Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert M. Pirsig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1992

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (November 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553299611
• ISBN-13: 978-0553299618
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.3 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #179,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert M. Pirsig was born in 1928 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He holds degrees in chemistry, philosophy, and journalism and also studied Oriental philosophy at Benares Hindu University in India. He is the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Phaedrus probes some more., March 10, 2005

By 

Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is a sequel to Pirsig's famous Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, first published in 1974. Both books are technically novels; but in fact the thin story-line - the account of a journey - is the thread on which is strung a strenuous metaphysical investigation of ultimate reality. This investigation is couched in a ruminative, discursive and colloquial style which, given the difficulty of the subject matter, is easier to follow than would be a dry and austere academic presentation of the conclusions which Pirsig has reached. In Zen Pirsig managed to make this search by his central character, Phaedrus, read like a tense and rather desperate detective story, with no less than the sanity of the investigator being at stake - and Phaedrus does succumb for a while and has to spend a period in a mental hospital.

Lila again has Phaedrus as the central character, though this time he speaks in the third and not the first person singular, and he is presented as the author of the earlier book. This time he is travelling on a sailing boat instead of on a motor-cycle - and although at one point the sailing boat is used to underline the fact that he is a loner, it is not otherwise used as a trigger for an investigation into the nature of things as the motor-cycle had been used in the previous book. The tension and suspense of the first book is missing, and from that point of view Lila is less gripping than Zen was. The reason for this is not that Pirsig's narrative skills have deserted him, but that, whereas Zen had ended with Phaedrus' solution to the problem of what was the ultimate nature of reality, Lila merely works out some implications of this solution. In order to make the later book a self-contained work, the conclusions which Phaedrus had reached in the first book need to be restated. Pirsig is too much of a craftsman to do this by mere repetition of what he had said in Zen; even so, those who have read the earlier book will perhaps feel a certain sense of déja vu.

What, then, had Phaedrus discovered as the ultimate nature of reality? He had felt that the two modes of western thinking, the classical and the romantic, were both unsatisfactory. The romantic, which will not come to grips with the underlying meaning of phenomena, is basically superficial. The classical mode, with its analytical procedures, often destroys what it investigates. The romantic mode stresses the subjective impact on the observer; the classical stresses the objective nature of the things observed. Both are part of what, in Lila, Phaedrus calls the subject-object metaphysic; and the concept that the world can be understood in terms simply of subject and object has been deeply embedded in western thought ever since classical Greek philosophy. However, the pre-classical Greeks, through their concept of arete, held out the possibility of a richer understanding. Phaedrus translates arete as "Quality" (and sometimes as "Value"), and it is by Quality that the conclusions reached by the classical or the romantic processes need to be judged.

What had, in the first book, driven Phaedrus into temporary insanity was the difficulty of defining what exactly this Quality was. If you are capable of responding to Quality, you know what it is. It is what you perceive in a work of art (in the romantic mode) or in the elegance of a rational construct (in the classical mode); and where it is absent, the art or the rational construct convey a defective understanding of the world. But because (as Phaedrus believed) this Quality is pre-intellectual, it vanishes the moment you try to pin it down by definitions; and if you cannot define it, you are at the mercy of the scoffing of such as Rigel (another character in Lila).

Besides, Quality is perceived in different ways by different cultures. Is it therefore a purely relative concept? Phaedrus thinks not. In Lila he conceives it in evolutionary terms. The relativism, therefore, is not absolute: in all societies Quality is that which leads to improvement. It is therefore Dynamic (always spelt with a capital D) and not static.

Phaedrus describes evolution as going through four phases: the inorganic; the biological; the social; and the intellectual. Mankind originates at the biological level. The biological level then "invents" the social level, and it does this for the benefit of the biological level; therefore every development that leads from the lower to the higher level has Dynamic Quality, and, in that context, has Moral Quality, too. Nothing that threatens to sacrifice a higher to a lower level is moral.

At the social level new patterns or codes are developed which eventually become static. The social codes regulate the society and so protect it from slipping back to a lower level; but at the same time their rigidity is often intolerant of intellectual criticism. That intolerance is immoral when intellectual criticism is Dynamic, i.e. when it is trying to move mankind along to a higher level than the social one. Intellectual criticism is, however, degenerative and lacking in Moral Quality if, as it were, it allies with the biological level against the social level and would thereby produce a slipping back rather than a moving forward. In this connection Phaedrus has a trenchant analysis of the hippy culture of the 'seventies.

In fact, the applications of Phaedrus' rather abstract scheme constantly enliven the book. The Metaphysics of Quality is applied to such varied subjects as the work of anthropologists; sexual behaviour; the megalopolis; the free market; the cult of celebrity; the making of movies based on books; Victorian "hypocrisy"; the significance of the New Deal and of fascism; Islamic fundamentalism; cultural discrimination; the nature of mental illness and the attitudes of psychiatrists.

70 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sex, Drugs, and Metaphysics, February 2, 2002

By 

D. Austin "Stutty" (Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Mass Market Paperback)

Phaedrus is back. Not satisfied with naming the unameable, he now must subdivide that which cannot be subdivided. The thrust of this book is a devlopment of a 'metaphysics of Quality." Quality is that nameless indirectly percievable reality Pirsig went to great lengths to show us in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM)." Without ZAMM under your belt, "Lila" will be meaningless babble to you. So if you have not read ZAMM, stop reading this review, and go directly to ZAMM page. It also is a good read; you will not be disappointed.

I am not the intellectual giant that Pirsig is. Before reading Lila, I didn't even know what a metaphysics was; so don't let that stop you. Like ZAMM, "Lila" is a full blown book on philosophy intertwined with a novella, the plot of which serves to drive the orations of the author, and provide case study-like material for the reader.

Phaedrus, having abandoned his motorcycle for a sailboat, is sailing for Mexico and pondering his next book which will be a "metaphysics of Quality" or maybe about Indians. At any rate, at a port bar he picks up a woman that you and I would not consider exactly a "high class" individual. Between Lila and her acquantances, Pirsig offers us an illustration of the different types of Quality. Dynamic versus Static patterns, social versus biological versus intellectual. He weaves a metaphysics that if not true, at least throws everything from quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence to social reform and madness into a strange new light. A light which on the surface seems to illuminate things very clearly. The downside is that the path to this illumination is a bit harder to follow than in his previous book. Consequently, I had to "just accept" some points as opposed to "really digging" them. And that has left a feeling that maybe something is missing in this philosophy. But my gut says it's me that is broke, not the book. Probably just means I need to read it again, which I intend to do.

Pirsig's writting is still beautiful. Can't describe why. It just feels good in your brain when you read his words. They flow together, and he has a talent with developing characters you can really feel. After finishing the book I carried it around for a couple of days, thinking it was kind of like an old friend.

So, in conclusion I must say that Lila is very good. It carries a grand concept that ties love, quarks, and madness with the same strings. So important is this book, that I have added it to my list of required reading for total cosmic understanding. Other members of that list are, "A Brief History of Time"-Hawking, "Chaos-A Foundation of a New Science"-Glieck, and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maitenance"-Pirsig's first contribution. This pool of literature is guaranteed to put you in your place in the universe. What you might find however, is that "getting drunk, picking up bar girls, and writing books about metaphysics" are all just a part of life.

54 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My perspective of Robert M. Pirsig's "Lila.", May 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (Mass Market Paperback)

Robert M. Pirsig's "Lila" is one of the finest and most challenging books in print today. For those of you who have read his, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," (ZMM) and enjoyed the philosophical and mystical challenges there, "Lila" offers even more.

I have read "Lila" multiple times. I only recently discovered that lila in Hindu mythology means the never-ending dance of the Divine in an ongoing alternation between the World and the Divine and back again. It is like sacrifice of the Divine to create the World and then sacrifice of the World to create the Divine. Lila is this continual dance. I found the dance a strong metaphor of the main female character in "Lila" and her relationship to Phaedrus. I am unsure Pirsig intended this metaphor, but I suspect he did.

In both ZMM and Lila, Pirsig's prime pursuit is the definition and philosophy of quality. He conjoins the epic struggle of mankind to intuit and rationalize the mind-body, subject-object dichotomies. Note that Pirsig would emphasize intuition here and de-emphasize rational thought.

In "Lila" he accomplishes three major feats:
1) a non-dichotomous and holistic view of subject-object,
2) a moral value framework for sentient beings, and
3) rules for static and dynamic balance.

Holistically, he shows that reality is composed of three things: subject (mind), object (matter), and Quality. He says that objects precede subjects, subjects emerge from objects, and quality occurs where and when subjects become aware of objects. He develops this prescient philosophy while weaving a powerful human story of his quality events with Lila as he pushes his sailing vessel through the waters of the great northeastern US.

Second, he develops a beautiful framework consisting of four value layers: intellect, social, biological, and organic. Intellect is his highest value layer and organic is the lowest. He breaks the four layers into two groups: subject and object. The top two layers correspond to subject and the bottom two layers correspond to object. Each layer in the hierarchy has moral precedence over the other. Intellect has the highest moral precedence followed by social, biological, then organic. It is moral for the higher of two layers to dominate the other. It is immoral for a lower layer to dominate a higher layer. This is a profound discovery and for me it is the new value ethics. I see world legal structures eventually adopting this ethical system.

Finally, he unifies the static versus dynamic dichotomy. He shows that the world is both static and dynamic and if long-term dynamic world patterns are to work, good static patterns must latch to permit the next dynamic emergence. He does not say so, but I infer that just like his value framework, he sees a static and dynamic framework that scales from zero to infinite space-time intervals.

A careful read of "Lila" for those of you who know of quantum theory shows significant correlation to the concepts of the new physics. Many prominent folk have seen this correlation and Pirsig has presented on the subject in Brussels Belgium at the conference entitled, "Einstein Meets Magritte." Some of us see quantum mechanics as the layer just below the organic layer, and we infer more layers above intellect.

I suggest further reading for very interesting connections to "Lila:" Eugen Herrigel ("Zen in the Art of Archery"), Gary Zukav ("The Dancing Wu Li Masters"), Fritjof Capra ("The Tao of Physics"), Heinz Pagels ("The Dreams of Reason"), and Dana Zohar & Ian Marshal ("The Quantum Society").

Pirsig, among his peers and antecedents, in my opinion, has come closest to defining a new philosophical reality. Enjoy!