Robert M. Pirsig
Paperback | Pages: 480 pages Rating: 3.78 | 5934 Users | 340 Reviews
Declare About Books Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Phaedrus #2)
| Title | : | Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Phaedrus #2) |
| Author | : | Robert M. Pirsig |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 480 pages |
| Published | : | November 1st 1992 by Bantam (first published 1991) |
| Categories | : | Philosophy. Fiction |
Relation To Books Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Phaedrus #2)
In this best-selling new book, his first in seventeen years, Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, takes us on a poignant and passionate journey as mysterious and compelling as his first life-changing work.Instead of a motorcycle, a sailboat carries his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus down the Hudson River as winter closes in. Along the way he picks up a most unlikely traveling companion: a woman named Lila who in her desperate sexuality, hostility, and oncoming madness threatens to disrupt his life.
In Lila Robert M. Pirsig has crafted a unique work of adventure and ideas that examines the essential issues of the nineties as his previous classic did the seventies.
Define Books Concering Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Phaedrus #2)
| Original Title: | Lila: An Inquiry into Morals |
| ISBN: | 0553299611 (ISBN13: 9780553299618) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Phaedrus #2 |
| Literary Awards: | Pulitzer Prize Nominee for Fiction (1992) |
Rating About Books Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Phaedrus #2)
Ratings: 3.78 From 5934 Users | 340 ReviewsCritique About Books Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Phaedrus #2)
After a brilliant 'Zen and art of motorcycle maintenance', this sequel was just a good one. This time the setting is a boat journey with a mysterious girl in it. Apparently Chris has died and Phradous is all alone now. The brilliant insight into the nature of Quality that he explained in 'Zen...' is explored further in this book. He further divides the quality concepts into static/dynamic and explores these further to form a comprehensive hierarchy. The ideas and the hierarchy is solid enoughThis is the way it is. Pirsig isn't the first to discuss this, nor is he alone in his understanding of the world/experience. Pirsig puts it down as a personal, real, actual exploration towards what is commonly and rather ambiguously referred to as 'The Truth'. He takes a very real experience of his as he is in reality, Pirsig, and sees Phaedrus 'think through many every day experiences to slowly arrive at divisions of Quality, ' finally cracking that nut which he left untouchable but no less
Lila is Zens sequel.* In Zen, a heavy philosophical work, Pirsig was frustrated with a Western philosophical paradigm that didnt match up with the way that Pirsig saw reality. In Lila, Pirsig relays that his time in a mental institution was due to his struggle to see the world in his particular way. His insanity was philosophical deviance, not social. He, Phaedrus, was the sophist trying to see reality straight up, within a Western perspective that either engaged in mystery (Plato) or emphasized
Had higher expectations coming from zen and the art ...That book provided an ongoing textbook narrative of the authors "metaphysics" and review of philosophy. But it explored real and tangible struggles esp relationship between father and son. This book blathered on about philosophy to the point of exhaustion. The book had little plot and really wasn't about Lila. You never really go to know Lila at all. The author wrote in the disembodied Phaedrus persona and seemed more robotic than anything
I found ZMM to be far superior to Lila, which was rather a letdown to me after waiting so many years for his next book. I think he must have been one of those writers who had one great book inside him. I mean his conclusion here, that all people have worth, is presented as some astonishing revelation, and of course it is. It's just that it's a revelation that quite a few others have had before him.
I haven't read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but from what I understand, Pirsig spends the entire book arriving at the notion of Quality. In Lila, he expands this into a metaphysical framework, which has since come to be called the Metaphysics of Quality ([http://moq.org]). It's more of a philosophical treatise than a novel, and the MoQ is an interesting and appealing framework. I may actually not get around to reading ZMM, but Lila stands well on its own.
The basic question is "Does Lila (the book) have quality?"Overall, the narrative of Phaedrus and Lila is far less engaging than the one between Phaedrus and his son in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM). I did enjoy some of the passages on sailing and the scene where Phaedrus is confronted by a critic of ZAMM but the book lacked a cohesive framework. The scene with Robert Redford was disappointing and the final conclusion in Manhattan is anti-climatic and bland.I found that
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