The book topping my reading list over the break was Daniel Quinn's Ishmael. There was apparently quite a bit of hype surrounding this book when it was published. In 1991, in fact, Ted Turner awarded Mr. Quinn half a million bucks (the largest sum ever awarded to a single work of literature) because it offered "creative and positive solutions to global problems." My buddy Aaron Milstead gave me a copy, and he wasn't the first person to recommend me reading it once I mentioned that I'm writing a story about Cain. I went ahead and read it, and the following is my critique. Do not read any further if you have any intention of reading it.

The protagonist of the book reads an ad in the paper: "Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person." The teacher ends up being this telepathic gorilla named Ishmael who reminds me very much of Beast from Xmen. As any guru worth his salt would do, Ishmael leads the protagonist through a maze of mysterious questions whose answers build on each other and eventually form an understanding of why the world sucks and what to do to fix it. Here is the gist of Quinn's solution:

To begin with, Quinn divides the world into two classes of people which he names the Leavers and the Takers. The Takers are those of you reading this blog. Any "civilized" person who relies chiefly on agriculture bought in a store is a Taker. A Leaver is a person who relies on nature like a hunter-gatherer, or who grows only enough food to sustain their needs, and doesn't impose their way of life on other creatures.

These two classes exist because they each are enacting a different story. By story, Quinn means metanarrative, or that which explains our origins, the present, and our destiny. The Taker's story, Quinn argues, is based primarily on the book of Genesis, in which Man takes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Quinn equates "the knowledge of good and evil" with "the presumption to decide who gets to live and who gets to die." Man then considers himself capable of deciding that civilized man gets to live (and expand), and that everything impeding this expansion (including nature) should be brought under submission (or die). This program of expansion, according to Quinn, is against the laws of nature, and will ultimately lead to the downfall of man, if not the extinction of all life on the planet. Hence, the Genesis account is really about Adam deciding he will expand beyond his needs (take from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), and this will lead to his death (severance from the tree of life). He goes on further to say that the conflict between Cain and Abel is actually a conflict over those engaging in the agricultural revolution (Cain) and those who were animal herders (Abel).

The Leaver story is:

• The world was not made for man.


• Our origins were evolution.


• In order for evolution to take place, species must obey the laws of nature (not take beyond what they need).


• There are all sorts of species just waiting to gain self-awareness if man would just quit breaking the laws of nature and allow evolution to continue. Then man can evolve into something else and the other species (the dolphins, etc) can thank us later for letting them evolve.

The answer to all of what's wrong with the world, Quinn suggests, is that we preserve the Leavers that are left on the planet and try to learn from them.

I'm not going for accuracy with the reading above. If some of you who have read Ishmael want to correct me on any points I've missed/misconstrued, bring it up in the comments.

My critique in a nutshell, negatives first:

1. The panacea Quinn puts forward here is too simplistic. Obeying the laws of nature is a good thing, but I see it as only a part of the problem that Quinn is trying to address. Although he admits that his solution doesn't address things like "ethical" issues, I'm afraid the ethical issues are tangled up with everything else. He is guilty of a kind of dualism that seeks to seperate our "physical existence" from our "spiritual existence."


2. Quinn is way too idealistic when it comes to Leaver societies. Anthropological debates on the subject have gone back and forth, but there's data out there showing that Leaver societies are no more well adapted than we are to our environment.


3. His reading of Genesis is far removed from exegesis. He his appropriating a myth for his own purpose, which is fine, but he needn't be pretentious about it. One of the problems with his reading of Genesis is that he sets Cain up as representing the agricultural revolution against Abel who represents animal herding. According to Gen 4:20, however, one of Cain's descendants (Jabal) actually invents herding. He also relegates Eve to some metaphor for overpopulation. He seems to be sentitive to gender issues elsewhere in the novel, but I'm afraid he missteps here.


4. He swallows evolution whole and doesn't attempt to problematize it (e.g. Darwin's Black Box and the other issues which recently fueled the Intelligent Design craze). Also, in order to support the Leaver story, he makes the statement that there are species all over the planet on the verge of evolving into self-aware beings. I would like to see where he gets this data. Also, if the world is not made for humanity, how does he explain that we are the first to attain self-awareness? He seems to write this off as just chance.


5. The message, however, is a politically true message. I mean that in the sense that while not the most holistic solution to the problems facing the world, it is certainly a step in the right direction.


6. Quinn did a great job of conveying the idea in such a way that anyone could "get it." Though perhaps annoyingly slow on the uptake, the protagonist takes his time learning these concepts, giving us plenty of time to digest them.


7. What better way to convey deep truths than from the telepathic mind of a half-ton gorilla?