Book Review: 'Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn Part One

I have worked at many jobs in my life, in large part due to my outright malice towards domesticated culture. Amongst the jobs that I have held is the job of book seller. Amongst the list of accomplishments from this job of which I am proud there is this: I have personally sold roughly 650 copies of Daniel Quinn's novel Ishmael in my three years as a book seller.

This book is the seed from which many open minds have sprouted, it is brilliant and life changing. So rather than give a single review of it, I am going to examine it in detail and extrapolate from it my conclusions and how this book relates to the Free Path.

let us begin.

Teacher seeks Pupil

Must have an earnest desire to

save the world. Apply in person

That is the ad that begins the novel. That is where everything starts and where we shall start. This quote is on the back cover of the book, as well as on the second page of the first chapter. What does this say to you? Does it seem trite? Do you think the writer must be a charlatan? Are you intrigued? Are you daring to hope? The narrator is all of these things and more.

The ad explains several key things to us. The ad is not a fancy advertisment full of images and flashy type, just a simply classified ad. The ad is asking the reader to think big "earnest desire to save the world". The ad is about understanding something "Teacher seeks Pupil".

The sense of the ad is one of an outsider with a special knowledge, and strangely a knowledge that is not easy to give away. After all the teacher is advertising in the classifieds not in a full page ad, there is no heavy advertising budget behind this project.

It is an interesting idea- knowledge of how to save the world that is hard to give away. In James Redfield's "Celestine Prophecy", a shadowy vaguely governmental group is after the secret to stifle it. Here the secret is being given away and the teacher is evidently having difficulty doing so at all.

Why would it be hard to give away information on how to save the world? Perhaps for the same reason that is hard to give away information on how to lose weight- because the truth is unpopular and people will more readily buy an appealing lie rather than a stark truth?

And this is where Ishmael begins.

If you have not read and bought Ishmael you should do so now.