Robert Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Review
Writer Robert Pirsig and his son Chris in 1968. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died Monday at age 88. William Morrow/HarperCollins hide explanation
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William Morrow/HarperCollins
Author Robert Pirsig and his son Chris in 1968. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died Mon at age 88.
William Morrow/HarperCollins
Robert M. Pirsig, who inspired generations to route trip across America with his "novelistic autobigraphy," Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance, died Monday at the age of 88.
His publisher William Morrow & Company said in a statement that Pirsig died at his dwelling house in S Berwick, Maine, "after a menstruation of failing wellness."
Pirsig wrote merely two books: Zen (subtitled "An Inquiry Into Values") and Lila: An Enquiry into Morals.
Author Robert Pirsig works on a motorcycle in 1975. William Morrow/HarperCollins hide caption
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William Morrow/HarperCollins
Author Robert Pirsig works on a motorcycle in 1975.
William Morrow/HarperCollins
Zen was published in 1974, after being rejected by 121 publishing houses. "The book is brilliant beyond belief," wrote Morrow editor James Landis before publication. "It is probably a piece of work of genius and will, I'll wager, achieve classic status."
Indeed, the volume speedily became a best-seller, and has proved enduring as a work of popular philosophy. A 1968 motorcycle trip across the Westward with his son Christopher was his inspiration.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt reviewed Zen for The New York Times in 1974. "[H]owever impressive are the seductive powers with which Mr. Pirsig engages us in his motorcycle trip, they are zippo compared to the skill with which he interests us in his philosophic trip," he wrote. "Mr. Pirsig may sometimes appear to be a greener‐America proselytizer, with his bristles and his motorcycle tripping and his talk about learning to love technology. But when he comes to grips with the hard philosophical conundrums raised by the 1960's, he can be electrifying."
Pirsig was born in Minneapolis, the son of a University of Minnesota police force professor. He graduated from high school at fifteen and enlisted in the Army later on World War II. While stationed in Southward Korea, he encountered the Asian philosophies that would underpin his work. He went on to study Hindu philosophy in India and for a time was enrolled in a philosophy Ph.D. plan at the University of Chicago. He was hospitalized for mental illness and returned to Minneapolis, where he worked as a technical writer and began writing his get-go book.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was 1 of just two books that Pirsig wrote. Information technology has endured equally a piece of work of popular philosophy. Alan Levine/Flickr hide caption
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Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance was ane of only 2 books that Pirsig wrote. It has endured as a work of popular philosophy.
Alan Levine/Flickr
Pirsig also helped institute the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, then lived reclusively and worked on Lila for 17 years before its publication in 1991. "A skilled mechanic, he performed repairs in his home workshop," writes the publisher. "He taught himself navigation in the days before GPS, and twice crossed the Atlantic in his small sailboat, Aretê."
The protagonist of Zen attempts to resolve the conflicts between "classic" values that create machinery like the motorcycle, and "romantic" values like the beauty of a country route. He discovers all values observe their root in what Pirsig called Quality:
"Quality . . . y'all know what it is, yet yous don't know what it is. Merely that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they accept more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that accept it, it all goes poof! There'south zilch to talk about. Just if you can't say what Quality is, how do y'all know what information technology is, or how do you know that information technology even exists? If no ane knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't be at all. Just for all applied purposes it really does be."
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/24/525443040/-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-author-robert-m-pirsig-dies-at-88
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