Lila Author:Robert M. Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance holds a unique place in modern American culture. Now, in this abridgement of his first new work in fifteen years, Pirsig returns with a poignant new journey and passionate philosophical exploration of what we live for that examines the essential issues of the nineties as his previous classic did the seve... more »nties.
In Lila, Robert M. Pirsig brings us a new voyage, as mysterious and compelling as the journety in that first life-changing work. Instead of a motorcycle, a cruising sailboat carries his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus down the Hudson River as winter closes in. Pahedrus has a most unlikely traveling companion: a woman named Lila, picked up in a riverside bar, who in her desperate sexuality, hostility, and oncoming madness threatens to disrupt his life's work on the Metaphysics of Quality. For Lila poses in human terms the essential questions: What is good? What role do values play in our lives? How can people disagree so murderously on right and wrong?
As in his previous work, Pirsig's narrative is interspersed with meditations on an astonishing range of ideas, from Native American ceremonies to Victorian society to the decline of our cities. Like that other great river traveler Mark Twain, Robert M. Pirsig brings us both an unforgettable journey and an extraordinary exploration of American identity and destiny.« less