read chapter one so far though.
Spoilers for all parts in chapter 1

SPOILER - Click to view

And puce interesting thing with the lines, I haven’t really thought of them when I read, unfortunately I was spoiled that there was going to be a gorilla in the room. I didn’t know it was going to be the teacher though. I was a bit confused if the gorilla was talking or not at first until I came to the explanation of telepathy and that cleared things up.

*Yes Ismael without an h due to it being a swedish translation

Chapter one

SPOILER - Click to view

I immediattly liked the book :content: I like the Gorilla :smile: I have to agree with Puce though, that my lack of knowledge concerning religion was a bit of a problem. But that is probably more my problem then the books :tongue: I really want to know what Ishmael has to teach.

Ishmael, I am reading the english version :smile:

I have read untill chapter 8 now.

[spoiler]The story has definally gotten my attention. It is a good thing that a gorilla is the teachers. The lessons wouldn’t have had a good impact with a human as teacher (for mother cultures works on this human also). I do not totally agree though, I have never thought that humans were the ending station. The story is just told this way because we don’t know what happens next, and because it is easiest to explain this.

I am currently also reading this book: A short of history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. I haven’t finished it yet but it seems like it is indeed heading the way as described in Ishmael. Ending with humans.
[/spoiler]

Chapter 2

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I can’t be sure, but right now, I’m guessing the story Ishmael is talking about Science, that’s why the women could be so calm about the end of the world thanks for having the story of an explanation: Science. If you have an explanation than there is no worries. So the creation myth would be: The Big Bang Theory. I also liked the definitions of Story, Gestalt and Culture.
Story: unites the world, humans and gods.
Gestalt: living the story to create it.
Culture: Humans gestalting a story.
(Don’t know if my translations are correct due to me reading in swedish.

Magnus:

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Instead of “gestalt”, the author uses “to enact”. The definitions you have are all just the same as the book.

(my thoughts in general about the lines now)

SPOILER - Click to view

So the lines, as the strings of the marionette, have a manipulator and a doll now in my mind. However they are not “culture” and “the Takers”. Right now, it feels to me that Ishmael is doing nothing but manipulating the narrator’s ideas by, as he names it, teaching. So as I imagine it, the puppeteer is Ishmael and the doll is the narrator.

(spoiler until chapter 9, part 8 )

SPOILER - Click to view

The story told by Ishmael in the parts 4 through 9 is very interesting in my opinion, and it felt deeper than the preceeding and succeeding chapters. I re-read it a few times, yet it still doesn’t make full sense in my mind. I’m going to have to go over it again when I can concentrate well enough.

(spoiler until chapter 9, part 11)

[spoiler] About the maps… Well, they are fairly inaccurate, which makes them more realistic in my eyes. But seriously, they are over-distorted in my opinion. I spent some time examining them, and obviously Euphrates and Tigris are the only things in the map that resemble the reality. Asia Minor, the Red Sea and the Persion Gulf are in reality not at all like how they are depicted in Ishmael’s maps, and Cyprus was even left out altogether. The Mediterranean Sea is made to look tinier than it actually is, and the Black Sea suffers the opposite. I could go on and on about the problem with the maps, but I guess I should stop here.

I still don’t believe that an educated gorilla like that made such a drawing, and I can’t at all believe that it lacks the hand structure for it.

But thinking of it that way, I also wouldn’t believe in a telepathic gorilla either. [/spoiler]

(spoiler until chapter 10)

[spoiler] Oh no, another religious story! I didn’t know of Cain and Abel again while reading, nor did I have access to sources that could help me, so basically even reading the part when they are talking about it was like skipping the whole part anyway.

I’ve read about that story now, and there’s something I didn’t understand. Does the comparison of the relationships between Cain-Abel and agriculturalists-herders have anything more to it than Cain being a farmer and Abel being more related to animals?

Moreover, other religious stories, like Adam’s Fall, are also present, which I don’t really like even though I’m more familiar with them. With this acceleration, I fear the book might even start quoting a holy book and talk about the quotation in that format.[/spoiler]

(spoiler until chapter 11)

[spoiler] Chapter 10 was much more stressing than how the novel used to be until that point. I had gotten really used to the narrator going to the apartment and having the usual conversation, and the book consisting of almost only conversation. When the new chapter started with “And uncle arrived in town unannounced and expected to be entertained.”, I had to read it a few times over to actually understand that it wasn’t talking about Ishmael or the narrator. The paragraphs kept on going without including the “normal” of this book, and frankly I felt a bit imbalanced myself.

Also, the tension that was created in part 1 was too deliberate in my opinion. Then narrator’s all attempts to find Ishmael back felt underestimated. The rest, how the narrator finds Ishmael in the Darryl Hicks Carnival and how they have another lesson, etc. were all weird. I don’t know, there was something with chapter 10 that was a bit off for my liking. [/spoiler]

That’s where I stopped reading. I have around 50 pages or something left, which will probably not take much. After that I’m planning to skim the book once more to write its theses down so I can consider them all with the whole knowledge of the novel.

Most important thing I learned from Ishmael during my last reading session:
(possible spoiler until chapter 10, part 10)

SPOILER - Click to view

What the rivers around the Fertile Crescent are called in English. I had an illumination moment when I figured out that the English names are actually very similar to their names we have for them here.

Ahh Thanks Puce

Chapter 3

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I don’t agree with that everyone (for example he says that even ALL atheists thinks that way) thinks the universe, earth and so on was for the purpose to create man, create a place for man to live.

Hmm, I don’t know why but I’ve gotten a bit of a dislike for the student after I’ve read 8 chapters now, I liked him in the beginning but I don’t like him so much anymore, don’t know why right now.

Ansie: [spoiler]I agree with you that humans aren’t the end station, nor are they above other animals, the game people play were they tell you if you could be an animal which animal do you want to be? Then I would like to answer human, since humans are animals too :wink:
And talkin about books ending with humans at the present, I think but I’m not sure that “Science of the discworld”(50% science, 50% fiction) just skipped that point and head 200 years into the future instead. hmm it could still have been humanfutur but atleast the were aware of that man isn’t the end product.[/spoiler]

Puce:[spoiler] Cool idea to take a break between each question, I haven’t had time to try and find the answers myself due to speedreadin, even if my theory about the law all civilisations must follow I though would be the Evolution theory.
[/spoiler]

I finished Ishmael.

[spoiler]I am glad that I have read it, I found it a pleasent way to learn someone believes (through a story).

I might not have understood everything completely, for I lack some knowledge of the bible and the English languages (and I read mostly in the train, so no internet :tongue: to check) but I think I did get most of it.[/spoiler]

After you all have finished it we can open discussion :smile: