From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Aug 14 2005 - 07:14:32 BST
Hi CL,
I had very similar feelings too.
There but for the grace of god - I've said about Pirsig's mental state
many a time - as he says Socratic wisdom pulls us through.
Feeling dissatisfied with Lila, is not uncommon. When I first started
my involvement here I too felt he'd overdone it - it looked to me like
some sort of reaction to serious criticisms of ZMM, and maybe it was.
My view now is that it did need to be written, and there would be no
MoQ without Lila.
Ian
On 8/14/05, C.L. Everett <seaelle@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/12/05, Richard Loggins <brloggins@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Pirsig saw the green flash. Did you see the green flash? - Rich
>
> Well, I don't recall a green flash. Pirsig said something like: . . . to
> look at an insane man is not to see him at all. To see him you have to see
> what he saw. Pirsig didn't need to write Lila for me. Lila just takes the
> analytic knife to quality--something "I thought" the ZMM Pirsig refused to
> do.
>
> When I first read ZMM, decades ago, I felt that what was already in my head
> was being "languaged"--named and explicated. ZMM was a one-of-a-kind work
> of brilliance (and sweat and torture) that is a model of what good writing
> (and good philosophy) should be, at least to me.
>
> Why was I terrified reading ZMM? My maternal grandmother was "diagnosed and
> treated" as a paranoid skitzophrenic which I did not find out about until I
> was grown. I was around the age when they say skitzophrenia kicks in, if
> it's going to, when I read ZMM. Each time I got to the passage, "those
> eyes!" I'd have to put it down--I knew what was coming. I must have
> started it over 4 or 5 times. I was afraid he was going to take me with him
> and he did. Was it Vonnegut who said the only ones for me are the mad ones,
> mad to live, mad to die?
> --
> C.L. Everett
>
> "The life of a warrior cannot possibly be cold and lonely and without
> feelings because it is based on his affection, his devotion, his dedication
> to his beloved. And who, you may ask, is his beloved? This earth, this
> world. For a warrior there can be no greater love."
>
> ~ Tales Of Power, Carlos Castaneda ~
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