What Is the Book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance About
Writer Robert Pirsig and his son Chris in 1968. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died Monday at age 88. William Morrow/HarperCollins hide caption
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William Morrow/HarperCollins
Author Robert Pirsig and his son Chris in 1968. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died Monday at age 88.
William Morrow/HarperCollins
Robert Thousand. Pirsig, who inspired generations to route trip across America with his "novelistic autobigraphy," Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died Monday at the age of 88.
His publisher William Morrow & Company said in a statement that Pirsig died at his dwelling in Southward Berwick, Maine, "after a menses of failing health."
Pirsig wrote just two books: Zen (subtitled "An Inquiry Into Values") and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals.
Author Robert Pirsig works on a motorbike in 1975. William Morrow/HarperCollins hide caption
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William Morrow/HarperCollins
Author Robert Pirsig works on a motorbike in 1975.
William Morrow/HarperCollins
Zen was published in 1974, later beingness rejected by 121 publishing houses. "The volume is brilliant beyond conventionalities," wrote Morrow editor James Landis before publication. "Information technology is probably a work of genius and will, I'll wager, reach archetype status."
Indeed, the book speedily became a best-seller, and has proved indelible every bit a piece of work of popular philosophy. A 1968 motorcycle trip across the West with his son Christopher was his inspiration.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt reviewed Zen for The New York Times in 1974. "[H]owever impressive are the seductive powers with which Mr. Pirsig engages us in his motorcycle trip, they are nothing compared to the skill with which he interests us in his philosophic trip," he wrote. "Mr. Pirsig may sometimes appear to be a greener‐America proselytizer, with his beard and his motorcycle tripping and his talk nigh learning to honey technology. But when he comes to grips with the hard philosophical conundrums raised by the 1960'south, he can be electrifying."
Pirsig was born in Minneapolis, the son of a University of Minnesota law professor. He graduated from high school at xv and enlisted in the Army later World War II. While stationed in Republic of korea, he encountered the Asian philosophies that would underpin his work. He went on to study Hindu philosophy in Bharat and for a time was enrolled in a philosophy Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. He was hospitalized for mental illness and returned to Minneapolis, where he worked as a technical writer and began writing his first book.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of simply ii books that Pirsig wrote. It has endured every bit a work of popular philosophy. Alan Levine/Flickr hibernate explanation
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of only 2 books that Pirsig wrote. Information technology has endured as a work of popular philosophy.
Alan Levine/Flickr
Pirsig too helped institute the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, so lived reclusively and worked on Lila for 17 years earlier its publication in 1991. "A skilled mechanic, he performed repairs in his home workshop," writes the publisher. "He taught himself navigation in the days before GPS, and twice crossed the Atlantic in his small-scale sailboat, Aretê."
The protagonist of Zen attempts to resolve the conflicts betwixt "classic" values that create machinery like the motorcycle, and "romantic" values like the dazzler of a country road. He discovers all values find their root in what Pirsig called Quality:
"Quality . . . you know what it is, all the same yous don't know what it is. But that'south self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they take more than quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, autonomously from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nada to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that information technology even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes information technology really does exist."
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/24/525443040/-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-author-robert-m-pirsig-dies-at-88
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