Funny, i have Ishmael on the list of the next batch of books i get. Heard nothing but good things about it and it seems the type i like - makes you think, isn’t a closed narrow (albeit those can be engaging as well) waltz through the story.
It’s a copyrighted work, so forum rules forbid us from posting links to online versions of it. If it’s not against the laws of your country (as it isn’t in mine), search around. 
oops! sorry for the link, didn’t know about that.
It’s a book worth buying though, you’ll definitely want it on your shelf 
I’ll be back home in less than two weeks. I really had no time to get into Dracula, but I’m definitely joining in the new one, whatever you guys end up going with. 
So is the situation still “deciding next book” or is certain now?
I found a copy of Ishmael while I was randomly looking through some shelves and read a few pages. It already looks interesting to me.
I have a copy of it and I would like to read it 
So I think we have decided? Or does anyone disagree?
Apparently not.
I’m currently at chapter 8, part (or whatever it is called) 6; and I find the novel pretty engaging. In fact, I’m trying to keep my reading speed down a bit so I can contemplate it at times.
The one detail that really draws my attention is the words being connected to the top of the page by lines at the title page and chapter beginnings.
(spoiler until chapter 1, part 6)
SPOILER - Click to view
At first it was intriguing because I thought that Ishmael, being the very much commended novel it is, wouldn’t include details like that just for the sake of aesthetics or anything like that. There had to be a reason for the lines. After Ishmael declared to his newly-found student that their subject would be captivity, those lines started looking like the strings of a marionette controlled by an unseen force.
One thing that pushed me away from the book a bit was…
(spoiler until chapter 1, part 4)
[spoiler]…the use of religious themes. Well, that was obvious from the name of the novel, but my lack of knowledge in that area made reading less enjoyable for me in the beginning. I had to read up a bit on religion after the ending for the 4th part, where Walter Sokolow references the namesake of Ishmael the gorilla and mentions that they had decided to name the newly-born child “Isaac” if it was a boy. I didn’t even realize that “Goliath” was also the name of someone until then, therefore the scene where Walter approaches Goliath-Ishmael in the menagerie and saying that he was not Goliath had made no sense whatsoever to me while reading it for the first time.
As I said, this is probably just because of my lack of knowledge, but I still think that the book was a bit unclear at that part. [/spoiler]
Other than those, the fact that…
(spoiler until chapter 8, part 2)
SPOILER - Click to view
…the “lessons” have a question & answer sort of plan in themselves helped me get used to the novel and its situation. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, I stop reading after Ishmael asks a question and try to answer it on my own. This was especially evident when the topic was the myth of Mother Culture and the rule(s) men considers himself exempt from. At those times, especially in the latter, having been able to find the answer/part of the answer expected by the teacher affected my view of the novel a bit.
One other detail that aided in me getting absorbed in the novel is that…
(spoiler until chapter 8, part 6)
SPOILER - Click to view
…the student is not named at all. This helps my imagining him alienated from the society and putting myself in his shoes. I don’t know if this is going to continue this way, but my bet would be on “the novel will end before we learn his name”.
Also, I keep a little notepad with me when I’m reading because I feel like I’m in a hunt for sentences that should be written down. I have a few that really do get to me, be it very basic sentences that induce haunty feelings or paragraphs that explain Ishmael’s perspective.
Anyway, that’s generally my thoughts at this point.
Found Ismael* at the library today so I’ll join too I have only read chapter one so far though.
Spoilers for all parts in chapter 1
SPOILER - Click to view
And puce interesting thing with the lines, I haven’t really thought of them when I read, unfortunately I was spoiled that there was going to be a gorilla in the room. I didn’t know it was going to be the teacher though. I was a bit confused if the gorilla was talking or not at first until I came to the explanation of telepathy and that cleared things up.
*Yes Ismael without an h due to it being a swedish translation
Chapter one
SPOILER - Click to view
I immediattly liked the book I like the Gorilla I have to agree with Puce though, that my lack of knowledge concerning religion was a bit of a problem. But that is probably more my problem then the books 
I really want to know what Ishmael has to teach.
Ishmael, I am reading the english version
I have read untill chapter 8 now.
[spoiler]The story has definally gotten my attention. It is a good thing that a gorilla is the teachers. The lessons wouldn’t have had a good impact with a human as teacher (for mother cultures works on this human also). I do not totally agree though, I have never thought that humans were the ending station. The story is just told this way because we don’t know what happens next, and because it is easiest to explain this.
I am currently also reading this book: A short of history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. I haven’t finished it yet but it seems like it is indeed heading the way as described in Ishmael. Ending with humans.
[/spoiler]
Chapter 2
SPOILER - Click to view
I can’t be sure, but right now, I’m guessing the story Ishmael is talking about Science, that’s why the women could be so calm about the end of the world thanks for having the story of an explanation: Science. If you have an explanation than there is no worries. So the creation myth would be: The Big Bang Theory. I also liked the definitions of Story, Gestalt and Culture.
Story: unites the world, humans and gods.
Gestalt: living the story to create it.
Culture: Humans gestalting a story.
(Don’t know if my translations are correct due to me reading in swedish.
Magnus:
SPOILER - Click to view
Instead of “gestalt”, the author uses “to enact”. The definitions you have are all just the same as the book.
(my thoughts in general about the lines now)
SPOILER - Click to view
So the lines, as the strings of the marionette, have a manipulator and a doll now in my mind. However they are not “culture” and “the Takers”. Right now, it feels to me that Ishmael is doing nothing but manipulating the narrator’s ideas by, as he names it, teaching. So as I imagine it, the puppeteer is Ishmael and the doll is the narrator.
(spoiler until chapter 9, part 8 )
SPOILER - Click to view
The story told by Ishmael in the parts 4 through 9 is very interesting in my opinion, and it felt deeper than the preceeding and succeeding chapters. I re-read it a few times, yet it still doesn’t make full sense in my mind. I’m going to have to go over it again when I can concentrate well enough.
(spoiler until chapter 9, part 11)
[spoiler] About the maps… Well, they are fairly inaccurate, which makes them more realistic in my eyes. But seriously, they are over-distorted in my opinion. I spent some time examining them, and obviously Euphrates and Tigris are the only things in the map that resemble the reality. Asia Minor, the Red Sea and the Persion Gulf are in reality not at all like how they are depicted in Ishmael’s maps, and Cyprus was even left out altogether. The Mediterranean Sea is made to look tinier than it actually is, and the Black Sea suffers the opposite. I could go on and on about the problem with the maps, but I guess I should stop here.
I still don’t believe that an educated gorilla like that made such a drawing, and I can’t at all believe that it lacks the hand structure for it.
But thinking of it that way, I also wouldn’t believe in a telepathic gorilla either. [/spoiler]
(spoiler until chapter 10)
[spoiler] Oh no, another religious story! I didn’t know of Cain and Abel again while reading, nor did I have access to sources that could help me, so basically even reading the part when they are talking about it was like skipping the whole part anyway.
I’ve read about that story now, and there’s something I didn’t understand. Does the comparison of the relationships between Cain-Abel and agriculturalists-herders have anything more to it than Cain being a farmer and Abel being more related to animals?
Moreover, other religious stories, like Adam’s Fall, are also present, which I don’t really like even though I’m more familiar with them. With this acceleration, I fear the book might even start quoting a holy book and talk about the quotation in that format.[/spoiler]
(spoiler until chapter 11)
[spoiler] Chapter 10 was much more stressing than how the novel used to be until that point. I had gotten really used to the narrator going to the apartment and having the usual conversation, and the book consisting of almost only conversation. When the new chapter started with “And uncle arrived in town unannounced and expected to be entertained.”, I had to read it a few times over to actually understand that it wasn’t talking about Ishmael or the narrator. The paragraphs kept on going without including the “normal” of this book, and frankly I felt a bit imbalanced myself.
Also, the tension that was created in part 1 was too deliberate in my opinion. Then narrator’s all attempts to find Ishmael back felt underestimated. The rest, how the narrator finds Ishmael in the Darryl Hicks Carnival and how they have another lesson, etc. were all weird. I don’t know, there was something with chapter 10 that was a bit off for my liking. [/spoiler]
That’s where I stopped reading. I have around 50 pages or something left, which will probably not take much. After that I’m planning to skim the book once more to write its theses down so I can consider them all with the whole knowledge of the novel.
Most important thing I learned from Ishmael during my last reading session:
(possible spoiler until chapter 10, part 10)
SPOILER - Click to view
What the rivers around the Fertile Crescent are called in English. I had an illumination moment when I figured out that the English names are actually very similar to their names we have for them here.
Ahh Thanks Puce
Chapter 3
SPOILER - Click to view
I don’t agree with that everyone (for example he says that even ALL atheists thinks that way) thinks the universe, earth and so on was for the purpose to create man, create a place for man to live.
Hmm, I don’t know why but I’ve gotten a bit of a dislike for the student after I’ve read 8 chapters now, I liked him in the beginning but I don’t like him so much anymore, don’t know why right now.
Ansie: [spoiler]I agree with you that humans aren’t the end station, nor are they above other animals, the game people play were they tell you if you could be an animal which animal do you want to be? Then I would like to answer human, since humans are animals too 
And talkin about books ending with humans at the present, I think but I’m not sure that “Science of the discworld”(50% science, 50% fiction) just skipped that point and head 200 years into the future instead. hmm it could still have been humanfutur but atleast the were aware of that man isn’t the end product.[/spoiler]
Puce:[spoiler] Cool idea to take a break between each question, I haven’t had time to try and find the answers myself due to speedreadin, even if my theory about the law all civilisations must follow I though would be the Evolution theory.
[/spoiler]
I finished Ishmael.
[spoiler]I am glad that I have read it, I found it a pleasent way to learn someone believes (through a story).
I might not have understood everything completely, for I lack some knowledge of the bible and the English languages (and I read mostly in the train, so no internet to check) but I think I did get most of it.[/spoiler]
After you all have finished it we can open discussion
I have finished the book now too
[spoiler]
I found it interesting though that the student haven’t learned the lesson in , he was trying to save Ishmael because that was the right thing, he was going to save him even if he didn’t want to be safe, as if the student knew what was right and wrong, sounded like a Taker Mindset too me.
Plus the author, also seemed to think that man was special, as being the first of many, why does Man need to be special? can’t she be one animal among all the others.
Hmm, I didn’t think it was as much religious talk as you said but I had at least read those bible stories once in my life, so that might have helped me a bit.[/spoiler]
SPOILER - Click to view
I agree, the author still gave the humans a special place. Saying that they are the first and an example. But it is also noted that humans will not give up their current lives when they don’t get something else to live for. So being an example might be the new thing to live for, wether it is true or not.
I am done with the book as well, and right now around chapter 6 at skimming it again for the arguments and interesting points.
(To what is being talked about right now)
[spoiler] But still, isn’t the special place for the humans well-earned after all? They’re the first known species on Earth with “Taker” and “Leaver” characteristics, although the current knowledge might also be similar to the “University of New Heidelberg in Tokyo” example given by the narrator.
This example is also the thought I’ve gotten from this book that makes me approach skeptically to everything. I mean, I didn’t take everything for true the moment I heard/read/seen/etc. them, but right now, nothing is correct to me. [/spoiler]
Going through the book once more to remember what I thought at the time or to consider those points again left me with the following thoughts, questions and Ishmael’s teachings:
(Chapter 1, Part 1)
SPOILER - Click to view
The first few sentences do draw attention, I admit. But I also felt like the author was trying to disclose some of the personality of the narrator, which I think he hasn’t been able to do effectively enough. So he did seek a teacher for a long time, but why? What pushed him to it?
(Chapter 1, Part 2)
[spoiler] What is the glass for? The narrator says that with his power, the gorilla could easily break it to pieces. So the glass exists to give the narrator an illusion of being safe?
I also didn’t understand how “WITH MAN GONE/WILL THERE/BE HOPE/FOR GORILLA?” could imply that hope for gorillas lay in the extinction of the human race.[/spoiler]
(Chapter 1, Part 4)
SPOILER - Click to view
Walter Sokolow says (when his wife is pregnant) “I anticipated nothing like this when I named you Ishmael,”. Then why had he named the gorilla Ishmael at first?
(Chapter 1, Part 6)
[spoiler] This is around when the lessons actually start. The main point here is this:
The world is a captive of humans, while humans are the captives of a civilizational system that bounds them to destroy the world.
This idea and all is repeated everywhere nowadays that I think that it is now both something we need to get real notice of and something being inculcated to us by Mother Culture.[/spoiler]
(Chapter 1, Part 7)
[spoiler] This is the part with the epistemology assignment with Hitler taking over the world instead of the reality.
I really like the example, and agree with the narrator when he says that it actually doesn’t really matter because it affects nothing. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 2, Part 3)
[spoiler] This is the part with the definitions of Takers and Leavers.
I don’t really agree (considering the rest of the novel as well) that Takers equal civilized and Leavers equal primitive. At least not with the meanings I have for them. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 2, Part 6)
[spoiler] This is when Mother Culture says that the time of Leavers ended and then the time of the Takers began, and Ishmael disagrees.
I may be thinking in a non-commendable way right now, but this is something that’s bugging me: Is it necessary for every little Leaver society to go extinct in order to be able to say that they no longer actually enact a story? Their effect is quite minor that it is not really common knowledge how many societies of Leavers actually exist today. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 3, Part 2)
[spoiler] This is when the beginning of the human creation myth is explained.
What comes to my attention here is the fact that the myth explained here is evolution, not any “creation” myths (I mean as in: “creation needs a higher being as a creator, therefore evolution could not be a creation myth but a “come-to-being” myth instead.” kind of thought process.) that are still believed by many people today. Which takes me to the point that the Mother Culture speaking here is only one of the Mother Cultures that talk to Taker societies. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 4, Part 1)
[spoiler] The novel says here: “The middle of story is when humans move up from being hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists and then civilize.”
I have nothing to question or comment here. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 4, Part 5)
[spoiler] Directly quoting: “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.”
(about Leavers “evolving” into Takers)
I think this is very strong, and also not necessarily correct. I think being a Taker does not exactly mean to be the enemy of the world or to be destroying the world. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 5, part 1)
[spoiler] This is when the novel states that the Takers need absolute control over everything, and that humankind’s ultimate destiny might be to conquer and rule the entire universe.
This might be my “not-being-able-to-see-far-into-the-future”, but I think those will never happen. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 5, Part 2)
[spoiler] Once again direct quoting: “Everyone in your culture knows this. 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.”
(Mother Culture’s inculcations)
Apparently I’m not from the same culture as the narrator in the novel, because I don’t remember ever being told this by Mother Culture. I’ve been, however, told by Mother Culture that she told this to other people, but I (and other people from my culture) always knew it for what it was. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 5, Part 3)
[spoiler] Quoting once more: “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in
which they are the lords of the world, they willac t like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.”
I agree, and have not much to add. BUT, this is where the rare inscriptions in my copy of the novel begin. (I took it from the school library, and many of the English books there used to belong to former teachers.) It says here “that’s why we teach, to give them better stories to enact”. [/spoiler]
(Chapter 5, Part 4)
[spoiler] This is the part that says that Takers need prophets to tell them how they ought to live.
And I guess what the book is actually hinting at around here is that the prophets should actually tell them to live like Leavers.[/spoiler]
(Chapter 5, Part 5)
[spoiler] Says that the flaw in man that made him spoil the paradise could as well be the fact that he doesn’t know how he ought to live.
I don’t have much to think or say here because I don’t relate much. But the part with “how he ought to live” still bothers me (even after the following chapters). I will write about that when the relevant part comes. [/spoiler]
Then comes chapter 6, which I haven’t fully gone over yet. Therefore I stop now.
Good work Puce
You have analysized quite a piece of the book already. I want to start a discussion about the general ideas of the author.
Is he right?
Apparently we all lost interest… And I didn’t continue the analysing because it was too tedious of a task.
Personally I was agreeing with him a lot of times while reading. Yet I can name a big factual error of the author from the top of my head at the moment, which changed all my opinion.
Toward the ending of the book, Ishmael claims that being Takers would exclude humans from natural selection. Thus, he says that Homo sapiens sapiens don’t undergo evolution. This, I know, is wrong. I had spoken to people who studied evolution and I had read a few articles, and confirmed from these sources that we do evolve as a species.
What’s bothering me is how the author used the all-confident tone he used throughout the book at the said point as well. I don’t really trust the author and anything he has written. I can’t go ahead and check everything he says in the book to see if they’re true and false, yet I can’t believe them without checking either.
So all in all, it was a good read for me, but it may have been as true as a fantasy novel.