From: Erin N. (enoonan@kent.edu)
Date: Sat Nov 02 2002 - 17:38:59 GMT
>MDers,
>
>PIRSIG: (LC)
>> "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."
>
>He is correct that an author and a character can not be the same
>person but only in some very technical sense such as that
>characters in books are mental constructs and not physical people.
>Barring this sense from consideration I find what he says preposterous.
>Recall that Phædrus meets Robert Redford in Lila to discuss making
>ZMM into a movie. Should we believe that a fictional character called
>Phædrus, who is not really Pirsig, authored ZMM? Rigel has a dialogue
>with the "Great Author" about his first book, a book about "quality".
>Should we not think that the "Great Author" is Pirsig, and the book ZMM?
>How surprised *should* he be that people thought otherwise?
>
>PLATT:
>"So I guess a question will always be, "Will the real Robert Pirsig please
>stand up?" But when he writes things like, "What the Metaphysics of
>Quality says . . ." I believe I'm safe in presuming that the statements
>and conclusions which follow are Pirsig's own."
>
>You would think so, but you should wonder how much conviction he can have
>about the MOQ if its ideas are coming from Phædrus, and Phædrus is not him.
>And on one odd occasion in LC Pirsig begins a clarification of a point by
>saying, "If I understand the MOQ properly,...". I mean, if he doesn't know,
>what chance have we? This, coupled with what he says above, and his
>softened position on the effectiveness of the MOQ to resolve anything but
>the simplest moral issue, makes me wonder if he's distancing himself from
>his ideas.
>Glenn
>
Glenn and Platt,
As a good author I believe Pirsig would have to be able to identify themselves
with all the levels.
He says he shares alot of static values with Phaedrus but
he unlike you two seem to realize that he exists on several
levels. About the "real" Pirsig standing up. Not sure what
you mean. The other levels are not real?
Do you mean the 'objective Pirsig'---that would be the objective characters
Lila and the doll/boat. What do you mean by 'real'?
Scary halloween thought for Platt: The self is described by some
postmodernists as fragmented.
My halloween treat--I saw Wilco last week, get to see
Dylan tommorrow and now hear that Pirsig said that
i am phaedrus, i am rigel, i am lila, i am on the boat.
Life is good!
erin
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