Lila: An Inquiry into Morals

Describes a voyage down the Hudson River undertaken by Phaedrus and a troubled companion, who provokes a philosophical crisis as the philosopher-narrator wrestles with essential questions of morality

Seventeen years after the publication of his still-popular road story/philosophical meditation, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , Pirsig offers another lengthy and absorbing investigation of how we can live well and rightly. Phaedrus, the one-named narrator "who had written a whole book on values," is sailing down the Hudson River when he meets Lila Blewitt, an unapologetically sexual, psychologically unstable woman whom a mutual friend warns him against. But Phaedrus is drawn to her physically and interested in her intellectually, finding her "a culture of one" in whom he discerns an unexpected "Quality." Sailing with him to Manhattan, where her mental state deteriorates further, Lila prompts Phaedrus to explore conflicts of values like those between Native Americans and Europeans or between the insane and the normal. Finally, after years of struggling, he formulates his "Metaphysics of Quality" which offers a system of understanding--and evaluating--actions according to a hierarchy of four evolutionary realms (natural, biological, social and intellectual). Though Lila's fate is left unresolved, Pirsig's wide-ranging philosophical explorations will provoke and engage readers.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Pirsig's absorbing second novel, appearing nearly two decades after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, continues where his former work left off--in an exploration of the Metaphysics of Quality set against a journey by sailboat to the Atlantic Ocean. Phaedrus, peripatetic author of a successful book about motorcycles, is once again on the road in this philosophical odyssey--or rather on the Hudson River, as he makes his way toward the Atlantic and, eventually, Florida. His initial goal was to isolate himself sufficiently to complete his second novel, which currently consists of hundreds of notes that he regularly reorganizes and stores in rusty card-catalogue drawers. But isolation is the last thing a sailboat captain experiences on the water, Phaedrus discovers, and it's just as well, because his encounters with Lila (an aging former prostitute), Richard (her childhood friend), and assorted others along his journey inspire even more exciting concepts for his philosophical book. Chief among these is the concept of ``quality'' or value, which Phaedrus posits as the basic organizing principle of the universe. Shifting away from the Western world's reliance on subject-object and cause-and- effect relationships, Phaedrus suggests that everything is instead an expression of more or less quality, and that evolution moves not toward survival of the fittest but toward higher forms of value. While Phaedrus teases a ``scientifically-based'' morality out of this concept (lower forms of quality, such as individual humans, should be sacrificed if necessary in favor of higher forms, including society and, even higher, ideas), Lila begins exhibiting psychotic behavior and Richard becomes increasingly irritated with Phaedrus' abstract, self-absorbed pose. Readers may occasionally feel the same irritation--scenes that advance the plot seem carelessly scribbled in the author's hurry to get back to his theory--but as ever Pirsig's provocative ideas far outweigh such drawbacks. Engrossingly, utterly Pirsig--fans will not be disappointed. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Pirsig's newest work continues in the same philosophical vein as his earlier books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ( LJ 10/15/74) and Guide book to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" ( LJ 10/15/90). Lila is a novel-cum-philosophical tome that wrestles with the issues and problems of life in the Nineties. Phaedrus, the principle character, is a writer grappling with his latest treatise, the "metaphysics of Quality." Lila, his aging and desperate wharf-bar pickup, provides the right amount of antagonism and criticism to hone his ruminations of life and civilization to something understandable and real. Pirsig has some fairly interesting ideas, but his evasiveness in defining his version of "quality" early on may lose some readers. His transition from the novel format to the philosophy lesson is uneven and distracting at times. However, his observations lead to some surprising revelations. Readers familiar with his earlier work will want this. Recommended.
- Kevin M. Roddy, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.