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.
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1991
ISBN: 0553299611
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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