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you lewin
Louis
one
welcome to the idea Renaissance presentation no zen and the art of
motorcycle maidens written by Robert M Pirsig
and adapted for audio by Richard O'Connor
hello I'm Tony Hurtz director of production for audio Renaissance
it is my privilege to have produced this program
and now to preface this production by reading the following introduction
Britain especially by Robert Pirsig for this twenty-fifth anniversary
edition
I suppose every writer dreams are the kind of success
zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance has had in the past 25 years
rave reviews millions of copies sold in 23 languages
a description in the press specifically in the London Telegraph and on the
British Broadcasting Corporation
as the most widely read philosophy book
ever in the early seventies when it was being written
I had those dreams of course but didn't let myself dwell on them or express them
publicly
for fear they would be interpreted as megalomania
and a regression to my former mental illness now the dreams a reality
and I don't have to worry about that anymore but rather than recount success
that everyone knows
it would be a higher quality no to write about the books failures
and maybe help correct them there to that standard
a minor one and a major one the minor one
is that Phaedrus doesn't mean that wolf in Greek
that was a mistake the grew out of the actual experience at the University of
Chicago in 1960
that appears in part 4 the professor of philosophy had mentioned that play don't
like to use names for his character's
that suggested the nature of their personality and in the dialogue
if a dress the like this was made to a wolf
the professor whose actual name I recall either as
lamb spelled with 2 M's or lamb spelled like the animal
looked at me in such a way as to indicate he thought the total love wolf
fit me I was an outsider who seemed more interested in attacking what was being
taught
than learning from it my hyperactive mind
seized upon this as my definitive relationship to the school
and this worked its way into the book but the character whom played a likened
to a wolf
was not vigorous but lacy s whose name is similar to the Greek
like course that does mean wolf as readers have pointed out to me many
times
they dress actually means brilliant or radiant
I was lucky it could just as easily have meant something much worse
the second error is much more serious
because it has obscured the fundamental meaning over the book
many people have noticed that the ending somehow
does not clear things up that something is missing some love coated
a Hollywood ending that undermines the artistic integrity of the book
there right but this is not because a Hollywood ending was intended
it is because a much different ending was intended
that was not sufficiently clear in the intended ending it is not the narrator
who triumphs
over a bill in a speeders it is an honorable feed Rhys
who tribes over the narrator that has been maligning him
all the time to expand on this let me go back to a creative writing seminar held
on winter afternoons in the early nineteen fifties
at the University of Minnesota the teacher
was Alan Tate a distinguished poet and literary aid
are subject for many sessions was Henry James
the turn of the screw in which a governess tries to shield her to
proteges from a ghostly presence
but in the end fails and they are killed I was completely convinced
that this was just a straightforward cool story but it said no
Henry James's up to more than that the governess is not the her when I love
this story
she is the villainous it is not the ghost who kills the children
but the governess hysterical belief that a ghost exists
I couldn't believe this at first but we read the story and so the Tate was right
you can interpret it either way how could I have missed it
Tate explain the james was able to achieve this magic
through the use up the first person narrator paid said that the first person
is the most difficult form because the Raiders walked inside the head of the
narrator and can't get out
he can't say meanwhile back at the ranch as a transition to another subject
because he is imprisoned for ever inside the narrator
but so is the reader and that is the strength
the first person narrative the reader does not see
that the governor's is the villainous because with the governor sees
is all the reader overseas now come back to San and the art of motorcycle
maintenance
a note the similarities there is a narrator whose mind you never leave
he refers to an evil ghost named if a dress
but the only way you know this goes to civil is because the narrator tells you
so
during the story they dress appears in the narrator's dreams in such a way that
you begin to see that not only is the narrator pursuing favorites in order to
destroy him
but feeders is also pursuing the narrator for the same purpose
who will win there is a divided personality here
to mines fighting for the same body a condition that inspire the original
meaning up
schizophrenia these two mines have different values
as to what is important in life the numerator is primarily a person
dominated by social values
as he says at the beginning I haven't really had a new idea
in years he never tells his story
except in ways that are calculated to make you like him
his private thoughts he will share with you but not with John
or Sylvia or Chris or the tweezers
above all he does not want to be isolated from you the reader
or from society around him he maintains a careful position within the normal
boundaries of his surrounding society
because he is seen what has happened if a dress who did not
he has learned his lesson no more shock treatment for him
only at one point does the narrator confess his secret
that he is a heretic who is congratulated by everyone for having
saved his soul
but who knows secretly that all he is saved
is the skin there are only two others who know or since this
Chris is one he is going to pieces with confusion and grief as he looks for the
father he remembers and loves and can't find any more
Phaedrus is the other he knows completely with the narrator is up to
and despises him for it invaders view
the narrator's a sellout a coward who was abandoned truth
for popularity and social acceptance by his psychiatrists
his family his employers and the social acquaintances
he sees that the narrator doesn't want to be honest anymore
just an accepted member of the community bowing and accommodating his way through
the rest to this year's
features was dominated by intellectual values
he didn't give a damn who liked or didn't like him
he was single-mindedly pursuing a truth he felt was upstair growing importance
to the world
the world had no idea of what he was trying to do and it was trying to kill
him for his trouble
now he had been socially destroyed silenced
but the residue 40 new still lingered in the narrator's brain
and that was the source the contract
in the end it is Chris's agony that releases vigorous
when Chris asks were you really insane
and the answer is no it is not the narrator
but favors who answers and when chris says
I knew it he also understands that for the first time on this whole trip
he is talking to his long-lost father again
the tension is gone they have won it
the dissembling narrator has vanished
it's going to get better now for dressers
you can sort of tell these things