Kris is a physicist and teacher of full contact self defense courses to women and girls near her Menlo Park home. She also belongs to a book club. Here's what she wrote:
"I recently tackled The Story of B by Daniel Quinn. I'm not sure I would have kept reading it if it hadn't been assigned for my book club, but I'm glad I did.
"It follows up on ideas put forth in Quinn's 1991 book Ishmael, which I have not read.
"I read unaware of the fact that Ishmael and The Story of B are novels designed to espouse philosophical, save-the-world musings of the author. I suppose I make it sound somewhat trite to balance the view of the characters in the book to whom these ideas are alarmingly radical and the answer to saving humans from ourselves.
"The ideas put forth in the book are intriguing and, I'm sure, will make for a very lively discussion. For instance, the East and West world-views and religions are seen as both part of ONE dominant culture, as twins separated at birth. Whether striving for Nirvana or Heaven — it's still a salvationist religion based on escaping earth. That ‘single' culture is contrasted with the myriad of native or primitive cultures in which humans are part of earth and nature, not separate from it. There's an attempt to condone a return to the more primitive way of life without glorifying it.
"As I said, intriguing ideas. Some of the theories, however, were presented with a disappointing amount of hand-waving. And it's a novel. There is a plot and a bit of suspense. Just enough to keep me intrigued and amused.
"Don't read it if all you want is a good story. Rather, it's a very provocative book with grandiose ideas. Great for generating thoughts and discussion.
"It seemed a rather fitting book to read after Sophie's World which was the last book our club read. I think that perhaps Guns, Germs, and Steel would be an interesting companion to The Story of B. Both books are concerned with how it is that one culture dominates so much of the globe."
As an ideological advocacy novel this one sounds like a product of Ayn Rand (pasteboard characters, few events, and lots of talking). I asked Kris what the reading group talked about when they got around to discussing the book. Her answer was
"The book club was disappointed in the quality of the writing, but B did provoke an interesting conversation on systems of agriculture and their impact on the current state of the world."
Now I was even more curious, so I went researching on the web. Kris hadn't given us much in the way of specifics about the book. A quick search on Google.com brought me this from the publisher's web site:
"The Story of B begins with Jared Osborne, a priest of the Laurentians (an order under an ancient, covert mandate to stand watch against the coming of the Antichrist), being sent to Central Europe to investigate an itinerant preacher known to his followers only as B. When Father Osborne finally tracks B down, he is startled by the power and originality of his teachings.
"Pressed by his superiors for a judgment, Osborne is driven to penetrate B's inner circle, where he soon finds himself an anguished collaborator in the dismantling of his own religious foundations.
"Continuing the visionary journey begun in Ishmael, The Story Of B is a remarkable and provocative novel of intrigue involving the Antichrist and the hidden history of the world."
To me, this is sounding weirder all the time. So I look for reviews at Amazon.com. There I found this from Kirkus Reviews
"Loose sequel to Quinn's debut novel, Ishmael , the odd and controversial winner of the $500,000 Turner Tomorrow Award. In Ishmael, a young neophyte more or less accidentally apprenticed himself to a great talking ape, allowing Quinn to string together a series of Socratic dialogues on mankind's woes.
"Here, the device is much the same. We meet a young Laurentian priest, Jared Osbourne, who notes early on that the Laurentians still observe an old injunction: to watch for the appearance of the Antichrist. Jared is sent by his superior to investigate an itinerant European preacher known as B, a.k.a. Charles Atterley. Atterley isn't satanic in the least, however, nor even very religious, so the ‘Antichrist' tag is just a platform for Quinn to do his own preaching, which is reminiscent of the ape's declamations in Ishmael.
"When B is assassinated for his views, it makes little sense in terms of the plot, since all B does is talk (and talk)--he doesn't cast spells or plot world dominion. He talks about how primitive cultures were divided up into "Leavers'' and "Takers,'' how these ancient archetypes are still working themselves out, and how overpopulation will, in the next century, come near to obliterating us all.
"Modern agriculture, which Quinn thinks of as ‘totalitarian' because it's so divorced from nature, will not address the needs of 12 billion people (the UN estimate of how many of us there will be by 2040). The novel's format is artificial and far-fetched, but no matter: The author writes a facile, clear prose, and the ideas he wants to discuss are admittedly important. Quinn is a provocative thinker. Imagine a combination of Robert M. Pirsig for style, Ayn Rand for cardboard characters on soapboxes, and the Unabomber for a nature-centered but slightly menacing feel. The combination equals Quinn, and makes for a helluva rant."
This sounds in part like the adoration of the hunter-gatherer. That began, as best I can tell with the noble savage idea. It got a boost in the 1960s with the work of Richard Lee, a Harvard anthropologist who worked with the !Kung bushmen in Namibia. He described them as a peaceful, friendly people in harmony with nature. He made them sound like a living reminder of the stereotype of the pre-contact Native Americans. This trend was boosted by recent theories about Neolithic cultures where women were not only in charge, they were worshipped.
Sounds more and more like a cult novel. At least I wasn't the only one to associate Ayn Rand with the form of the book. At Amazon.com they have this wonderful commercial device to identify commonalities among customers. So, when you look up a book at Amazon.com, the web site will tell what other books have been purchased by people who bought the one you're looking at. If Quinn's book is a cult novel, what else would we expect buyers of his book to buy? Turns out they mostly bought other books by Quinn. Not surprising for a cult book. Quinn's fans also bought books by John M. Gowdy , Theo Grutter, Marvin Harris, Paul Hawken, Michael H. Shuman and Jean Liedoff. I don't know most of those names, but Marvin Harris is an anthropologist and popularizer of the academic discipline. Paul Hawken is a new age capitalist (founder of Smith and Hawken and advocate of green capitalism).
Since Amazon.com offered, I also looked at what other things Quinn's buyers purchased. Guess what. They bought CDs by Enya, the Grateful Dead, Paul Oakenfold, Bjork, KD Lang, Eric Clapton and BB King, Amon Tobin and Son Volt. They also bought the video of The Sound of Music. Go figure.
Kris added that the recently-arrested FBI agent who spied for the Russians used the code name B. I asked if that might be related to Quinn's book. Kris wrote, "B is the character who passes on information, spreads the new ideology, so I wouldn't be surprised." Another time to go figure.
one the web:
