Hi! Having just read Glenn's response to Jon's enquiry, I felt compelled to
jump in. Please pardon my impetuousness. However, there is an issue present
in ZMM and I believe expounded further in LILA. Namely, that Phaedrus is the
reality of what the narrator has become and that the "sane" individual that
the narrator tries to portray himself as is only a shell, a walking ghost
that is the result of shock treatments, a "normal member of society". In the
neat little boxes that our culture has developed in which to categorize
individuals, there is little room for "breakthroughs", so our community
tends to refer to them, instead, as "mental breakdowns." In ZMM, the
motorcycle trip is the subconscious attempt of the narrator to find the part
of him that is missing. The Chautauquas, while instructional to the reader,
are, at the core, the reconstructions of bits and pieces of memories that in
conjunction with visits to familiar locations (e.g. Bozeman), is helping
the narrator, albeit subconsciously, to become Phaedrus again, for Phaedrus
has experienced a Satori. He is what dynamic quality is. Once the narrator
reunites fully with his enlightened self, we see a positive change in Chris'
perception, as well. Phaedrus is who he really needs as a Father, and who we
really need as a teacher.
In LILA, Phaedrus further expounds on the subject of what we conventionally
refer to as insanity. I have loaned out my copy of LILA, so please excuse
the absence of a direct quotation. But, if I may paraphrase, the subject is
raised by Phaedrus that if one person has a viewpoint, approach, habits that
seem alien to society that we regard that person as insane, but if two or
more agree with or follow that one person, it may just be a religion (or a
philosophy). If any of the group has access to the passage in question,
seeing it again would be most enlightening. Thank you for the opportunity to
contribute.
ThracianBard
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 10:56 PM
Subject: Re: MD Glenn
> Jon,
>
> JON:
> I'm curious: as one of the MOQ's more vocal critics, is there anything
at all
> that you admire about Pirsig, and his two books? Did you like ZMM or
LILA
> better?
>
> GLENN:
> There are probably two broad reasons why I like ZMM so much. Firstly,
> the book has marvelous literary structure, and it is this structure that
> makes the book work. I'm not sure any other structure would work as
well.
> Pirsig is very ambitious. He wants to tell you his life story, and he
> wants to tell you his philosophy, and both are very complicated. He
wants
> to stress the importance of the journey in describing both, and he wants
> it to be personal without being melodramatic. And he wants to pass on to
> the reader life lessons which he has worked very hard to learn. The
> structural elements that help him do this are:
> - a very personal viewpoint, told from the first person narrative.
> - a description of his philosophy and life lessons in a series of essays
> (Chautauquas) which start out fairly easy and get more and more
> challenging as the book progresses.
> - a sense of here and now that is the motorcycle trip. This grounds the
> reader in some kind of reality and is essential for giving the reader a
> chance to breathe. But even the trip takes on a kind of drama, where he
> develops an unresolved tension between himself and his son.
> - he uses flashbacks as the ghost of Phaedrus returns to haunt his
> consciousness.
>
> But its how he uses these methods together that's so effective, trading
> off among trip, essay, and flashback, going round and round just like
his
> philosophical musings go round and round. At first the essays are
> triggered by events on the trip, but later they are triggered by the
> events in the flashbacks. And as the book moves along, the passages
about
> the trip get shorter and shorter, the essays get more and more
difficult,
> and the flashbacks get longer and longer, coinciding with his slippage
> out of reality back into Phaedrus at the story's culmination. All of
this
> is brilliantly conceived and executed. At the end there is a wonderful
> crystallization, where he realizes what the blockage is between himself
> and Chris, and he grabs hold of what is truly important in life, saving
> himself from the abyss.
>
> The second broad reason I liked ZMM is because of the subject matter.
> While I'm not much of a philosopher I do enjoy philosophical musings and
> of course I love science. I loved the whole Quality subject and all the
> little tangential subjects and observations he discusses. I'm telling
> you, this guy could be me! I don't think it's worth going insane over,
> but this doesn't make the Phaedrus character any less fascinating. He
> gives us a rare and revealing tour of the thought processes of not only
a
> philosopher but a recovering madman and a struggling father.
> For all the intelligence and insightfulness of his
> inner voice, for example, he is remote and wooden when he speaks to
> Chris. I thought this was very realistic, a common problem in smart
> people. Pirsig covers all kinds of ground, from the abstractions of
> subject/object duality to the practical quandries of work being "stuck"
> by the stripped grooves of a screw head. If anything you'll gain a new
> appreciation for quality, that mysterious thing that creative people
> strive for, that good thing that you can't quite describe but you'll
> know when you see it. It's the thing that happens when a person starts
> understanding how an object works, or when troubleshooting you start
> selecting the helpful facts from the unhelpful ones, or when your mind
> is free when doing a repetitive task, or when you decide you want peace
> of mind, not just a fixed machine. Pirsig gives some fascinating
> techniques for teaching students how to write, a wonderful character
> description of a taciturn welder, a triumphant showdown with his
> University of Chicago professor, and a painfully brief but striking
> glimpse at a man at the height of his breakdown. And I loved the
> Chautauqua about gumption traps! We all know what they are but have we
> ever read about them before?! And Pirsig isn't perfect. He leaves a lot
> left unanswered about Phaedrus ideas, for example, and his multi-themed
> approach doesn't always tie together. But he even writes about that -
the
> messes people leave whereever they go. And he's to be forgiven for not
> getting the theory across to us because he went through that shock
> treatment. So even that works in the book. We're talking flawed
> individual here. If you think ZMM is a textbook or treatise on the
> Metaphysics of Quality, and that this should make or break the book,
> you're missing the point. It's a brilliantly conceived and brilliantly
> crafted auto-biography. It's like nothing I've ever read before or
since.
>
> I wrote this email in July 1999 to a friend who, at my urging, had just
> finished ZMM. It was in response to a rather unflattering review of hers.
> I was disappointed she didn't like it, and I wanted to tell her why I
> thought it was good. But I realized I couldn't answer her questions about
> his ideas about quality, because I didn't really understand them myself.
> These questions led me to this website.
>
> Certainly I like ZMM better than Lila. Lila has good parts, too. He makes
> you think. He's a good read. I can't say how I'd feel about ZMM if I read
> it straight through again, because I understand so much more now. This
> website made me look at his ideas more critically, in a way I'd never done
> when I read the books for my own enjoyment. I've learned a lot here.
> Glenn
>
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