Ishmael (novel)
First edition
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| Author | Daniel Quinn |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Philosophical novel, Secret History |
| Publisher | Bantam/Turner Books |
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Publication date
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1992 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 266 p. |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 24068428 |
| Followed by | The Story of B |
Ishmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn. It examines the mythological thinking at the heart of modern civilization, its effect on ethics, and how this relates to sustainability and societal collapse on the global scale. The novel uses a style of Socratic dialogue to deconstruct the notion that humans are the pinnacle of biological evolution. It posits that anthropocentrism and several other widely accepted modern ideas are actually cultural myths and that global civilization is enacting these myths with catastrophic consequences. The novel was awarded the $500,000 Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award in 1991, a year before its formal publication.
Ishmael ultimately comprises a loose trilogy, including a 1996 spiritual sequel, The Story of B, and a 1997 "sidequel," My Ishmael. Quinn also details how he arrived at the ideas behind Ishmael in his autobiography, Providence: The Story of a Fifty-Year Vision Quest. Yet another related follow-up book to Ishmael is Quinn's 1999 short treatise, Beyond Civilization.
Ishmael begins with a newspaper ad: "Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person." The nameless narrator and protagonist begins his story, telling how he first reacted to this ad with scorn because of the absurdity of "wanting to save the world," a notion he feels that once he foolishly embraced himself as an adolescent during the counterculture movement of the 1960s. However, he responds to the ad anyway and, upon arriving at the address, finds himself in a room with a gorilla. He notices a polysemous sign that reads "With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?"
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