When was the last time you saw that? And this exposure is somehow existential in its significance: Pirsig conveys the experience of being fully in the world, without the mediation of devices that filter reality, smoothing its rough edges for our psychic comfort. If such experiences feel less available to us now, Pirsig would not be surprised. Already, in , he offered this story as a meditation on a particular way of moving through the world, one that felt marked for extinction.
At the heart of the story is the motorcycle itself, a Honda Super Hawk. I got to work on several Hondas of this vintage when I ran a motorcycle repair shop in Richmond, Virginia.
Compared to British bikes of the same era, the Hondas seemed more refined. My writing career grew out of these experiences—an effort to articulate the human element in mechanical work. His teaching career at Montana State University was curtailed by his resistance to grading and his discovery of the hallucinogen peyote after attending a Northern Cheyenne tribal ceremony.
He taught rhetoric at the University of Illinois-Chicago, but his behaviour at home became increasingly erratic and threatening. On Christmas Day he was taken to hospital in a catatonic state. Phaedrus was more honest, he would never compromise, and the young respected him for that. When the treatment was finished, he applied for more than 50 jobs, but the rejections he received led to deep feelings of shame.
Pirsig wrote his book mostly in the middle of the night, while working at commercial writing jobs. Robert Redford wanted the film rights, but they could not agree a deal. Pirsig would fictionalise their meetings in his second novel, Lila, which he began after revisiting the Cheyenne. He received a Guggenheim grant, but used the money to purchase a 32ft sailing boat. They separated in Annapolis, Maryland, in Pirsig continued down to Florida, and met a journalist, Wendy Kimball, who arrived to interview him on the boat and never left, becoming his second wife.
They sailed for the UK in , getting caught in the same storm that wreaked havoc on the Fastnet sailing race. A few months after they arrived, Chris was stabbed to death by a mugger in San Francisco.
For the next five years, the family sailed around northern Europe while Pirsig worked on Lila, by now centred on the sailing trip down the Hudson. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store.
Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. By Steve Chawkins. Robert Pirsig working on a motorcycle in Steve Chawkins. More From the Los Angeles Times.
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