Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals | 
|  | | | Title: | Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals | | Author: | Robert Pirsig | | Publisher: | Bantam | | Type: | Book / Mass Market Paperback | | Publication Date: | 01 December, 1992 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0553299611 / 9780553299618 | | List Price: | $7.99 | | Amazon Price: | $7.99 | |
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Product Description
The author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance examines life's essential issues as he recounts the journey down the Hudson River in a sailboat of his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus. Reprint.
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Customer Reviews:
• Wonderful Book, But... 08 September, 2008
I thought ZMM was a great book so I eagerly awaited Lila, and I was not disappointed. It is very, very good. The formula of mixing events and philosophical rumination works well here also. But I've read some reviews on the book and it looks like I'll have to read it again for I missed a lot of the Metaphysics of Quality. It just went by me without making much of an impact. What I think many reviewers missed, for few mention it, is the human story in the book. This is what gives the book its power. Lila is a lost soul who at the end loses her courage and becomes a ghost. Perhaps Phaedrus could have saved her if he was less detached, able to love her, more supportive, perhaps not. People like Lila can take you down with them. I think there is regret and some sorrow on the part of Phaedrus. He lied when he said she had quality; she had potential quality and he was unable to bring it out. And maybe that is what keeps the book from being great like ZMM. A great book of this genre will change your life. Lila doesn't. I think Pirsig should have used the help of a great thinker like Alfred North Whitehead. Pirsig lists F.S.C. Northrop, who was Whitehead's student and co-edited a major volume on his thought, as influencing him. He should have added Whitehead. What Pirsig calls Quality Whitehead called Experience and that is a better term in this context. Whitehead, by his concept of "initial aim" made his philosophy dynamic. This is where the Quality comes from. His philosophy is non-dualistic and non-supernatural. Perhaps some of the Aristotelian academics can dismiss Pirsig, but they will have a harder time dismissing Whitehead, a famous and respected professor at Cambridge and Harvard. Still, all power to Pirsig, and his courageous fight to overcome the insane mythos poisoning our lives.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A391ZY40SNFBHG
• Great Ideas, But Don' T Lose Your Head.... 30 December, 2007
I loved this book. I found its analysis of societal values and modern history to be positively brilliant, and I have incorporated one of is main points, coined Dynamic vs. Static Quality as played out in various tensions of opposing values (in pirsigs taxonomy they are the intellectual, the social, and the intellectual), in my religious theory. His elaboration of the concept of value as the central reality echoes religious mystical traditions that I was aware of previously but did not takes seriously until Pirsig showed it to be relevant to practical reality.
However, upon rereading this book, I am disturbed by a number of points:
Foremost; I am disturbed by the narcissm of the author. While this his character might seem incidental to his philosophy, it is not. It allows him to take credit, with no attribution, for all ideas expressed as his own, when in fact many of them are rephrasings of ideas expressed by earlier individuals, and their brilliance lies not in the ideas themselves, but by the weaving together of multiple disparate ideas into a coherent tapestry.
On reread, I am also disturbed by the fictional format of the book; this format allows him to dispense with attribution, and absolves him of the responsibility of backing up his contentions with solid evidence. This does not mean they are right or wrong; what it does mean is that a layperson such as myself will have difficulty spotting an argument based on faulty evidence. It also allows him to misrepresent opposing viewpoints, such as his analysis of the practice of psychiatry. Perhaps this plays into his narcissm- in a fictional/memoir format he may play the expert to a lay readership in a way he could not do in a more scholarly format.
However, I must admit, that not being a scholar, it is unlikely that I would have encountered these ideas in a more scholarly format, so ultimately I am grateful for the semi-fictional format despite its faults.
And I was disturbed by one last thing, which I guess is marginal to the premise of the book, but I feel compelled to include: And that is the authors sexual practices and mores. Throughout the book he insists on categorizing sex as biological quality and nothing more, and his behavior reflects that. The idea that sex includes social, intellectual, and spiritual quality, and that our sexual choices include all these realms, never occurs to him. But I guess to me that says less about the quality of his thesis, than about the apparently poor quality of his sex life.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3ITBG2SJGZELG
• Metaphysics Of Quality 03 February, 2008
Review of "Lila" by Robert Pirsig.
I loved this thought provoking story.
It is an impressive and engrossing book.
This book surpasses the intensity of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in scope and in the development of the author's concepts of quality and value. It is a daring exposition on objective valuation and it offers a broad appeal. Pirsig shows his metaphysics of quality works in real situations and for life changing decisions.
Open up, expand your consciousness, read and enjoy this book.
I recommend this book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3PM7CTXMNLMBC
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