Robert M Pirsig
Robert M Pirsig was an american philosopher and
writer (1928 - 2017). He published only two books. The first one became a cult book that sold in millions of copies all over the world. The
second for some reason never became the same success, although it is at least as thought-provoking as the first one. I do not hesitate
to declaire that if I were to name one book being the very best I read in my whole life, it would have to be one of these two.
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- an Inquiry into Values" (1974)
It is important to be aware of that this book, in spite of its title, is not very much about neither Zen-buddhislm nor about
how to maintain a motorcycle.
The external content of the book is a story about a man who travels with his son on a motorcycle from the American Mid-west, up in the Rocky Mountains and down to the
Pacific Coast. But this external story constitutes only about 5% of the book. The remains are what you could call a philosophical thriller.
The man has recently been through a deep personal crisis that ended with him being put into a mental hospital. The background was that he one
afternoon at the school where he lectured in philosophy and retorics had started pondering what the expression "quality" actually means. The result
of these ponderings are what is told in this philosophical thriller.
Pirsig has the ability to convey relatively heavy philosophical questions in a such an entertaining and engaging way that it, at least to me, was very difficult to put
the book aside, except for breakes I had to take to let his thoughts sink down in me. Very few, if any, books I have read had been able
to provoke so much new thoughts in my own head as this one. That as also led me to return to it repeatedly so that I now have read it three times.
It will take too much space her to say very much more about the content of the book. But one could say that Pirsig makes a very good attempt to
try to find out how we are to understand the world, after the discovery that Einstein and the other nuclear physicians made 120 years ago, that what up
to then had been regarded as the "objective reality" simply did not exist. You can read more about that in the review of
Gary Zukav's book "The Dancing Wu Li Masters"
"Lila - an Inquiry into Morals" (1991)
After rereading both these books recently, I wonder if this one perhaps is an even more overwhelming intellectual experience than the "Motorcycle".
Which make it so much more a tragedy that it has not reached the same popularity as its predecessor.
Now we are on a sailing trip on the Hudson River downstreams to New York City. The travelling companion this time is the young woman Lila, whom he
accidentally picks up in one of the harbours along the river. As in the first book the description of the journey is a minor part of the story, the
bulk of the book is also this time a philosophical thriller. He continues to develop his thoughts from "The Motorcycle Book". Now he tries to put up
a more complete framework for understanding of more or less everything - the universe and the laws that governs it, what we call inorganic materia,
the mystery of how life came into existence in a kind of disobedience to the laws of the universe, how life has developed from the very first
primitive forms up to the so far most advanced species, that means the humans, how the humans in their turn have developed advanced societies
that have given many of us a much better life, although they also control and manipulate us in a much higher degree than most of us have realized,
and finally - the development of our ability to think and reflect about all of this, and thus also the ability to resists the restrictions these
societies expose us to. This framework he calls "Dynamic Quality", which he also describes as something similar to what the native american
tribes called "The Great Spirit", referring to the great coherence they observed in nature. And in this "Dynamic Quality" also lies the ground for
a careful optimism: Even though mankind in these days are facing rather many and rather complex problems, in a broader perspective and over
a long time, everything has been growing to the better.
"On Quality - an Inquiry into Excellence" (2022)
Five years after his death his widow Wendy M Pirsig has made a collection and an edition of some of his unpublished texts. Unfortunately
the result is not very interesting. The succession of the various texts seems rather accidental, and it is difficult to see in what way they
are thought to be connected. Those who have read the Motorcycle Book or Lila will not find much new here, except a short description of the life story
of Robert M Pirsig. And for those who have not read these two books, I will warmly recommend rather to read them (and first of all the Motorcycle)
instead of this one.
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It does not really tell you much neither about
zen-buddhism nor about how to maintain a motorcycle. Although also these topics are touched.
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