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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
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