It reminds me of
Moby Dick, MAD Magazine's parody of
Moby Dick ("Call me Fishmeal."), and
Daniel Quinn's awful novel
Ishmael, where
Ishmael is a smug, telepathic gorilla.
I'm not a huge fan of it aesthetically. I like
Ismael a bit more, but I'm still not crazy about it. Nothing wrong with
Ishmael and its variants, but they're just not my thing.