I brought my copy of Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael on a flight to New Orleans earlier this year. It was time to revisit that book, as a number of strange and alarming revelations were taking hold in this country at the time. I got maybe halfway before the ensuing weekend’s debauchery sort of took over my mental capacity.
(If you haven’t, you should absolutely read this book.)
Sometime during the trip, though, my friend Steve mentioned that he had brought my copy of Tom Robbins’ Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas with him so that he could return it to me. I lent him Ishmael.
(Also: Read anything by Robbins. He’s one of the very best.)
The other night, Steve sent me this shot of one of the later pages. By this point in the book, Ishmael is getting into some very serious present-day ramifications about our “cultural prison.” The reference hit home in 2017 harder than I’d have thought the first time I read the book.
“Donald Trump can do a lot of things I can’t, but he can no more get out of the prison than I can.”
Sandy 