When it comes to reading, I will never have as much time as I would like. Because of this, I try to be selective about what I read. With the sad knowledge that I will never be able to cover every book ever written, I do depend on intelligent and highly perceptive friends to expose me to great books outside of genres I might tend to be overly inclined to read. One such friend campaigned pretty hard for me to read this novel, Ishamel: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. According to her it was a terribly enlightening book that really made one think. Since one of the lead characters is a talking gorilla, I figured she was probably right.

Setting out to read Ishamel, I wasn’t quite prepared for what was to come. I figured this would be a ‘thinker’ type book, but boy does it go deep and wide when it comes to covering intellectual territory. This is not to say that the book is dry because it’s not at all. Rather, the subjects covered tend to trigger greater thinking that the reader will do themselves, thus making the book seem a whole lot bigger than it really is. It’s not a long read and you won’t be faced with miles of overly scholastic jargon to try to decipher.

From what I see online, most reviews tend to be focused on what the reviewer thinks the author is trying to say. Since this is a piece of philosophical fiction, it ends up meaning that they either concur with the writer or pick apart different passages or concepts within the book’s pages. I don’t want to do either of that. The basic premise of the book is that the gorilla serves as a non-human observer of human culture and discusses his observations with our lead character. This means there is precious little action in the book so you won’t want to get overly focused on the use of the word ‘adventure’ in the title. An adventure of the mind? Yes. An adventure of the spirit? Honestly, that’s a little obtuse. While the book plays emotional and intellectual chords pretty well, I’m undecided on whether it’s a literary triumph or merely an exposé on the blatently obvious facts of life which humans tend to overlook. I’ll let you decide which best describes the book, of course.

I do think that this novel covers fascinating territory such as history, mythology, sociology, philosophy and how human civilization tends to operate on the mass scale. With the crux of the book being that humans tend to act out the stories that they believe about the world, it’s going to open some eyes, offend some minds and assure others that they’re correct. Again, it all depends on how you perceive the story itself.

For me, I’d definitely recommend Ishmael because I think it’s a very good story to know about and I feel it makes some spot on observations about our species. That’s no guarantee that it’s a story which will please every reader, but it is definitely something different. If you’re looking for a good book that will trigger some thinking along the lines of the Zeitgest film that’s available on Google videos, then this could very well be your book.  I know I certainly don’t regret following my friend’s recommendation.

Visit Don Winslow’s website to find out more about his books: http://www.ishmael.com/

Click here to get your hands on “Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit”

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