Ishmael

While the content itself doesn't age well, given humanity is experiencing a fertility crisis instead of an overpopulation crisis, the core theme of extinction holds up. It's not hard to imagine some minor tweaks to the book resulting in a more on-point book. However, I have a soft-spot for philosophical books, so I'll give it four stars over its more accurate three stars.

Wow... I mean, it's essentially an essay surrounded by quotation marks and the words "Ishmael said", but oh, what an essay!

Really forces you to confront some difficult and rewarding to answer questions about culture and civilized society.

"Must read" for anyone dabbling in anarchist or leftist theory, but probably quite enjoyable for folx not doing so.

Best book you'll ever read about a man and a gorilla having a series of borderline telepathic conversations about the nature of man as an animal.

It views human behavior through the lens of animal behavior as observed in nature, and it makes a lot of sense. It makes some of our worse traits like a capacity for war and murder seem reasonable if not necessarily excusable.

During these times of rampant conspiracies, irrational government, vacuous leadership, and societal degradation, this book rings truer today than when it was first penned. Daniel Quinn's recently updated 1992 philosophical novel continues to speak both urgently and succinctly for our planet and species. Perhaps, we will heed the call.

Well spun out argument.

Good background reading to understand "green", left wing party narratives (like the Dutch "party for the animals").

(I appear to have listened to the abridged version).

One of the more interesting reads lately. I have a nagging feeling I was lied to - yet I cannot figure out whether it was the book or the world all these years. If nothing else, it certainly got me thinking and that in itself is a great feeling.

The fact we are destroying the world is not lost on me. The fact this is getting worse and worse is not either. Mother Culture is telling us to keep destroying ourselves with the hope of greener pastures and technological fixes just around the current corner. Yet the more we try get ahead in the game of life - the more dead we are becoming. More detached from the community of life all around us. Are we really any happier than we would have been in a cave? Any less stressed about tomorrow? Maybe it’s the price of enacting a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world.

But hey -at least we are not at the mercy of Gods (most of the time). Is the complete independence and control of our environment really something achievable? And even if it is - would that really be a good thing for the world as a whole? Or just us?

This is a book that sets out to save the world. It asks that I reject my human-chauvinist brainwashing. What does it mean to give such a book 3 stars--to say "It was good." Is it like damning with faint praise?

If the book was an adventure, let me admit I had one. It was a brief vacation from my normal human ways to which I have now sort of returned. It's not that I reject the book's argument. I found it amusing (more faint praise) despite the didactic nature of its presentation.

And, yes, something must be done to fix things, and soon. But a political movement that refuses to try and treat diseases because death is part of the nature of things seems impractical to me. I can't see it catching on. And if it doesn't catch on, the world won't be saved in this way.

Maybe it's the only way and we're doomed. Maybe doom is part of the nature of things. Maybe I just want to go on adventures while Rome burns.

Psychologically, I believe the real problem lies elsewhere. It's a religious problem--not Cain vs. Able--but one of expanded consciousness, whatever that means. There, I've said it. It's not that the "takers" were wrong and the "leavers" were right. That's like siding with the Masochists over the Sadists, though Daniel Quinn would say I'm not getting it. And I do side with the Masochists.

I don't think that humans are just animals with a deformed brain. There's a Vonnegut novel that starts from that premise. I liked that novel better even though I disagree with the conceit. Vonnegut probably did too and was just being satirical. I prefer the satirical to the didactic and if that dooms me, I'll live with it. Or die with it.

I've read the actual book before and didn't realize the audiobook was abridged - I felt dirty after listening to it and finding out!

Um... it's about the teachings of a telepathic gorilla who (by dint of being an animal and not a human, presumably) has attained the wisdom necessary to learn how humanity can avoid destroying the world.

It had its interesting points, despite the Socratic dialogue format, with the narrator being basically a (particularly dull and two-dimensional) foil, breaking up the gorilla's long monologues with a continuous refrain of "I don't know" or "I don't understand."

Basically a very long philosophical essay, thinly draped in fiction (much like [b:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance|629|Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance An Inquiry Into Values|Robert M. Pirsig|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157065130s/629.jpg|175720]). Not sure what audience the author hoped to reach -- I thought it was too condescending and simplistic for those who are already environmentalists, but those who aren't will be immediately turned off by its new-agey tone and, well, totally silly premise.