Volume 38, Number 21 · December 19, 1991
The Floating Operetta
By Robert M. Adams
Lila: An Inquiry into Morals
by Robert M. Pirsig
Bantam, 409 pp., $22.50
Robert Pirsig's first book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance(here-after ZAAMM), appeared in 1974—seventeen years ago—and the memory of it still lingers, green and cheerful, in the mind. It was a byproduct of thatlow-tech, do-it-yourself movement which produced, under the auspices of The Whole Earth Catalogue, a rash of adventuresome lifestyles and fantasies of thesame. Pirsig, his motorcycle, andhis son formed a peripatetic commune of three—a triangular—motorized polis, en route from a nonorigin to a nondestination,snatching along the way at philosophical problems allied with the phantom of self-definition.
Review, 2595 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |