>>25363194
Dumb fucking book. I had to read it and My Ishmael as part of a special enrichment class in high school. Dumbest shit ever.

>>25363204
In what way?

>>25363208
It's simplistic nonsense constructed so the author can sperg his hippie "philosophy" at his audience. I get how it could seem eye opening to a 14 year-old who hasn't had a chance to develop his or her beliefs but it's really just like reading something based on a really retarded version of shit the Dalai Lama says.
>war is bad and will destroy humans if you keep it up
>people fight wars because humans need to imagine they're conquering nature and this is the pole of that
>humans are super arrogant and everything wrong in the world is because of arrogance
>everything changed in society when people started locking the food up because that's when and arbitrary set of people started controlling the larger group of people
It's just lame, man. I remember feeling insulted as I was reading it. It's like hanging out with an arrogant boomer lecturing you about things on a very surface level but having the pretense he's granting you an audience to hear his profound wisdom. Ishmael is never challenged at all in either of the books so there's no exercise wherein the reader is allowed to entertain what assumptions underpin the hippie shit he spews at you.

It just sucked, man.

>>25363204
>special enrichment
This sounds so wrong

>>25363227
Got any other philosophical novels aside from Dostoy and Camus and this one that are better?

>>25363208
I just looked at the blurb in OP and it does have clarity going for it though. It's very clearly written and super accessible that way so I'll give it credit for that.

>>25363228
It was a class you had to apply to get into and it took place a couple times a week during lunch period. You got credit for it so taking it allowed you to take an extra spare that semester or some semester in the future. It was "special" in the sense it wasn't something most high schools had and it was literally called "enrichment." There were three levels depending on which grade you were in but they all took place at the same time in the same room.
>>25363230
>Got any other philosophical novels
Sorry, not off of the top of my head. That's not the type of fiction I usually read. If you like Ishmael you'll probably like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance though. You could also check out collections of essays from people associated with New Journalism like Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe.

>>25363230
Oh, I just remembered the woman who ran the course had a book titled "Nigger" on a shelf in her office. I think it was a biography of some black activist in the 60s so that might be interesting for you. I can't remember any other books she had, I think it's obvious why I'd remember that one, but she put the courses together and was responsible for us reading Ishmael/My Ishmael so maybe it will be to your taste.

Sorry if I was harsh about something you liked. I have a headache. Oh, she had a copy of that book "The Four Agreements" too. I remember now because a girl a friend of mine was trying to screw in uni got him to read it. I think it was self-help though. Also, I've never read these but I'm guessing Tuesdays with Morrie (or whatever it is), The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and The Alchemist are all along the same general vibe as Ishmael (probably not in the sense they have a sperging gorilla engaging in dialogues though, lol). Those are pretty famous though so you've probably heard of them.