Abstract
Ishmael an adventure of the Mind and Spirit is a type of philosophical book written by Daniel Quinn, which looks into the lives and myths that define the universe and everything in it. The book starts off with the narrator reading a newspaper. His attention is on a personal advertisement about a teacher interested in finding a student for lessons about saving the world. Incidentally, the narrator has been on such a search but was not successful in his search for a teacher who could offer him lessons on saving the world.
As such, the narrator decides to look for the teacher and thus traces = the teacher’s address as indicated in the newspaper. Surprisingly, he finds no body in the office but a gorilla in a dark room. The gorilla has the ability to speak. Ishmael is the name of the gorilla from the West African jungles but had been sold to a travelling carnival. Through reading books, Ishmael educated himself. In his education, Ishmael’s main concern was to investigate the theme of captivity among humans. However, his interest grew to feature general humanity and the world.
Ishmael introduces the narrator to two groups of human beings; the Takers and the Leavers. According to Ishmael, Takers represent the members consisting of the dominant culture whereby they believe that human beings rule the world. This culture does not have any regulations and aims at dominating the earth and the universe by the help of technology. Leavers, on the other hand, constitute the tribal cultures where they share common features such as simplicity and adherence to governance. Through a critical review of the book, one learns that even though the Takers group appears to be above ecological rules, their culture embraces freefall, with the possibility of crashing upon the depletion of the environmental and biological resources available presently.
Critique
A critical review of the book, Ishmael an adventure of the Mind and Spirit, shows how the author of the book presents themes in an appropriate manner. The main theme in this book is the desire to bring salvation to the world. However, there are other themes in the book that are evident. For example, Quinn presents themes such as personhood and the analysis on the eventuality of things, which serve as the central question propelling the book forward.
First, the author highlights the narrator’s childhood ambition of saving the world. From the analysis, it is evident that such ambitions resulted from lessons on cultural changes of the late sixties. The author capitalizes on the narrator’s passion, as well as the scenario brought about by his passion. Such a strategy helps the author to effectively offer sympathy to an abandoned youthful dream. Through the discovery of a teacher, the author intends to realign the narrator with his childhood dream.
Secondly, the author presents the importance of being a person; or having “self”. The author uses this theme in a number of ways. For example, the gorilla’s personhood can be traced from its captivity. While in captivity, Ishmael was interested in knowing his life, and thus developed thoughts that surpassed the thoughts of other wild animals. In addition, the theme of personhood is showed through naming and renaming of the gorilla.
This is evident when Ishmael was approached by Mr. Sokolow who told him that he was not Goliath. When Ishmael was in captivity, he was referred by the humans as Goliath; a name that he did not like considering that he did not know what it meant or why he was called Goliath. His life was full of boredom and distaste until Mr. Sokolow told him that he was not Goliath and gave him the name Ishmael after buying him from a travelling carnival. The name Goliath is used to allude to the Biblical enemy of the Israelites while Ishmael refers to the cast-off son of Abraham. The author uses the name Ishmael to show the distant relation between animals and humans. This can be compared to the relationship between the offspring of biblical Isaac and Ishmael.
Lastly, the book presents a critical analysis of the reasoning behind the existence of different things in the world. This is evident through Ishmael’s thoughts while in the zoo, as well as in his teachings about humanity and the universe. According to him, while in captivity animals develop the ability to think considering that there is no much to be done while one is in captivity. The author compares the intelligence of Ishmael to that of human beings.
As such, Ishmael is able to think about the existence of different things basing his thoughts on the large socio-cultural structures. Through such structures and the ability to think, the author uses Ishmael to explain the existence of different cultures in the world. An in-depth analysis of these cultures helps the reader to understand that the continued exposure of the world’s resources to technological innovations without careful consideration is likely to cause depletion of resources.