Fine unread condition blue boards, navy blue cloth spine, and silver spine lettering contained in a fine condition non price-clipped color illustrated dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication. "Phaedrus had once called metaphysics "the high country of the mind" - an analogy to the high country of mountain climbing. It takes a lot of effort to get there and more effort when you arrive, but unless you can make the journey you are confined to one valley of thought all your life. From the author of one of the most celebrated books of our time, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, comes his first new work in more than fifteen years: a poignant new journey and passionate philosophical exploration of what we live for that examines the essential issues of the nineties as his previous classic did the seventies. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance holds a unique place in modern American culture. A completely unprecedented book by an unknown writer, initially rejected by more than 120 publishers, it captured the spirit of an entire generation. Now, in Lila, Robert M. Pirsig brings us a new voyage, as mysterious and compelling as the journey in that first life-changing work. Instead of a motorcycle, a cruising sailboat carries his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus has a most unlikely traveling companion: a woman named Lila, picked up in a riverside bar, who in her desperate sexuality, hostility, and oncoming madness threatens to disrupt his life's work. Lila is the story of their catastrophic comic enconunter and an account of the philosophical crisis Lila provokes in Phaedrus, who has been wrestling for years with his Metaphysics of Quality. For Lila poses in human terms the essential questions: What is good? What role do values play in our lives? How can people disagree so murderously on right and wrong? As in his previous book, Pirsig's narrative is interspersed with meditations on an astonishing range of ideas, from Native American ceremonies to Victorian society to the decline of our cities. Like that other great river traveler Mark Twain, Robert M. Pirsig brings us both an unforgettable journey and an extraordinary exploration of American identity and destiny." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.
