This book by Daniel Quinn is called "Tales of Adam." It is short, easily read in one sitting (if you are so inclined), probably within an hour or two at most.
Quinn became one of my favorite authors almost as soon as I grew familiar with his works. The first book of his which I read, and the one which he is most famous for, is "Ishmael."
Yet, he has some other really wonderful and thought-provoking reads. This is one of them. It may be short, and if you flip through the pages and even take a cursory glance at the wording, you might even think it is a kid's book.
However, it is nothing of the sort. In fact, the easy-to-read approach and seemingly simplistic language masks some serious and provocative challenges to our lives in modern society. This is not a book that is meant specifically for children, although I once read it to my son when he was still a child. There are ideas, and an overall approach to life, which harkens back to times before humanity had almost entirely grown consumed with modern society and its perceived needs, which are in fact tearing the life giving and life sustaining gifts that this planet provides all life apart, and rendering it increasingly unlivable, as evidenced by the astonishing and accelerating rate at which various species are going extinct.
The two main characters are Adam and his son Abel. Don't be fooled, however. Yes, those names inevitably conjure up certain meanings and clearly religious implications in our modern society. Rest assured that this is not a "religious" book. At least not in the conventional sense, the way we Westerners in our modern society with a Christian background might tend to associate it, anyway. In reality, this book has little to nothing to do with that and, in fact, does not so much criticize the Christian perspective or way as much as offer a very different viewpoint, different priorities and experiences from a time in human history predating the de facto takeover and dominance of Western religious traditions in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions. Surely, many religious minded people (as well as some non-religious ones) would dismiss this work as promoting some kind of primitive tribalism. Some religious zealots likely would even label it as sacrilegious.
No, this is not a religious book in that sense. Yet in point of fact, this also is not a conventional book in any real sense. Quinn felt that our modern world society was too quick to dismiss the religion of primitive tribes of our ancestors. Thus, this book arguably feels like the first sort of scholarly attempt (if that is the right way of describing it) at describing the way "savages", whether Native Americans, or tribal peoples in Africa or Asia or Australia or the Americas, lived and, hopefully if even in small numbers, still live.
"Tales of Adam" is surely very different than anything that you likely have read before. I mentioned that it was by the same author of "Ishmael" and, in fact, was written with the design of being a part of that book, in one of it's many different manifestations. It did not make the cut, so to speak, and yet, it works quite well as a miniature kind of work on it's own. Again, it is short, and hardly really long enough to be a book of it's own. Frankly, I have read novellas which as significantly longer.
Yet, it works. That is particularly true when you combine it with the artwork. Surely, it serves to further illustrate many of Daniel Quinn's points regarding humanity's relation to the wilderness, to nature, and to debunk the myth that we are somehow separate or "free" from it. Here, a father teaches his son the subtleties of "reading" what we would label as "nature" or the "wild," although Quinn himself believed that such terms were merely artificial attempts to separate us from what we are and always have been a part of. This is likely where many people would dismiss this book. But Quinn reminds us with subtle wisdom that we in fact come from and still rely upon other life forms in this planet. That any thoughts to the contrary are feeding into the myth of our independence from that, and which in turn contribute to our self-destructive tendencies.
There are elements of this book which could be described, with a fair degree of accuracy, as religious. Again, not in the modern Western Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, but religious nevertheless. Quinn wrote about "Animism" frequently, and this book is as close as he gets to a religious text of this religion, which used to actually be quite universal. The thing with Animism is that it was not one thing. There was no single book which defined or taught it. In fact, there were no books at all championing it's vision in ancient times, when it was commonly practiced. Yet, it existed, but was more a way of observing and appreciating life. Recognizing that we humans are a part of the "fire of life" as Quinn puts it. In this book, he lays out these beliefs quite beautifully.
Surely, some will dismiss this book on various grounds. As mentioned earlier, it may appear at first glance to be a children's book. While accessible to children, it is something which adults can and should both read and learn from, as well as enjoy. True, it might seem strange or unorthodox, and some likely will dismiss it as silly or somehow irrelevant. In fact, I believe this book to be very relevant, as it focuses on a part of human history which our modern society has pretty much forgotten, possibly intentionally.
All of Quinn's works are thought-provoking, and challenge the assumptions and myths built up by our modern society. In this age when so many are looking for answers to the growing number of questions which people have about life and it's meaning, and when more and more people are challenging the traditionally perceived wisdom of our modern way of life - "civilization" as Quinn put it once, and with quotes specifically placed there purposely - there are few people who truly look at world history and the problems and excesses of modernity and come up with genuine answers. Personally, I believe that Quinn actually does this. And this is one of those gems of a book in which he is particularly poetic in describing how we used to live and view the world, not as something separate from and above nature, but accepting very much that we are part of the fire of life, a strand in the web of life on this planet. That is made plain in this book, and it is beautifully written on top of it.
Highly recommended!
"Tales of Adam" by Daniel Quinn
(first published on February 16, 2012)
"The Charbor Chronicles": "Tales of Adam" by Daniel Quinn
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2012/02/tales-of-adam-by-daniel-quinn.html
I recently reread a book, almost done, called "Tales of Adam", by Daniel Quinn (the same author who wrote "Ishmael"). It is a short book, probably can be read within an hour or two. Do not let the title fool you, nor the name of the two main characters, Adam and his son Abel, because those names conjure up certain meanings with certain implications in our modern society. This is not a "religious" book, at least not in the conventional sense, the way we Westerners in our modern society with a Christian background might tend to associate it, anyway. This book has nothing at all to do with that and, in fact, does not so much criticize the Christian perspective or way as much as offer another viewpoint, different priorities and experiences.. Surely, though, many religious minded people would dismiss this work as sacrilegious (although again, maybe not quite in the way that the popular Western imagination of the modern era might associate it with).
No, this is not a Christian, or religious, book. In fact, it is not a conventional book in any sense of the word, and it seems to me to be the first real scholarly attempt (if that is the right way of describing it) at describing the way "savages", whether Native Americans, or tribal peoples in Africa or Asia or Australia or the Americas, lived and, hopefully if even in small numbers, still live. It is a different kind of a book than probably anything that you have read. I mentioned that it was by the same author of "Ishmael" and, in fact, was written with the design of being a part of that book, in one of it's many different manifestations. It did not make the cut, so to speak, and yet, it works quite well as a miniature kind of work on it's own. Again, it is short, and hardly really long enough to be a "book" of it's own. Yet, it works, when you combine it with the artwork. Surely, it serves to further illustrate many of Daniel Quinn's points regarding humanity's relation to the wilderness, to nature, and to debunk the myth that we are somehow separate or "free" from it.
It is also a unique book, in many respects, teaching something entirely different than almost any other book I know, taking a radically different vantage point. Some might view it as harsh, others surely would dismiss it as weird, and so on and so forth. Yet, I think it might be as close to being able to see the world and our real relation to it as we can probably get, other than maybe reading the words of Native Americans (which I have enjoyed doing as well, especially one book in particular, called "Touch the Earth" - highly recommended!). I am not sure that after reading it, you are ready to abandon everything and go out and live in the wilderness and think that you might actually survive, yet it takes a very different vantage point than almost any other work that I know of, and when it comes to being able to see the subtle signs of other creatures that passed by the particular tract of land that we are currently traversing (imagine we are on another walk in the woods here), it seems that Quinn nails it. A unique work! He has quite a few of them, after all.
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