From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Wed Feb 12 2003 - 09:09:42 GMT
Hi Matt,
As I'm sure you're aware I have much sympathy with your project, especially
in relation to the distinction between ZMM's non-metaphysics and Lila's
metaphysics. You write:
> That the MoQ gives us a new Reason is something
> that many people interpret Pirsig as doing in Lila. That does seem to be
> what he's trying to do. But that is Phaedrus' project, not the
> post-metaphysical narrator's. And Phaedrus wins in the end and then we
get
> Lila. The intense ambiguity arises when we try and take the parts of ZMM
> that the narrator espouses and say that those are good, too, along with
the
> metaphysics of Lila. There are several ways out from this ambiguity. We
> can either deflate the importance of what the narrator says and emphasize
> the Pirsig of Lila (you can do this by saying that the narrator's good
> parts are suggestions for social level values), or deflate the imporatance
> of what Phaedrus says and emphasize the Pirsig of ZMM.
Have you given any consideration to the mode of presentation in Lila; that
is, that Phaedrus is one voice within a larger scheme? Is there any way in
which this presentation, both of Phaedrus' ideas and of Phaedrus as a
(somewhat deficient) individual is Pirsig's means of subtly undercutting the
status of metaphysics?
I don't have an answer to this question; nor do I have any particularly
great insight into Pirsig's literary skills. It's just a suspicion that I
keep coming back to, because Pirsig is clearly well aware of the futility of
metaphysics (hence - keeping Quality undefined; see also the passage about
metaphysics just before the conclusion "Not only would he never get it
right; the longer he worked on it, the wronger it would probably get.")
Sam
"I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my
side, if you understand me... And there are some things, of course, whose
side I'm altogether not on; I am against them altogether." -- Treebeard
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Feb 12 2003 - 10:18:46 GMT