andom reflections on the novel- (Part-23)
Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle maintenance. Robert.M.Pirsig
Culture and Science or more precisely Art and Science shape different visions in each individual. What dominates our thought is what determines our world vision. Can people make quick adjustments between these two narrative veins: Art which is more about syncing and bonding and Science which is more about deciphering and estimating? But really isn’t there a place somewhere where these two meet and dissolve into one conundrum? Structured as a series of dialogues or enquiries as in Plato’s work the book is a fictionalized autobiography as to what constitutes ‘Quality’. Often the book seems to envision a play between the ‘Romantic and the Classical’ views of life.
I have a lot to write about ZAMM. It is a modern classic. A Phenomenal work in the sense it touches the fundamental question as to why we in today’s world, in-spite of all the sophisticated technology and innovation we have, feel alienated from everything, from work, from Nature, from family and even from ourselves. What is it that we lack, the one, the Zen, the good, the dharma or the soul? Why don’t we feel one with what we do? How and when did we get imprisoned in the dialectic of body and soul, subject and object, form and substance? When this duality has overtaken everything in our purview where do we find oneness: the Brahman?
On an exploration of America with his teenage son on a motorcycle the narrator gets into these complex questions as to how the ‘system’ has over powered all other forms of expression (and in other words life) and how modern civilization is at peril if we don’t recognize this falsehood (the logic of progress. reason and enlightenment.) If one could make philosophy enjoyable reading and also intellectually stimulating, one may not achieve anything more bewitching than this. This book led me to look for more works in the same vein and I found Sophie’s World.
More in the next post ( To be continued)