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Description edit
A novel that uses a continuing conversation between a gorilla and his pupil to examine mythology, its effect on ethics, and how that relates to sustainability. A Socratic style is used through out the book. The novel deconstucts the myth that humans are the end of evolution and that human... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters edit
- Ishmael: A telepathic gorilla who is a teacher.
- Adam: As seen in the creation story, in the book of Genesis.
- Abel: Son of Adam, the Leaver
- Cain: Son of Adam, the Taker, kills Abel because of his way of life.
- Rachel Sokolow: Daughter of Walter Sokolow. She later ends up as Ishmael's supporter and friend.
- Goliath: What Ishmael was originally called.
- Bwana: The temporary, role-playing title of the nameless main character during a Taker-Leaver interview scenario.
- Mother Culture: Taker society, what we believe as agriculturalists.
- Walter Sokolow: A rich Jewish merchant who lost his family in the WW2
- Mr. Partridge: Butler of the Sokolow's.
Quotes edit
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“With Gorilla gone, will there be hope for Man? With Man gone, will there be hope for Gorilla?”
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“Man's destiny was to conquer and rule the world, and this is what he's done--almost. He hasn't quite made it, and it looks as though this may be his undoing. The problem is that man's conquest of the world has itself devastated the world. And in spite of all the mastery we've attained, we don't have enough mastery to stop devastating the world--or to repair the devastation we've already wrought. We've poured our poisons into the world as though it were a bottomless pit--and we go on gobbling them up. It's hard to imaging how the world could survive another century of this abuse, but nobody's really doing anything about it. It's a problem our children will have to solve, or their children.”
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“The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world, just the way Hitler’s mythology of Aryan superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness.”
Ishmael -
“I think what you’re groping for is that people need more than to be scolded, more than to be madeto feel stupid and guilty. They need more than a vision of doom. They need a vision of the worldand of themselves that inspires them.”
Ishmael
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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If you can’t discover what’s keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual.”
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“You’re captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live.”
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“I’m saying that the price you’ve paid is not the price of becoming human. It’s not even the price of having the things you just mentioned. It’s the price of enacting a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world.”
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Perhaps the flaw in man is exactly this: that he doesn’t know how he ought to live.”
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Man was born to turn the world into a paradise, but tragically he was born flawed. And so his paradise has always been spoiled by stupidity, greed, destructiveness, and shortsightedness.”
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“Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself A community of a hundred million species can survive almost anything short of total global catastrophe.
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‘Intensification of production to feed an increased population leads to a still greater increase in population.’
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The premise of the Taker story is the world belongs to man” I thought for a couple of minutes, then I laughed. “It’s almost too neat. The premise of the Leaver story is man belongs to the world.”
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“Third definition: culture. A culture is a people enacting a story.”
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First definition: story. A story is a scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods.”
Highlighted by 140 Kindle customers
First Sentence edit
The first time I read the ad, I choked and cursed and spat and threw the paper to the floor.
Themes & Symbolism edit
Authors & Contributors edit
- Daniel Quinn (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Bantam
Country: United States
Publication Date: February 1992
ISBN: 978-0-553-37540-4
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Bantam
Country: United States
Publication Date: February 1992
ISBN: 978-0-553-37540-4
Page Count: 254
Awards edit
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: 91-25441
- Dewey: 813.54
Notes for Parents edit
Reading Level: Young AdultsBe prepared for some assumed paradigms to be challenged!
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