From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Fri Nov 01 2002 - 07:29:23 GMT
Hi Platt,
Last week I wrote to you:
>
> Which brings me to the second point, about ZMM vs Lila. I think I've got a
> reasonable handle on what Pirsig is saying in Zen; I don't have such
> confidence that I have a full understanding of Lila. In particular, as I
> mentioned in another thread, I think that Pirsig the author may
deliberately
> be distancing himself from Phaedrus the character, and that much of the
MoQ
> needs to be understood as a product of Phaedrus, not Pirsig. (Obviously
the
> whole ensemble is Pirsig's product). In particular, Phaedrus as a
character
> is not particularly attractive - whereas the narrator of ZMM, and Pirsig
> himself (from what little information I've come across) do seem to be more
> 'human'. Phaedrus the character is indulging in a confessedly degenerate
> taste for metaphysics, which the narrator of ZMM critiques, powerfully,
and
> the choice of method suggests that Pirsig retains his suspicions. Anyway,
> there is enough material here for a number of different threads. Perhaps
we
> could agree that what we want to establish is the highest quality MoQ that
> we can get to, and we can take material from both ZMM and Lila according
to
> how the light of quality leads us? (Isn't that how Pirsig himself
> understands the quality of this forum?)
And I now discover in Lila's Child Pirsig saying:
"Yes, Phædrus is overwhelmingly intellectual. He is not a mask, really, just
a literary character who is easy for me to write about because I share many
of his static values a lot of the time. I don't think big self and small
self are involved here. My editor wanted me to make him a warmer person in
order to increase reader appeal. But making him warmer would have made him
more social and weakened the contrasts between himself and Rigel and Lila
that were intended to give strength to the story. The fact that everyone
seemed to think that Phædrus was me came as an unpleasant surprise after the
book was published. I had assumed that everyone would of course know that an
author and a character in his book cannot possibly be the same person."
I have to say that the more time I spend with what Pirsig actually says, the
more humane and sensible he seems. I still want to 'crack' my understanding
of the fourth level though...
Sam
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