[MD] Definitions.

[David Thomas]

Hi Dan,

Thank you for pointing out in a positive way, what I did in a negative one.

Dave


On 2/16/13 7:19 PM, "Dan Glover" <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello everyone
> 
> On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 3:50 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> 
>> Arlo said:
>> Or they read LILA and saw Lila as the hero and Phaedrus as the enemy, rather
>> than the dialogue between them, and are stuck in Lila's assessment of
>> Phaedrus-as-intellect as "A big phony smokestack. That's exactly what he is.
>> He thinks he's so smart. It's all over his face. And he's not smart. He's
>> stupid. He doesn't know anything. He doesn't even know what a hustler is. He
>> doesn't even know how stupid he is." (LILA).
>> 
>> Dave Thomas replied:
>> Why would Pirsig, the author, put this kind of line in there? Could it just
>> be that he was a little more aware of his biases.  That he was a "left
>> brained kind of guy" with little direct experience with the Zen, holistic,
>> context,  right side. Maybe as caution to others with the same bias to be
>> aware of that condition.
>> 
>> 
>> dmb says:
>> I think you have it backwards, Dave. Lila, the character, is obviously not
>> giving us an accurate report about Phaedrus. Her contemptuous attitude toward
>> him is only consistent with HER character and personality. She's a wash-up
>> prostitute with very little social quality and no intellectual quality at
>> all. She's not capable of understanding him or his world. She's a woman a
>> very low self-esteem and she's lashing out in anger. She's calling him stupid
>> (170 I.Q.) is a projection of sorts. His intelligence makes her feel stupid
>> and she hates him for that. "He doesn't even know what a hustler is," she
>> says, as if intelligence were about familiarity with crime, vice, and sin in
>> the dirty piss-soaked  streets of New York. Her perspective is very limited
>> by her ignorance and distorted by her mental illness. That's what these lines
>> of dialogue show. She's the title character but she's nobody's hero.
> 
> Dan:
> I think this goes a little deeper, Dave. Remember, Lila IS the author.
> I asked Mr Pirsig about this once:
> 
> DG:
> Rigel seems representative of the negative quality that celebrity
> brings in its wake. I get the feeling that the character of Rigel was
> modeled after more than one person?
> RMP:
> No Rigel is just me, setting the stage for the MOQ. I tried to think
> of the best attack I could make and then put it in his mouth. One
> interviewer asked me, ³Are you really Phædrus?² The answer was, ³Yes I
> really am Phædrus. I also really am Richard Rigel. I also really am
> Lila. I also really am the boat.²
> 
> Dan comments:
> What this says to me is, Robert Pirsig is (in a way) projecting
> himself into these characters to a) illuminate the differences between
> the biological (Lila) the social (Rigel) and the intellectual
> (Phaedrus) levels and b) to create a kind of tension in the narrative
> which helps the story along.
> Lila is portrayed in the way she is to help flesh out the
> characteristics of someone caught in a biological web of love, hatred,
> jealousy, envy, lust, etc. She attacks Phaedrus and his 'intellect'
> not because she doesn't understand it, but because she understands it
> all too well. She's been looked down upon her whole life.
> Rigel is the moralist. He wants to save everyone from themselves,
> including Phaedrus. Even though he attacks 'the great author' at
> breakfast, his objective is not to harm him but rather to tell him
> about Lila and the kind of woman he is allowing himself to become
> involved with. Of course there is Rigel's background with Lila to take
> into consideration as well.
> Still, on a deeper level, Robert Pirsig really IS all these
> characters, as well as the boat, the Hudson river, the ocean itself.
> The story line of Lila is one of going from slavery (being stuck in a
> lock going down the St Lawrence sea way to the Hudson (and stuck with
> Lila) to death (Lila's insanity) to finally arriving at the ocean,
> where slavery and death give way to freedom after going through the
> ritual of 'burying' Lila's doll.
> The characters all mirror this story line. Lila retreats into a
> biological shell; Rigel becomes responsible for Lila; Phaedrus is
> finally set free. Now, to say Lila is nobody's hero is to disregard
> this progression which mirrors life itself. Lila may seem like a
> low-life alcoholic loser prostitute glomming onto any port in storm,
> but in fact (as Phaedrus says) she is the one moral lesson of the
> whole story. She is in many ways the only real hero.
> 
> Anyway, just an observation,
> 
> Dan
> 
> http://www.danglover.com
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