It is credit to my faith in my father that I picked up Ishmael, knowing it was at all like that other. Leaving aside the rather strange element of the telepathic and exceptionally well-read gorilla, the structure of this story is much like Sophie’s World, a novel I read pre-blog (thus no review here, sorry) and really, deeply loathed. Ishmael relates his life story, and they begin discussing What’s Wrong With The World And What We Can Do About It.

He eventually sits, and our gorilla – Ishmael – “speaks” telepathically to him. A big, scary gorilla behind a glass wall and on Narrator’s side of the wall, a chair. In this anonymous retail space, he finds… a gorilla. (Is “newspaper” the term that dates this story?) Narrator responds jadedly, assuming this is a charlatan, a scammer but still he goes to the address listed, because he has to satisfy his curiosity (and presumably because some part of him hopes that someone out there can really teach him how to save the world). Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Now that it’s “too late”, he’s frustrated to find the following advertisement in the newspaper: The premise is: our narrator (who, I’m pretty sure, remains nameless) is a disillusioned 30-something who, as a teen, had looked for someone to guide his idealistic, revolutionary, 1970’s-style environmentalism, and come out disappointed and cynical.

So, dated? Or prophetic? I’m afraid it stands firm today we can debate whether it’s overly alarmist (ha) or overly optimistic (sigh), but I didn’t run across anything that dated it especially for me. It’s an environmental novel published in 1992. Ishmael comes recommended by my father, and that’s enough for me.

Ishmael daniel quinn review