This is the story of a desperate young man in search of a teacher. The teacher he finds is a gorilla named Ishmael, who, being a member of a species entirely different from ours, has an entirely different vision of our history and our roles as human beings.
The story chronicles their conversations over a series of a few days after the young man answers and add in the newspaper reading “Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world”. He is startled by the add because it was something he had thought about in his youth and had long given up on.
It is hard, at first, for him to understand Ishmael’s abstract views on his world. When his eyes are opened the impending power of what Ishmael calls “Mother Culture” he realizes the true nature of our civilization and what it’s doing to the world.
I have no doubt that this book would bring an epiphony upon almost any reader that would be remembered for life. This novel has even been used as text in college courses in anthropology, psychology, etc. and has accumulated a huge fallowing of people who have indeed developed “an earnest desire to save the world”. I believe it will become and important piece of literature in our civilization and will hopefully do more than it’s part to save the world.
