Hettinger (hettingr@iglou.com)
Tue, 18 Nov 1997 13:25:48 +0100
Hi David and the Lila Squad!
I've just read Novel Reality for the second time, and have bookmarked it to
return again.
I've thought that Zen and the Art's power stems from Pirsig's ability to give
his readers the pre-intellectual background that must come before ideas can be
absorbed. I have taken him as the ultimate instructor in the art of written
communication.
When I read ZMM aloud to my daughters, (they were about 12 and 14), they
sometimes fell asleep during the long-winded stuff, but the story and the
images were still powerful enough to change their lives. Even in cases where
they did not absorb the intellectual message, they still gained the skill to
see things that others cannot.
I recommend ZMM to people often, and I also suggest that they skim rather than
getting bogged down. Time has affected the resonance of some of Pirsig's
examples, but the story (Chris and the narrator, the journey and the ghost) is
as powerful and relevant as ever.
I've been a long-time reader of science fiction, and have always defended it
as the longest-running, most popular open forum on ideas and possibilities.
Someone (maybe Ben Bova) once described the essential element of SF as a sense
of awe, which I figure is a DQ event involving the formation of new
intellectual and social patterns within the reader. I don't think it's an
accident that adventure (the biological-level analogue) is an integral part of
SF as well--part of the linking of patterns. (This reminds me of the poetry
idea we played with a while back.)
I'm reading a fiction series now--Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time fantasy
series-- and have been reading it since last May. These are the only books
I've read more than ZMM and Lila.
I'm not sure how anyone gets "hooked" on a fantasy series, least of all
myself, who hadn't read a fantasy book I liked for over ten years.
Thousands of people are involved (even addicted to) in these books, and one of
the largest, most active newsgroups on the net is dedicated to the series.
There's a powerful resonance there, even if nobody knows what it is.
At first, I was convinced that Jordan was writing about Pirsig's ideas, but
now I think he knows them and is taking them even further. I believe Jordan
is playing with:
* the function of the social evolutionary level and the magnitude of the hold
it has over people
* the difference in perspective between people and societies that are active
participants in the intellectual level and those which are not
* effects of culture clash--sometimes a new perspective (new intellectual
patterns), as people are given more opportunity to use the intellect to choose
between social options--but more often a reversion (breakdown) to
biological-level function (aggression, etc.)
* the concept of a person who functions at the highest level ( who has some
sort of DQ awareness), who moves through other people's lives, causing
disruption in all the patterns, creating results that can appear to be chaos
or wild coincidence
Nobody else sees these books as an extension of Pirsig, but then, I see
everything through Pirsig lenses.
Anyway, I think fiction is a great way to explore and propagate ideas.
I have started on Atlas Shrugged, just this week. It took a while to get
interesting, but I just went out and bought a paperback, because I am feeling
the need to scribble on the pages.
I'm looking forward to a good read.
Maggie
-- post message - mailto:skwok@spark.net.hk unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:14 CEST