An interesting book about Pirsig's take on truth, quality, and life. Not very well written, but an amazing philosophy and some great insights. I have not much experience in philosophy, but I like Pirsig's idea of static quality patterns and dynamic quality that together constitute everything in mind and matter. ( )

Continuation of the" Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" saga. ( )

the american indians look forward to the 7th generation. you will find out abt. this and related matters if you get this book. the profile of the 'plains indian' is worth it alone. ( )

This is my favorite book, and somewhat of a personal obsession of mine, so I disagree completely with Arctic-Stranger's review. Lila is in no way a 'postscript' to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM). Pirsig almost completely takes back the ideas put forth in that book, apart from the concept of 'undefined Quality'. To quote him:
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was like a first child. Maybe that will always be the best-loved one. But this second child is the bright one. I think a lot of people will argue with the ideas in Lila. There may be controversy. But if people are still reading these two books a hundred years from now, I predict Lila will be the one they consider the most important."

I read ZAMM when I was 15, and loved it, but it has serious flaws, which Pirsig obviously realized himself, over the 18 years it took him to write another book. Although ZAMM is considered by some to be a difficult read, it was a bestseller. Lila is *much* more difficult to appreciate, and if it hadn't been for the popularity of the first book it would have sunk like a stone in the market. Over the years, I have given away numerous copies, and hardly anyone even managed to finish it. There are a number of reasons why this is so, and I want to point out a few.

First, the meat of the philosophical discussion which hangs on the storyline is extremely dense. Pirsig's writing style is very plain, with short sentences, and little ornament. (This fact is actually relevant to some of the ideas he puts forth about how Native Americans speak: "... not like some fancy college professor, but Plains spoken; laconic, understated, very little tonal change..."). As such, it is deceptively simple, and unless the reader is careful, it is easy to skim over the text without understanding it at all. Unfortunately, like reading a book on mathematics, if you haven't grasped the earlier points, you will be completely lost later in the book.

Second, he takes some very unpopular, and even apparently 'politically incorrect' positions regarding sex, culture, and even race. How popular is it at this point in history (except with the religious right) to say that unlimited sexual licence isn't a good idea? Or that black people in America should take responsibility for the lack of moral structures in their culture which leads to crime? Or that there is something to be said for big corporations? It provokes a knee-jerk reaction from the very readership that would pick up a book by Pirsig in the first place, many of whom are expecting a 'feel-good mystical book', and entirely miss the points he makes (which are far from know-nothing social conservatism) because they are intellectually hard to understand. However, if you make the effort to understand his system of metaphysics, you will see that he explains those socio-political conflicts in amazingly novel and enlightening ways!

Third, as a personality, Pirsig is both a 'nerd intellectual' and an 'outsider' par excellence. He found out as an adult that he had been 'tracked' by an IQ research program because he scored 170 at the age of 9 on the Stanford-Binet test. (See this interesting biographical site: http://www.psybertron.org/timeline.ht...). He discusses the case of James Sidis, who had the highest recorded IQ in history, at length in the book. He makes the case that intellect has a certain 'disgust' towards society and it's values. Sounds like a sympathetic character to the warm and fuzzy new-age types, right?! But wait, there's more. You would think he might get a sympathetic hearing from the academics, but no, he takes pains to criticize them relentlessly, and all the 'philosophologists' who teach philosophy! If that wasn't enough, he also talks about the value of psychedelic drugs and parapsychological perceptions, the mere mention of which is well known to destroy academic careers forever. So it's a *sure thing* that Lila won't be admitted to the academy for the forseeable future.

As I think I have demonstrated, there are a host of reasons why Lila has never been a popular book - except among a few who 'get it'. Its 'unread' tag here is quite *unsurprisingly* large!! The question that the book hangs on is 'Does Lila (the female character in the book) have Quality'? The question here is 'Does Lila (the book) have Quality?' Obviously, many people don't think so. However, it has spawned an enthusiastic community of admirers, and even a collaborative book, published with Pirsig's approval. The website is here: www.moq.org .

So, does Lila have Quality? I've been telling people since I first read it that it's one of the most important books written in the 20th century, and may not be widely appreciated for another hundred years.

Read it. Not once, not twice, but several times. It'll change your world, if you let it........... ( )

A continuation of "Zen and the art...", and just as good, if not better. ( )