{"id":3513431,"date":"2025-06-04T10:32:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T10:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/?p=3513431"},"modified":"2025-06-04T10:32:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T10:32:27","slug":"the-story-of-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2025-06-04\/the-story-of-b\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of B"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh No. Is\u00a0Do the Math<\/a>\u00a0about to get hijacked for another\u00a0long series<\/a>\u00a0about a\u00a0Daniel Quinn book<\/a>, like it was for\u00a0Ishmael<\/a><\/em>?<\/p>\n

How about just a\u00a0really long<\/em>\u00a0post?<\/p>\n

The Story of B<\/a><\/em>\u00a0is the second in a series of three books associated with the wise gorilla, Ishmael, and his teachings. Some report \u201cB\u201d as a more powerful book than the first (Ishmael<\/em>). For me, they sort-of run together, and I have trouble remembering which book focused on which point. That\u2019s part of why I started the project of\u00a0capturing the\u00a0Ishmael<\/em>\u00a0content<\/a>, and here do something similar for\u00a0The Story of B<\/em>. I figure if it helps me keep the books straight, it will help others, too.<\/p>\n

In this post, I sketch the content of the book. I am not tracing much in the way of story elements. I\u2019m not even fully fleshing out the key arguments, but making more of a map so that I or others can more quickly revisit key parts, or get a quick refresher on the entire book\u2019s flow and content. For those who have not read the book, I hope it serves as encouragement to do so.<\/p>\n

Format<\/h3>\n

The Story of B<\/em>\u00a0is formatted somewhat oddly (and unfortunately, in my view). A former student of Ishmael\u2019s is touring Europe giving countercultural lectures somewhat under the radar. He has acquired the nickname of B for unclear reasons (could be Blasphemer, Beelzebub, the Beast, etc.). Anyway, the book is chopped into a chronological diary of sorts, with five lengthy lecture transcripts interjected as footnotes that point to appendices in the book.<\/p>\n

It is not made explicitly clear how one should read the book. Should the lectures be ignored, to be picked up someday when bored and having nothing else to do? Or should they be read instantly upon reference in the main text? Daniel Quinn recommended the latter, and I can\u2019t muster any compelling argument to do otherwise. I mean, the lectures provide crucial\u00a0context<\/strong>\u00a0for the rest of the book, frequently referenced within the main story. Personally, I think it would have worked better if the lectures had been placed in the main text, and not displaced to the back. Because, really: jockeying two bookmarks is asking a bit much! The lectures are like spinach to a kid, when the rest of the plate has pizza, fried chicken strips, and a hot dog. I, too, would rather continue reading the enjoyable story part\u2014experiencing an internal groan when asked to leave it for a lecture. Compared to the main story, the lectures are not interactive, are more intellectually taxing, and require some discipline to \u201ceat\u201d when other temptations beckon.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s a quantitative argument. I took notes in a small notebook as I read the book. I wrote 184 lines of material. Of these, 67 come from the main story, and 117 from the lectures. In terms of page count, 235 pages comprise the main story, while 89 cover the lectures. That means 64% of the noteworthy content was concentrated into 27% of the pages, so that the nutritious density of the lectures is 4.3 times that of the main book. Though it may be more difficult to digest, the bulk of the meal is in the lectures. Skipping them misses an awful lot.<\/p>\n

In this post, I will intersperse the two, reflecting the (chronologically-correct) order in which I read the material. The overall flow is as follows (each entry has page numbers and an indication in parentheses of how many lines of notes each generated for me).<\/p>\n