skutvik@online.no
Wed, 1 Oct 1997 18:22:25 +0100
Steve.
Welcome onboard!
Re. the selfbiographic 'quality' of LILA!
It is no secret that Robert Pirsig and his wife Wendy sailed from
America to Europe in the summer of 1979 (I believe it was). I have
met him in person at one occasion (Oslo 1994 when ZMM was launched in
Norwegian (about time!)) and he told me so. And I also believe he
sailed on the Big Lakes before that (for instance the Cleveland
Harbour Incident) so the first part of the trip was through the canal
systems from Oswego to Troy and then down the Hudson river to New
York City. Lila Blewitt I don't know about, I regard her as a
fictitious person. She bears no resemblence to Wendy, that is for
sure. On the Atlantic ocean they encountered a severe storm and at
times logged 8-9 knots with no sails set. The same storm sunk a
couple of yachts participating inn the Fastnet Race off Ireland. At
first they stayed in a channel port in England, but continued to
Norway (Tananger near Stavanger) and later on to a small place south
of Göteborg (Frillesås) where most of LILA was written. In 1985 they
sailed via waterways and canals all the way from the German Baltic
coast to the French Mediterranean coast. Robert Pirsig then sailed
single-handed back to the States while Wendy flew over with Nell to
buy house.
However, in an audio tape I have (from 1975) he speaks about a
stay in Mexico in the early sixties when he acted (as he says) the
great writer and boat-builder (not the boat they crossed
the Atlantic ocean in), so he must have written something before the
ZMM. Wonder what became of that?. Also, in a story a Swedish
journalist wrote after retracing the motorcycle route from Minnesota
to California, he (the journalist) tells of visiting the DeWieses in
Bozeman and that Gennie DeWiese kept a huge bundle of earlier drafts
of ZMM. That should have been fun to browse through. Most of you
possibly know the "Guidebook" to ZMM where some hithereto unknown
passages are printed.
A FAQ list should have been done. That much is for sure, but who is
trusted to deliver the right answers?
Bo
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