Word: lila
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Robert Pirsig's new book, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, will please readers who enjoy this genre. However, those that expect ideas to be developed rigorously will not be satisfied by Pirsig's latest philosophical ramblings...
...Lila is Pirsig's first book in 17 years, and in order to appreciate it, one should have read Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. A motorcycle trip from Montana to California frames the narrator's flashbacks and philosophical musings in Zen. The narrator, Phaedrus, undertakes a psychological quest to restore the part of his personality that shock therapy obliterated. He claims that philosophizing about unresolvable issues drove him crazy...
...doesn't leave the morning after either. Although she is chiefly seen being grumpy and disagreeable, Lila strikes Phaedrus as a person of great mystery, a puzzle that his new way of looking at reality may be able to solve. He cuts back on his thoughts about his book and starts doing field research on one, overriding question: "Does Lila have Quality...
...Lila might work a lot better than it does if Phaedrus made this matter a little more interesting to the reader as well. But as this mismatched pair drifts southward, the skipper's attention is frequently distracted from Lila and his new project. For one thing, Phaedrus has come down with a bad case of EJS, or Erica Jong syndrome: the compulsion to write a second book dwelling on the fame one has achieved with a first book. "Sex and celebrity," he muses. "Before Phaedrus got his boat and cleared out of Minnesota he remembered ladies at parties coming over...
...hotel room: ". . . YEEOW!! . . . Way down there the cars were like little ladybugs. They were yellow, most of them, and they crawled along slowly, just like bugs. The yellow ones must be taxis. They moved so slowly." So, for that matter, does Phaedrus' narrative pace. Far too much of Lila proceeds like this: "Then she came in the door. Sad. She was really looking old. She used to be a real looker. Getting fat too. Drinking too much beer. She always did like her beer. She better take care of herself...