What does sustainability and a gorilla have in common? More than you would think! Well at least in the novel written by Daniel Quinn, titled Ishmael. Thanks to the recommendation of Csibi Magor, the president of WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) in Romania I've read the book and I must say I learned quite a lot from it.
Ishmael is a philosophical novel about the teachings of a gorilla who throughout the years spent in captivity has managed to acquire great knowledge in an autodidactive way and to learn the human language. Thanks to this situation he's in a unique position of being able to see humanity in an objective way, and since he spent his life in captivity and knows what it's like, his main subject is the captivity of man under the distorted civilizational system.
To put it in another way, they discuss the origin of man, what he has done until now, and what is his role in the world. What did go wrong, why there is hunger, pollution, why the world together with all beings in heading to this wrong direction. The whole book is a dialogue between the gorilla and his student and it gives explanation to a lot of unanswered questions.
In my opinion it totally fits the theme of the exchange and I recommend it with all my heart! :)
Huni
Then I would reccomend A Report to an Academy by Kafka which tells a story of a monkey trained to behave like a human. It tells a lot about the cruel relationship between a human and nature and seems quite interesting. Its definitely on my wish list :)
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