Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Writer 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 hide caption
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William Morrow/HarperCollins
Writer Robert Pirsig and his son Chris in 1968. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance, died Monday at age 88.
William Morrow/HarperCollins
Robert M. Pirsig, who inspired generations to road trip across America with his "novelistic autobigraphy," Zen and the Fine art of Motorbike Maintenance, died Mon at the historic period of 88.
His publisher William Morrow & Company said in a statement that Pirsig died at his dwelling house in Southward Berwick, Maine, "after a catamenia of failing health."
Pirsig wrote but two books: Zen (subtitled "An Inquiry Into Values") and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals.
Author Robert Pirsig works on a motorbike 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 past 121 publishing houses. "The book is bright beyond belief," wrote Morrow editor James Landis before publication. "It is probably a piece of work of genius and will, I'll wager, attain classic status."
Indeed, the book quickly became a best-seller, and has proved enduring as a work of popular philosophy. A 1968 motorcycle trip across the West 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 nothing compared to the skill with which he interests us in his philosophic trip," he wrote. "Mr. Pirsig may sometimes appear to exist a greener‐America proselytizer, with his beard and his motorcycle tripping and his talk almost learning to love technology. But when he comes to grips with the hard philosophical conundrums raised by the 1960'due south, he tin be electrifying."
Pirsig was born in Minneapolis, the son of a University of Minnesota law professor. He graduated from high school at 15 and enlisted in the Army after Globe War II. While stationed in Republic of korea, he encountered the Asian philosophies that would underpin his work. He went on to report Hindu philosophy in India and for a time was enrolled in a philosophy Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. He was hospitalized for mental illness and returned to Minneapolis, where he worked equally a technical author and began writing his beginning book.
Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance was i of just 2 books that Pirsig wrote. It has endured as a work of pop philosophy. Alan Levine/Flickr hide caption
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was 1 of just two books that Pirsig wrote. It has endured equally a work of pop philosophy.
Alan Levine/Flickr
Pirsig also helped found the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, so 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 pocket-sized sailboat, Aretê."
The protagonist of Zen attempts to resolve the conflicts between "classic" values that create machinery similar the motorcycle, and "romantic" values like the beauty of a state route. He discovers all values find their root in what Pirsig called Quality:
"Quality . . . you know what information technology is, yet you don't know what information technology is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they take more quality. But when y'all try to say what the quality is, autonomously from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There'south naught to talk almost. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you lot know what information technology is, or how do you know that information technology even exists? If no one knows what it is, and so for all practical purposes it doesn't be at all. Merely for all practical purposes it actually does exist."
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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