Decent autobiography, 15 Apr 2002
This book is worth reading but I would recommend it only if you've read either Ishmael, My Ishmael or Beyond Civilization first. It is quite a thin book and not the most informative autobiography I've ever read but you leave it feeling satisfied. It's very concise and so easy to get through. Apart from the story of his life there are also some interesting sections in there about education and about how he lost his faith in reilgion (he lived in a monastery for a while). If you like Daniel Quinn's other books read this because it provides an insight into how he arrived at his beliefs.

Derivative and overblown, 03 Feb 1999
Quinn's description of his "fifty-year vision quest" has moments of honesty, depth, and passion. But I found his constant celebration of the "uniqueness" of his ideas and his books overblown if not ridiculous. The notion that he has stumbled onto insights no one has had before is silly. See Fritjof Capra, David Bohm, and many of the Romantics.

Much of this book is an extended blurb for his "Ishmael" --- and his estimation of the latter is also overblown. It was an interesting treatise dressed as a novel. But it too is derivative. Not that there is anything wrong with that unless, as does Quinn, you celebrate your own orginality.

Finally, as a psychological self-study, I found much of Quinn's vision quest to be self-delusional. He says he is over his first failed marriage, and then he smugly mentions that his ex-wife's second marriage failed as well. He says he one day solved all of his psychological problems in a moment of insight, but picks at his old scars throughout.

Providence was mercifully short and mildly interesting. But I would suggest you take your own vision quest elsewhere.

A story for anyone who read Ishmael, 17 May 1998
Providence is of course a book for those who've read Ishmael and felt enlightened by it. But I think it would also be good for those who feel Ishmael has poor facts & co. It's about the man behind the book, whose life will astonish anyone who reads it. One can't imagine a life being such an interesting story to tell. One certainly can't imagine Daniel Quinn to have lived it. Providence gives a more detailed explanation of what is going on in this world, and an FAQ.

More answer for more question., 15 Jul 1997
Simple and easy to understand, this book provides not only additional answers for Ishmel's curious readers; but also life experience and knowledge from a funny, wise loving thinker! If you can't have enough of Ishmael, you will be with "Providence"

Read this to understand the man who wrote Ishmael., 30 Jan 1997
For those of you who were also stunned and fascinated by Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, this book is required reading. It tells the marvelous story of how Quinn came to be the man who could write Ishmael. Part mystery, part comedy, Providence keeps you wondering how the story of Quinn's life will end (not completely, of course, just up to the writing of Ishmael). Written in an easy conversational style, Providence is the essential sequel to Ishmael, because it provides an extension and context for the ideas introduced in Ishmael. Read Ishmael first, and then you will read this book over and over again.

Decent autobiography, 15 Apr 2002
This book is worth reading but I would recommend it only if you've read either Ishmael, My Ishmael or Beyond Civilization first. It is quite a thin book and not the most informative autobiography I've ever read but you leave it feeling satisfied. It's very concise and so easy to get through. Apart from the story of his life there are also some interesting sections in there about education and about how he lost his faith in reilgion (he lived in a monastery for a while). If you like Daniel Quinn's other books read this because it provides an insight into how he arrived at his beliefs.

Derivative and overblown, 03 Feb 1999
Quinn's description of his "fifty-year vision quest" has moments of honesty, depth, and passion. But I found his constant celebration of the "uniqueness" of his ideas and his books overblown if not ridiculous. The notion that he has stumbled onto insights no one has had before is silly. See Fritjof Capra, David Bohm, and many of the Romantics.

Much of this book is an extended blurb for his "Ishmael" --- and his estimation of the latter is also overblown. It was an interesting treatise dressed as a novel. But it too is derivative. Not that there is anything wrong with that unless, as does Quinn, you celebrate your own orginality.

Finally, as a psychological self-study, I found much of Quinn's vision quest to be self-delusional. He says he is over his first failed marriage, and then he smugly mentions that his ex-wife's second marriage failed as well. He says he one day solved all of his psychological problems in a moment of insight, but picks at his old scars throughout.

Providence was mercifully short and mildly interesting. But I would suggest you take your own vision quest elsewhere.

A story for anyone who read Ishmael, 17 May 1998
Providence is of course a book for those who've read Ishmael and felt enlightened by it. But I think it would also be good for those who feel Ishmael has poor facts & co. It's about the man behind the book, whose life will astonish anyone who reads it. One can't imagine a life being such an interesting story to tell. One certainly can't imagine Daniel Quinn to have lived it. Providence gives a more detailed explanation of what is going on in this world, and an FAQ.

More answer for more question., 15 Jul 1997
Simple and easy to understand, this book provides not only additional answers for Ishmel's curious readers; but also life experience and knowledge from a funny, wise loving thinker! If you can't have enough of Ishmael, you will be with "Providence"

Read this to understand the man who wrote Ishmael., 30 Jan 1997
For those of you who were also stunned and fascinated by Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, this book is required reading. It tells the marvelous story of how Quinn came to be the man who could write Ishmael. Part mystery, part comedy, Providence keeps you wondering how the story of Quinn's life will end (not completely, of course, just up to the writing of Ishmael). Written in an easy conversational style, Providence is the essential sequel to Ishmael, because it provides an extension and context for the ideas introduced in Ishmael. Read Ishmael first, and then you will read this book over and over again.

Huh?, 26 Aug 1999
This is one book I simply didn't "get". I got the impression the authors were trying to be funny in a Monthy Python kind of way. If so, they failed miserably at it, in my opinion. If not, I haven't got the slightest idea what moved them and the publisher to put this book in print; I saw no redeeming value in this little publication whatsoever. That may say a lot more about me than about them, but, there it is.

Caution: Fantastic, comic fiction!, 19 Mar 1999
Did you know that in the afterlife a wind storm can leave your brain in such a shamble that you believe yourself a bicycle? That Borges completes after his death his Biography of the Infinite? That afterlife physicists Rotnac and Rekcur believe the other side is an anti-universe composed in part of charmed anti-quarks? Neither did I, but that's what I learned in this decidedly nutty, bizarre, fantastic, comic fiction. Quinn and Whalen have constructed the craziest, cleverest book I've read since, say, Queneau's Exercises in Style or O'Brien's wacky afterlife novel The Third Policeman. The authors perform their magic with a straight face, but don't be deceived--this is anything but a straight book.

Hey up there! Louder! (And funnier...), 31 Dec 1998
Ahh, well. Judging by the other reviews, this is a "cult classic" by one of those guys who figures out how to write cult classics and then makes a career of it. As a professional outsider I hadn't a snowball's chance in...the afterlife.

The book is plainly intended to be funny, and I had the intuition that the authors were lampooning something--but I still have no clue exactly what they're poking fun of. The Tibetan Book of the Dead? H. L. Gold's American Book of the Dead (or whatever it's called)? Both are on my list but I want to learn Gaelic and German first, and that may take awhile.

Without any grasp of the context within which this work exists, I can only call it shallow, mean-spirited, and worst of all, boring. Self-indulgence at its worst. Save your money--or learn a foreign language instead.

A Weird and Wondrous Book!, 20 Apr 1998
A diabolically wild collaboration between Daniel ( "Ishmael") Quinn and one of my favorite science fiction authors Tom ("Roithamer's Universe") Whalen. I've never ever seen a book like this one. It's a compendium of the Afterlife, but an Afterlife unlike any I have read about before. There are "do's and don't's," concerns concerning Zeno's paradoxes and particle physics, and even summaries of books written in the Afterlife by Asimov, Nabokov, Trakl, Arthur Godfrey, Lucy Terry (the first African- American poet), and Nikola Tesla. Also, check out the great photo-collages by Greg Boyd (of Asylum Press fame). A weird and wondrous book. How in the world did the authors trick Bantam into publishing such a delight!