Review: Daniel Quinn’s ‘Tales of Adam’ Tells A Different Side of the Story
Steerforth Press
Daniel Quinn was an influential writer, best known for his 1992 novel, Ishmael. The title character, a wise, telepathic gorilla (it’s somehow not as weird as it sounds) reveals cultural misperceptions about what lead to humans’ destructive impact on the planet.
The story unfolds through a series of Socratic dialogues between Ishmael and a well-intentioned—but knuckle-headed—human. The book won the esteemed Turner Tomorrow Fellowship and has become a mainstay of high school and college curriculums for its blend of environmental ethics and anthropology.
Throughout his work, Quinn was focused on human culture—how it gradually pulled us out of balance with our ecosystems, and how understanding our true indigenous roots is a necessary step in reclaiming balanced ways of life.
His books were eye-opening for me when I first read them in my early 40s, and I’m glad lots of younger adults are exposed to them today, because they’re dense with important ideas. However, they’re much too dense for young children.
Enter ‘Tales of Adam’
In 2005, Quinn published Tales of Adam, which is wonderful for introducing children (beginning around age 8) to the indigenous roots of the human species.
It’s a collection of short, mythological stories that follow the biblical character Adam as he teaches his son, Abel, about the ways of hunter-gatherer life. Although Adam and his son are superstars of the Judeo-Christian pantheon, the character names are the only direct references to those religions. In fact, the stories reveal the underpinnings of an entirely different “religion”—animism.
Animism is the catch-all term anthropologists coined for the spiritual beliefs of most indigenous peoples. While specific beliefs and practices vary greatly from one indigenous group to another, the common denominator of animism (as I understand it) is a deep sense of reverence for the landscape and its web of life.
The stories in Tales of Adam show this reverence as a way of life. Like other mythological tales they are poignant and sometimes humorous, and the lessons extend far beyond the hunter-gatherer context. For instance, “The Cockroach Who Held A Mountain on His Back” is an extended metaphor about the futility of trying to resist natural forces. In “Gazelle on a String,” Adam teaches Abel about the intimate link between predator and prey—and ultimately why humans rose to the top of the food chain.
Published by Steerforth Press, Tales of Adam is illustrated with beautiful woodblock prints by renowned artist, Michael McCurdy, who illustrated more than 200 books during his career. Sadly, Daniel Quinn and Michael McCurdy both died in recent years, but their ideas and work remain alive and important in our culture.