Ishmael

Ishmael

By Daniel Quinn

OK, look. Before I even begin to tell you why this book sucks, I'm going to flat out tell you: Read this book at your first possible convenience. Read that first sentence again if you have to. I didn't make any grammar mistakes. It reads as it should. I know, that doesn't make sense, but bear with me, I'll explain.

If someone were to ask me to summarize Ishmael, the pseudo-philosophical 1992 novel by Daniel Quinn in one sentence I would say:

Sanctimonious gorilla teaches dim-witted man why humanity is doomed.

"Could you expand on that a little?" you might ask.

"Sure," I'd respond. "Ishmael is the name of a telepathic and hyper-intelligent (for a non-homonoid primate) gorilla. His name is apt because he represents the natural world which is like Ishmael, Abraham's first son, in the Old Testament. See, he's named Ishmael because Ishmael lost his birthright and nature also.... oh never mind, you get it.

Anyway, Ishmael is a condescending ape who teaches this really fat-headed man (who remains unnamed throughout the novel) via metaphor, myth and parable about the way in which humanity is hurtling itself off a proverbial cliff and seems to be mistaking the sensation of falling for the sensation of flying (see, metaphor. I can't escape the style even in review). The nameless man takes so long to understand the simple reasoning of the gorilla that this 75 page book concludes about 200 pages later than it should. Seriously, this novel should be called Asshole Gorilla Talks to an Idiot.

Ishmael is not a good book. Not even remotely. It is didactic pablum at its worst (OK, not at its worst... I did read The Shack, but it's still pretty bad). It at times skirts dangerously close to the realm of new age tribalism (think The Alchemist) and really bad science fiction (think L. Ron Hubbard). The writing is at time almost unbearable and, as I mentioned before, it takes 260 pages (and two sequels, apparently) to get to the crux of Ishmael's argument. Furthermore, its love affair with primitivism is nothing short of hypocrisy and its dismissal of the "noble savage" archetype is irresponsible. Its neo-hippy tone is more than a little irritating and it supposes that prehistoric people were psychic vegetarians living in harmony with nature (as if). Lastly its quasi-religious and pseudo-scientific babble seems to be lifted right out of a Paulo Coelho book. Strike three, four, five, six......

That being said, Ishmael is not without its merits, specifically on the subject of mythology.

Ishmael is not so much a novel but a Socratic dialogue on the nature and history human supremacy on Earth, the way that supremacy is woven into the fabric of our ancient and modern mythologies and how we are all doomed if we do not soon alter our worldview. In fact, despite its multitude of deficiencies Ishmael is the sort of book that I would recommend everyone read. And when I say everyone, I don't mean everyone who likes new age books or everyone who is interested in anthropology or everyone interested in the social behavior of gorillas but everyone, without caveat. 

You might think it strange that I am universally recommending a book I ultimately detested. True, it's a bit of a stretch. But for all its shortcomings, Ishmael raises a lot of interesting topics for debate concerning the nature of man, the implications of the agricultural revolution and the notion of sustainable development. Unlike so many better books about the ecological and environmental degradation of the Earth, Quinn offers up very real and very plausible historical, mythological and anthropological reasonings for our destructive behavior. By dividing our culture into two defining categories (Takers and Leavers) he is able to define the exact moment in history in which we started down the path of global annihilation. I'm not saying he's right, but it's a pretty interesting guess, and one that deserves attention.

Of particular note in this novel is the deconstruction of the creation myth as found in Genesis and the way in which it chronicles the literal history of mankind in a way that was both shocking and decidedly obvious at the same time. I found myself harkening back to my university lectures on mythology and wondered what Joseph Campbell would have to say about Quinn's assertions about the mythological reasonings for Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel and how their story is metaphorically intertwined into the fabric of human history.

As I said, there are better books, both in the genre of fiction and non-fiction, that deal with the issues discussed in Ishmael, but none have presented the material in such a way as to show how deep the idea of destruction is imbedded into our very culture via mythology and history. For no other reason, I would recommend everyone read this novel. It deserves conversation.

What are some other bad books that really deserve to be read?

The Song of Achilles

The Song of Achilles

By Madeline Miller

Where to start concerning Madeline Miller's Orange Prize winning novel, The Song of Achilles. Well, I guess I should begin by saying that I enjoyed this novel. I say that because the rest of this blogpost is going to sound like I didn't enjoy it because I have a bit of a bone to pick with it. But rest assured, it was a thought-provoking novel that deserved award consideration (I can't say it deserved to win the Orange Prize since I have not read the other nominees nor have I read a large enough cross-section of 2012 novels to say anything otherwise). And since it seems to be getting universal acclaim (deservedly, I suppose) I thought I'd concentrate on the negatives for a change.

The Song of Achilles is very much an updated version of Homer's epic poem, The Iliad. Written in the same vein as the classic novel by Mary Renault, The King Must Die (about Theseus and the Minotaur), Miller has taken a well-known Greek myth, humanized it, personalized it and then turned the myth on its head.

In the original Iliad, it is the death of Patroclus (although a minor character in the actual poem, he is described as Achilles's most beloved companion) at the hands of Hector that rouses Achilles from his vain refusal to go into battle into a maelstrom of rage and despair that culminates in the slaying of Hector, Achilles dragging Hector's body around the walls of Troy for several days and the ultimate demise of the "greatest of all heroes" by the bow of Paris. But what was so special about Patroclus that would send a professional warrior into a blind rage so intense that he performs atrocities that even his compatriots and the gods find excessive and repulsive. Warriors watch their friends fall on a daily basis. What of Patroclus? In The Song of Achilles, Miller supposes that Achilles maintains a lifelong homosexual love affair with his Patroclus.

In an election year that sees gay marriage as a major talking point, it's no surprise that this novel has gotten a lot of media exposure. Gay issues are fashionable and a book depicting a popular literary character as gay was bound to cause a stir. But the notion of homosexual relationships among Greek (and Roman, and Persian) warriors is hardly anything new. Homosexual affairs are alluded to throughout the Iliad and Odyssey and mention of homosexual love is rife throughout Greek and Roman history from the Sacred Band of Thebes to the inhabitants of the island of Lesbos. While the most common form of homosexual relationship was pederasty (what is commonly referred to today as pedophilia), homosexuality enjoyed far more acceptance in the Athenian agora than it does in the modern western world. Hell, all of these words (homosexual, pedophilia, lesbian, etc...) descend to the modern English language from ancient Greek. It should hardly come as a surprise that the Greeks were tolerant of same-sex relations in all their various colors.

Which gets me to my first problem with The Song of Achilles. While Achilles and Patroclus don't face any overt persecution for their relationship, there exists an undercurrent of shame and secrecy about their relationship from the start. Achilles mother, the goddess Thetis is openly disgusted with the relationship (OK, she's a goddess and his mother so perhaps we can go easy on her) and more than one character tries to reason with Achilles to cut such nonsense out. Only Odysseus hints at the historical acceptance of homosexuality in the military when he notes that it is customary for young boys to take on a male lover during adolescents. But, he adds, once men come of age, they should not engage in such activities.

The hell?

As far as I knew, homosexuality was not only accepted in the Greek military it was actually condoned. Many armies (Thebes for example) encouraged homosexuality as a morale booster among their troops. And since the Trojan War dragged on for ten years even with the spoils of war one has to wonder whether Achilles was the only Greek king who maintained a relationship with another man. Sure Achilles was a beautifully vain mommy's boy and dressed in drag and had a retinue of girl besties (all in the novel, I'm afraid), but stereotypes hurt us all. Just because he fits a certain demographic doesn't me he should be centered out. There's no reason not to think that Menelaus or Ajax or Diomedes weren't into shopping for designer armor, gossiping about how Agamemnon is such a slut and sashaying down the front lines. I highly doubt Achilles and Patroclus were the only soldiers sharing a bed.

OK, sorry. I got carried away there.

My second problem with this novel is Patroclus himself. He's such an dependent, needy git. The guy can't spend a single moment out from under Achilles's shadow without threatening suicide. A weekend apart once in a while can be revitalizing to a relationship. C'mon dude! Achilles might be the son of a goddess but he's still human. Let's not put the guy up on such a pedestal. You studied with Chiron. You must have learned that all Greek heroes possess a fatal flaw. Unless of course Patroclus is, in his own way, a Greek hero and his fatal flaw is abject blindness to the bleeding obvious. Patroclus is the Bella Swan of Ancient Greek myth.

I hoped that by humanizing these characters, Miller might provide a little light as to why Achilles acted the way he did. While the Iliad remains one of my favorite stories of all time, there are more than a few moments in the story where I questioned the decision-making logic of the characters. I thought The Song of Achilles might shed so light on some of the quirkier moments in the narrative. Alas, I finished the novel as confused about the decision making process of both Achilles and Patroclus. Oh, sure, one might simply dismiss these decisions as the meddling of the Fates, but that seems like the easy way out, especially since the Fates aren't even established as characters in the novel.

But I digress. Like I said at the top, I actually really enjoyed this novel. Much like The Coen Brother's take on The Odyssey via O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Song of Achilles a fresh and innovative retelling of an old story. Don't let my overly critical, armchair intellectual curmudgeonliness hold you back. Madeline Miller can write.

By the way: If you liked The Song of Achilles, pick up a copy of Mary Renault's classic novel The King Must Die. You will not be disappointed.

The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides

By Jeffery Eugenides

Before I get into this, I have a recommendation to make for anyone thinking about reading this novel. Do not, under any circumstances, read this book while feeling sad. Don't read it if you feel depressed, down, off, low or even slightly unhappy. And, for the love of God, do not read this book if it has been raining consistently in your vicinity for more than a week (in my case, three weeks). I'm not the sort to suffer from depression (mild or sever) but this book put me in a serious funk.

OK, on with the show...

The Virgin Suicides is the 1993 debut novel by Jeffery Eugenides. It is a book I have been meaning to read for over a decade but circumstances have conspired against me all that time (conspiracies include: forget about the book when I'm in the bookstore, bookstore doesn't have the book, living too far away from bookstore, book is obscenely expensive and I refuse to buy it). After reading and reviewing Eugenides more recent novel Middlesex last year, I decided that enough was enough, ordered it on my Kindle and finally sat down and read it. So to say that this book was built up in my mind is an understatement. There was literally a decade of anticipation burbling under the surface as I delved into this one.

Without going into too much detail, the story is about five sisters who, in the course of a year, each commit suicide. It charts the build-up and execution (no pun intended) of the first suicide and the slow, painful descent of the Lisbon family in the wake of tragedy. It also follows the trajectory of the neighborhood who don't seem to have the emotional capacity to deal with the disintegration of a member group in the community. The novel itself seems often reads like a community coping mechanism, albeit too late. In a broader sense, The Virgin Suicides encapsulates the social and emotional isolation of suburban America. Heady issues for a debut novel, Mr. Eugenides!

Eugenides employs the seldom utilized first person plural narrative, which took some getting used to. The narrator, as far as the reader can tell is a boy within a very large social circle living in the same community (although nameless, clues in the narrative suggest that the community is somewhere in suburban Detroit circa the mid 1970s) who speaks for everyone in his social circle from a point several years after the suicides. The narrative reads like a formal introduction (via collection of evidence and interviews) for some sort of investigation (or perhaps memorial) into the suicides, but the reasons for the formality remain unclear to the very end. It had the effect of reading a modern myth narrated by a Greek chorus.

Once I settled into the narrative style, I decided I liked it for several reasons. The first person plural encapsulates the thoughts, memories and opinions of a large group of people in the community and, therefore creates a semi-omniscient narrator. We experience the story through the eyes of the entire community, which gives the feeling of an urban legend (myth) come true. A lot of the details in the book are gained by heresy and conjecture only adding to the obvious distortion of the truth throughout the novel. Many of the "facts" contradict and there is often a measure of dissent among the interviewees on specific details. All this makes The Virgin Suicides a pleasure to read for those who love narrative nuance.

But the narrative style works very well on a second level. Despite the semi-omniscience of the community, it never penetrates into the actual thoughts, memories and opinions of the Lisbon girls, which is the crux of the story, after all. The narrative style builds a metaphorical wall around the girls (to go with the literal one that is their house and parents). This distance from the subjects places them firmly on a pedestal in the mind of the narrator and, in turn, the mind of the readers. The girls are literally and figuratively out of reach. They are completely intangible and, therefore, lapse into the realm of legend in the minds of the local boys. The girls achieve a distant, almost ephemeral quality in the novel. They are already ghosts at the beginning of the novel and only seem to drift farther from reality as the story progresses. These girls exist only in myth and the motives of the narrator suggest myth making.

Surely, if the narrator had gained more access to the girls while they had been alive, they would have been more human. There are glimpses of their humanity in the book but the narrator seems to miss willfully miss them in order to preserve the girls mythical status. But one gets the impression that the narrator has no intention of humanizing these girls. The Lisbon girls have infected the boys in this community so thoroughly that they will never full recover from what transpired and their particular coping mechanism is to mythologize rather than humanize.

On a second level, this novel deconstructs the deep isolation of the post-World War II North American suburban experience. Eugenides does a spectacular job with setting (as he did in Middlesex). He encapsulates the loneliness and tedium of life in these communities. And this story derives from the dichotomous desires of people who want calm and serenity while simultaneously desiring chaos and disorder. This is best represented in the book during the sub-plot involving the on-going community plan to eliminate Dutch Elm disease in the community trees by cutting them all down, reducing the neighborhood to a barren, naked landscape. The plan is both systematic and chaotic, much like the quietly desperate lives of those who live in the suburbs.

Did this book live up to its reputation (a ten year build up)? Absolutely. Eugenides proved (to me) with Middlesex that he is a significant force in the literary community. Going back and reading The Virgin Suicides only confirms that the pedigree was always there. My recommendation is that if you have not yet read this book, do so. It deserves to be recognized as a modern classic. I finished the book the day before writing this and since I insist on writing my blog within a day of completing a book (to keep it fresh as well as to see what sort of spontaneous nonsense comes out of me) this blog post cannot and will not do this novel justice. There is so much to this book and I fear I will need to re-read this book before too long.

I just hope it doesn't rain when I do.

The Power of Myth

The Power of Myth

By Joseph Campbell

Note: I am finally caught up on my vacation reading. These blog updates will now come at more reasonable intervals as I actually finish books I'm currently reading.

In my mind I invite the following three people to my house for dinner: Richard Dawkins, Joseph Campbell and C.S. Lewis. somewhere after a delicious smoked salmon dinner while we lounge in the parlor sipping a glass of port I pose the following question:

Ryan: Is there a God?

To which I imagine I would get the following responses:

Lewis: "Unequivocally, yes."

Dawkins: "Categorically, no."

Campbell: "Who cares?"

The Power of Myth was Campbell's literary swan song from 1988 and coincided with a PBS special of the same name. The book reads as a long interview with Bill Moyers and after having finished it, I'm already wondering whether this was the best possible introduction to Bill Campbell, a writer I have been dying to read for quite some time.

First off, the interview style lets Campbell go off in all sorts of directions concerning mythologies from around the world while only loosely adhering to a particular theme. I have a decent handle on mythology via the Bible, Edith Hamilton, a smattering of Eastern texts and whatnot, but I couldn't call myself an expert on the subject either. So it was difficult to follow a man with a lifetime of learning, especially as he jumps from Pima Indian folklore to Japanese legends to Hindu myths. But I managed and came away with a lot to think about.

I especially enjoyed the moment when he told the story of how he feared his teaching would rattle the faith of his more religious students. He worried that his more dogmatic students might question their faith based on the recurring themes in mythology and how that fit within the framework of their own beliefs, somehow lessening them. What he found instead was that these mythologies actually illuminated their religious lives, added color to their beliefs.

As for me, an avowed atheist, I found that a lot of what he wrote made a lot of sense. We as people spend a lot of time wondering about the purpose of life and whether or not God exists. Campbell argues that life has no purpose and the existence of a personal god is beside the point. Mythologies don't exist as a way to explain this world and the afterlife. They are constantly evolving lessons (often anthropomorphized) that help us understand that we do not move through this life alone. Myths play an important role in our journey through life and they are just as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago. God has very little to do with it. n fact, the idea of god (or gods) is up for debate. The idea of God, in fact, is inward, rather than outward. God is within us rather than the unknowable being in the sky. each of us is a god and we find god within the other.

Oh man, trying to sum up Campbell's ideas in a single paragraph sounds like the ramblings of a new-age weirdo. I'm not really doing him justice. But to be fair, the book isn't well organized. I realized that I need to read some of Campbell's earlier work to get a firmer handle on his teachings. The Power of Myth was not the best place to start. But the book fell in my lap and if nothing else, it has whetted my palette for more.

I also quite liked the bits about Star Wars. I'm glad Campbell died before the prequels were made. I suspect his insistence on George Lucas being a modern myth-maker would have disintegrated had he seen Jar Jar Binks