Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as well as the sequel Lila: an Inquiry into Morals helped shape the way I see the world. RIP. RIP Robert Pirsig
In the nearly five years it took Robert Pirsig to sell “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” 121 publishers rejected the rambling novel.
The 122nd gently warned Pirsig, a former rhetoric professor who had a job writing technical manuals, not to expect more than his $3,000 advance.
“The book is not, as I think you now realize from your correspondence with other publishers, a marketing man’s dream,” the editor at William Morrow wrote in a congratulatory note before its 1974 publication.
He was wrong. “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values” sold 50,000 copies in three months and more than 5 million in the decades since. The dense tome has been translated into at least 27 languages. A reviewer for the New Yorker likened its author to Herman Melville. Its popularity made Pirsig “probably the most widely read philosopher alive,” a British journalist wrote in 2006...
...“Zen” and Pirsig’s less successful 1991 novel, “Lila,” are not easy reads. In both, he develops what he calls the “Metaphysics of Quality,” a philosophy that attempts to unite and transcend the mysticism of the East and the reason of the West.
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!
Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I still recall the lesson that while hiking up the mountain enjoy the things around you and not just the destination.
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
Kraken wrote:This book did not help me fix my motorcycle. Not recommended.
That's because you had a Japanese crotch rocket -- it totally would have helped if you had a BMW.
A former high school English teacher gave me this book several years after graduation. He died last year. I still have that pink paperback on my book shelf although I only read it once. Never did read Lila though.
