[MF] Is the pinnacle of human experience a rational or irrational thing?

[Michael Hamilton]

Kevin,

I think you're right to pick up on that aspect of ZMM, i.e. the
narrator's narcissism and lack of attention to personal relationships.
Pirsig deliberately included that aspect, because, in addition to
everything else, ZMM is Pirsig's critique of the narrator. You wrote
that you "feel for Chris and Robert". Good - that was Pirsig's
intention!

The return of Phaedrus at the end of the book is crucial to this. That
line, something like "I suddenly realise - Chris has been staring into
my back for the whole ride!" is the crux.  Basically, I'm saying that
you shouldn't equate Pirsig as author of ZMM with Pirsig as the
narrator character of ZMM. ZMM is auto-critical as well as an
auto-biographical.

Regards,
Mike

On 1/10/06, Kevin Perez <juan825diego at yahoo.com> wrote:
>       Ted, Mike,
>
>   Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
>
>   I suspect the reason I'm seeing ZMM the way I am, this time has everything to do with
>   my perspective.  But that's just stating the obvious.  What is different about my
>   current read of ZMM is that I'm making a deliberate effort to look for relationships.  I'm
>   trying to evaluate Pirsig's relationships with people and things.  With which
>   relationships does he devote most of his time?  Which relationships energize him the
>   most?  With which relationships is he the most passionate?
>
>   He shares his thoughts and feelings on just about everything from the value of a beer
>   can as shim stock to his friendships with the Sutherlands and the DeWeeses to his
>   displeasure with the young mechanic's performance (re: tappet covers) to the quality of food to his relationship with Chris and of course to his thoughts on technology, philosophy, metaphysics, reason and quality.
>
>   It seems to me that Pirsig devotes most of his time and energy to the development of
>   ideas.  It's ideas, not personal relationships, that seems to energize him the most.
>
>   From chapter 28:
>
>        The eggs are good. The ham too. Chris talks about the dream and how it
>        frightened him and then that's done with. He looks as though he's about to ask a
>        question, then doesn't, then stares out the window into the pines for a while, then
>        comes back with it.
>
>        ``Dad?''
>
>        ``What?''
>
>        ``Why are we doing this?''
>
>        ``What?''
>
>        ``Just riding all the time.''
>
>        ``Just to see the country -- vacation.''
>
>        The answer doesn't seem to satisfy him. But he can't seem to say what's wrong
>        with it.  A sudden despair wave hits, like that at dawn. I lie to him. That's what's
>        wrong.
>
>        ``We just keep going and going,'' he says.
>
>        ``Sure. What would you rather do?''
>
>        He has no answer.
>
>        I don't either.
>
>        On the road an answer comes that we're doing the highest Quality thing I can think
>        of right now, but that wouldn't satisfy him any more than what I told him. I don't
>        know what else I could have said. Sooner or later, before we say goodbye, if that's
>        how it goes, we'll have to do some talking. Shielding him like this from the past
>        may be doing him more harm than good. He'll have to hear about Phædrus,
>        although there's much he can never know. Particularly the end.
>
>   This makes me sad.  I feel for Chris and for Robert.  And, for the sake of his
>   exposition of Quality, I wish Pirsig had devoted more time and energy to the
>   development of this part of the book.
>
>   From chapter 12:
>
>        I suppose if I were a novelist rather than a Chautauqua orator I'd try to ``develop the
>        characters'' of John and Sylvia and Chris with action-packed scenes that would
>        also reveal ``inner meanings'' of Zen and maybe Art and maybe even Motorcycle
>        Maintenance. That would be quite a novel, but for some reason I don't feel quite up
>        to it. They're friends, not characters, and as Sylvia herself once said, ``I don't like
>        being an object!'' So a lot of things we know about one another I'm simply not
>        going into. Nothing bad, but not really relevant to the Chautauqua. That's the way it
>        should be with friends.
>
>   And I suppose if I were to take Pirsig at his word then this explanation should satisfy.
>   But it doesn't.  Which is why I'm raising the question.
>
>   I suspect a deeper reason why Pirsig chose not to develop this side of the book has
>   something to do with the tendency of most middle-aged American males of his
>   generation, when it comes to sharing with others the value and meaning of one's
>   personal relationships, to focus on the head stuff, not the heart stuff.
>
>   I think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an excellent read.  And I think it
>   would have been an even better read if Pirsig had developed the second thread.
>
>
>   Kevin Perez
>   Onward and downward.  Be compassionate.  Love.
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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