Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn is one of the most mind-opening, philosophical books I’ve been fortunate enough to read. While the book lacks almost an entire plot (the majority of the book is simply one ongoing or several conversations), its contents are just as, if not more valuable than your typical book. I understood the idea of this book to be, “What would nature say to humans if it could sit down and have a conversation. In this book, nature is represented by Ishmael, a gorilla who has been held captive for large parts of his life. Over time though, he gained the ability to understand language and communicate with humans.
In the book, he presents the human with ideas like human mythology, human culture, captivity, and nature. Ishmael’s thoughts on humans separate them under one of two labels; Leavers and Takers. While specific ideas of what each person would consider the actions and thoughts that differentiate Leavers from Takers, Ishmael says that the main difference that he considers is while the Leavers recognize that they are part of the Earth, Takers consider the Earth to belong to them. While this thought isn’t directly laid out until the end, I think that someone who knew the idea of the book would be able to detect this distinction earlier when Ishmael describes that gorillas in Africa don’t have a view of themselves as individuals as much as they being one of five fingers on a hand, which is just a small part of a larger body.
Something that I really wondered about until recently was why Daniel Quinn chose the writing style that is used. An example of said style would be that the human’s name is never revealed in the whole book. I just lately came to the realization that Quinn intended as such to cause the reader to feel as if Ishmael was talking more to the reader than to the human in the book. The fact that Mr. Quinn does this shows me that he must believe or have the same thoughts as Ishmael, and is trying to convey the ideas to readers.
Until I figured out that Ishmael was a symbol for all of nature if it could have a voice, I took parts of the book very literally, wondering things such as, what is Ishmael doing, living in a Taker society, if he believes that society will cause the destruction of the world? One of those questions helped lead me to reconsider the symbolic essence of Ishmael was “who is Ishmael to know all of this and have this knowledge?” Then I realized that this book is simply Mother Nature talking to a human.
