Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Thu, 19 Mar 1998 03:39:17 +0100
Mon, 16 Mar 1998 10:21:20 +0000
Maggie Hettinger (>) wrote to Andrew Russell (>>)
> > P.S. also think that the relationship with Chris and his father is vital to
> > Pirsig's writing. It is particularly significant, final chapter (32):
> > "It's so different."
> > "What?"
> > "Everything. I never could see over your shoulders before."
> > think evolution....
> I figure that the narrator's reconcilliation with his Phaedrus-self
> has
> allowed Chris to be free.
> They both took off the helmets: The narrator's static mindset that he
> took off
> was his need (for Chris's sake) to reject his old self and be a "sane"
> person.
> What was Chris's "helmet"?
Maggie and Andy and Squad.
First welcome to Andy. Thanks for the nice introduction. It's all
because of our hostess Diana who started it and has kept order all
the way (our noses to the grindstone as Ken Clark once said (I'm
still chuckling over that)).
About Marx. He is certainly blacklisted, mostly for the reasons that
you indicate, but will probably have a renaissance soon. The
free-market dynamics needs a little static checking not to
devour everything itself included. Yet, Marx is hardly a
quality metaphysicist in our book, he starts as a staunch
materialist by declaring that the economical conditions
determine what people think; our theorizing is just a
superstructure justifying exploitation ...or the exploitees
reaction (this really ends his own philosophizing too). But there is
perhaps more to his teaching than this. This morning I heard a
Swedish information-age guru talk about Marx being revenged.
We are entering a true workers' phase: the old industrial age
wage-earning employee coming to work and going home will no
longer be valid. Everyone will be producing some interesting
commodity, service or goods - fortune telling, messages from beyond
---philosophy even!. What is for sure is that we live in an age
of transition, what it will bring or when it will stabilize I
haven't a clue: perhaps Quality is the next stable stage. The Marx
angle I'm not sure about, and join Hugo in his challenge to you to
tell us.
For Maggie
I received your booklet today. Splendid job and I will certainly show
it around. Bodö is the educational capital of this region, schools
all over the place and Norway is also into an educational reform
phase, having just applied a new amendment, without the discontent
abating much. I guess no-one manages to keep up with the times.(see
above). Also congratulations with the new prospects/projects.
The deeper meanings in Pirsig's writing that Andy points to; the
looking over the shoulder and the helmet's significance is
interesting. I must however say - with Ken - that I have a literal
mind and have never looked for the symbolics here. My reaction was/is
more emotional, the Chris crisis scene at the roadside moved me
deeply, and still does. I need only pick up my original paperback
edition (Corgi with the wrench/lotus illustration) of ZMM and read
the review excerpts on the back cover to go into a "state".
Particularly Toynbee's: I think Mr Pirsig has written a work of
great, perhaps urgent, importance....read this book:" evokes the
memories of the first encounter with this remarkable mind. Too bad
that he seems to have stopped writing, he says:
>"For years I have felt a lot of social pressure to write more, but
>that has been in conflict with a lot of Zen pressure not to write
>more. A third book weakens LILA by making it seem like a middle
>member of a series rather than a final statement. Also I do not know
>of anything to say that is more important than what was in LILA, so
>the third book would of necessity be weaker. That would give all the
>critics who do not like the Metaphysics of Quality a chance to say:
>" See it's worthless after all". When they sense weakness in an
>artist they are like sharks smelling blood. They will not stop until
>they feel they have torn him and his reputation to pieces to
>complete their own egotistic satisfaction. J.D. Salinger avoided
>them by stopping writing just in time. Ernest Hemmingway did not.
>But during the ride back from Mexico it became apparent to me that
>the third book actually is being written. It is called "The Lila
>Squad". Once again the critics are being outwitted, because this
>time there is no Pirsig to attack. It is all in the hands of other
>people. Yet the same force that created ZMM and LILA is clearly at
>work. You will remember in ZMM that went: "
> Seed crystal. A powerful fragment of memory comes
> back now. The laboratory. Organic chemistry. He was working
> with an extremely.......etc
So, this is his position. No one can contest it. Perhaps his silence
now is more powerful than more writing. The JD Salinger allusion is
appropriate. He is a legend now, so is Pirsig too for that sake.
Thanks for the book Maggie.
Bo
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