Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ut-ngp.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!seung From: seung@ut-ngp.UUCP (Hyunjune Sebastian) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Robert Pirsig Message-ID: <823@ut-ngp.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 18:42:51 EDT Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.823 Posted: Tue Aug 7 18:42:51 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 12-Aug-84 00:39:54 EDT References: <2063@rlgvax.UUCP>, <329@oliven.UUCP> <1089@ihuxq.UUCP> Organization: Comp. Center, Univ. of Texas at Austin Lines: 28 Robert Pirsig hasn't gotten very good reviews on the net. I'd like to present a dissenting opinion, just so others aren't discouraged from reading him. His book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the best philosophical novel that I've ever read. While existentialists like Sartre and Camus were probably better writers of fiction than Pirsig, I always found them a bit shallow philosophically. They were very good at making others feel their existential nausea, etc., but behind the purple prose they really didn't have many ideas. Pirsig's book, unlike the existentialist works, is "philosophical" first, and a "novel" second. Its central question is: what is value? Pirsig manages to give a very penetrating discussion of this age-old question. The book holds its own as literature also--I couldn't put it down. I was fascinated by Pirsig's unrelenting pursuit of truth, a struggle so intense that it drives him insane! In sum, the book is not mumbo-jumbo or purple prose, but a book with a substantial question and a substantial answer. It can entertain yet also make you think. That's what a philosophical novel is for. By the way, Ken, you mentioned that the bad professor was supposed to be Mortimer Adler. The way I heard it, Pirsig was really blasting Richard McKeon, the chairman of the UChicago philosophy department. I saw in an old Harvard Crimson interview that Pirsig was planning to elaborate on his metaphysics. Did anything ever come of this? Also, is there any truth to the rumor that Pirsig later went insane again? Come on, netlanders-- someone must know the answers to these questions. Also, why the difference in male and female responses, Ken? Sebastian {ut-sally,ctvax,ihnp4}!ut-ngp!seung