Peeling the banana peel back a little further...

I just noticed something: The protective outer layer of a banana is called a "peel," and verb of removing that layer is "peeling." Interesting. That sounds like something Ishmael/Daniel Quinn would observe.

But that's not what the title of this post refers to.

The title of this post refers to the interesting yet depressing prose that I'm encountering more of the deeper I delve into Ishmael.

In the latest section I've covered in Ishmael, the novel has moved a bit out of the initial "How things came to be this way" question and more into the "Why are they this way" and "Where are things going" questions. And so far it isn't looking too good for mankind. It's easy for a gorilla to trash talk humans, because he's not one! What have gorillas contributed to society?

Well, according to the silverback himself, it's not that gorillas have contributed to society, nor is it their contributions to society that matter, but rather that gorillas and all animals alike (bar humans) follow a law. This law, Ishmael assures our narrator, is the same type of law that governs gravity or thermodynamics.  It's a law that concerns how all animal ought to live, but the problem is that some people "about ten thousand years ago said man is exempt from this law" (119).

An interesting analogy Ishmael uses to infer the consequences of breaking this law goes as follows: a man trying to build an aircraft jumps off a high cliff with his aircraft. To move the wings, he pedals. Initially, the flight seems to be going great; he is moving through the air and the wings are flapping, "just like the bird!" However, he notices in the valley below him, many an abandoned aircraft. He cannot contemplate why anyone would abandon an aircraft. He also notices the ground rushing up at him at an accelerating rate. He thinks that if he pedals a little harder, he'll be okay. But that ground is still rushing up. The aircraft is doomed, and so is the man unless he abandons it. Ishmael goes on to say that mankind is the aircraft, and those abandoned aircraft are ancient civilizations; the Maya, the Anasazi. Some people think that if we pedal a little harder, civilization will be okay. But the ground is rushing up towards us at an accelerating rate.

This is a little depressing. It's a little depressing because there's a good amount of truth in it, especially when looking at the impact humans have had on the environment. It's obvious that humans have taken the earth and left it worse than we found it. The global temperature is rising. The Middle East is blowing up. David Bowie died. What is going on? There are those of us that are what one could call either pessimists or realists, who realize that the aircraft is crashing and we don't know when it will happen, but it isn't looking too good for mankind. There are also optimists who think if mankind "pedals a little harder," the damage we've inflicted unto the earth will heal or stabilize or improve and we can live on the way we have for several hundred, if not thousand, years. Reading Ishmael is pulling me towards the former group, similar to how the gorilla pulls the man in this YouTube video. I hate to sound like Al Gore, but it's a bit of an inconvenient truth. For the record, the I don't support Al Gore, and Mark Zuckerberg is to thank for the Internet.

Ishmael has yet to state what this law the humans should live by is, but I think we'll be getting to that soon. I feel like if it was such a monumental law, however, it would be publicly acknowledged and Daniel Quinn would win a Nobel Peace Prize or something. Again, this is where Quinn's credibility comes into question. Anyway, this section mostly discussed how man has been lazy towards following the laws of nature and also destructive towards the earth, and that mankind is doomed. It's pretty depressing, and something tells me there's no bag of bananas at the end of this philosophical typhoon.

Al Gore: sophisticated fraud. I almost feel like the narrator of this novel is Al Gore. That would explain a lot.