Ishmael by Dan Quinn - Learning From Literature

Ishmael by Dan Quinn is a fictional philosophical novel published in 1992.

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General Summary (No Spoilers!)

The novel begins in the early 1990s with a nameless protagonist reading a newspaper advertisement. The advertisement says, “Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.”

The narrator reflects how in the past, he wanted to make a difference in the world as a teenager during the 1960’s counter-cultural movement. However, nowadays, he feels his life is a waste and wants to know how the world can be saved if a movement as significant as the one in the ’60s/70’s failed to change anything. And so the narrator finds himself traveling to the address listed in the advertisement.

When he arrives, he finds himself in a leased office room with a live gorilla. A poster on the wall says, “With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?” The gorilla, calling himself Ishmael, communicates telepathically with the narrator. At first, the protagonist is freaked out, but after Ishmael explains his story, he accepts the situation and regularly returns to Ishmael’s teaching.

The rest of the novel is mainly a dialogue between the gorilla and the still-unnamed protagonist (with a surprise twist at the end). The narrator begins to feel like he understands life thanks to Ishmael’s teachings.

Background

The central portion of the novel is structured in a Socratic form of a dialogue between Ishmael and the narrator.

Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher that sought not to teach anything, but to reveal answers. His method starts with people entering a discussion on a topic. The dialogue then focuses on asking and answering questions to draw out the hidden reasoning behind one’s beliefs. Since the conversation is based on questions and not argumentative statements, it allows the participants to recognize answers for themselves.

The Socratic method is an efficient way of teaching since the lesson is infinitely more memorable and convincing if the student debunks his assumptions himself rather than be lectured on the subject.

In the novel, Ishmael explains how it is impossible to change someone’s outlook by disproving someone’s story about how the world works + replacing it with the truth. He claims you must replace it with another story. For this reason, Dan Quinn uses a fictional story to present ideas more commonly found in nonfiction philosophical books.

Themes

Hidden Biases + Cultural Myths In Society

Through Socratic dialogue, Ishmael allows the narrator (and reader!) to ponder over the hidden biases and cultural myths in civilization, eventually exposing several widely-held beliefs of modern society

Ethics + Sustainability

Ideas such as human supremacy (anthropocentrism) can produce catastrophic consequences for humankind, including even extinction. Ishmael proves humans need to reevaluate our fundamental beliefs in order to create a future that is better for all and ensure the survival of our species

Imprisonment

Ishmael is physically imprisoned for the entire novel (whether it is in an office room or an actual steel cage). However, he explains that most of our society is also in a prison, made even worse because the bars are invisible. People are commonly enslaved by self-imposed obligations to their employers, family, and more. Even many wealthy people become dependent on material things, alcohol, or drugs to escape. Ishmael believes that by being indifferent to money, ambitions, drugs, etc., he has more freedom than most humans

Review

Many fiction novels are stories used to convey an underlying message about a subject. Quinn took it a step further from solely revealing ideas and actively introduced different interpretations of long-held beliefs.

Even though there is philosophical topics brought up, it is through the lens of a story which keeps it infinitely more engaging than reading some old philosopher’s book.

personal thoughts and recommendations

I really enjoyed Ishmael and will reread it in the future (probably multiple times). My favorite elements of the novel are the different interpretations of long-held beliefs and how the novel is framed as a Socratic conversation.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes to view universal human experiences from a different perspective and is a supporter of environmentalism.

Sequels to the novel include The Story of B

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