Robert M Pirsig Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Author Robert Pirsig and his son Chris in 1968. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance, died Monday at age 88. William Morrow/HarperCollins hide caption

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William Morrow/HarperCollins

Author Robert Pirsig and his son Chris in 1968. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died Monday at age 88.

William Morrow/HarperCollins

Robert 1000. Pirsig, who inspired generations to road trip across America with his "novelistic autobigraphy," Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died Monday at the age of 88.

His publisher William Morrow & Visitor said in a statement that Pirsig died at his home in S Berwick, Maine, "later a period of declining health."

Pirsig wrote simply two books: Zen (subtitled "An Inquiry Into Values") and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals.

Author Robert Pirsig works on a motorcycle in 1975. William Morrow/HarperCollins hibernate caption

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William Morrow/HarperCollins

Writer Robert Pirsig works on a motorcycle in 1975.

William Morrow/HarperCollins

Zen was published in 1974, subsequently existence rejected by 121 publishing houses. "The book is brilliant beyond belief," wrote Morrow editor James Landis before publication. "It is probably a work of genius and will, I'll wager, attain archetype status."

Indeed, the volume quickly became a best-seller, and has proved enduring as a work of popular philosophy. A 1968 motorbike trip across the Westward with his son Christopher was his inspiration.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt reviewed Zen for The New York Times in 1974. "[H]owever impressive are the seductive powers with which Mr. Pirsig engages united states of america in his motorbike trip, they are cipher compared to the skill with which he interests u.s.a. in his philosophic trip," he wrote. "Mr. Pirsig may sometimes appear to be a greener‐America proselytizer, with his bristles and his motorcycle tripping and his talk about learning to love engineering science. But when he comes to grips with the hard philosophical conundrums raised past the 1960's, he can be electrifying."

Pirsig was born in Minneapolis, the son of a Academy of Minnesota law professor. He graduated from loftier school at 15 and enlisted in the Army after Globe War II. While stationed in Republic of korea, he encountered the Asian philosophies that would underpin his work. He went on to study Hindu philosophy in India and for a time was enrolled in a philosophy Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. He was hospitalized for mental disease and returned to Minneapolis, where he worked equally a technical author and began writing his first book.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of just 2 books that Pirsig wrote. It has endured as a work of popular philosophy. Alan Levine/Flickr hide explanation

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was i of just two books that Pirsig wrote. It has endured as a work of popular philosophy.

Alan Levine/Flickr

Pirsig also helped found the Minnesota Zen Meditation Middle, then lived reclusively and worked on Lila for 17 years before its publication in 1991. "A skilled mechanic, he performed repairs in his domicile workshop," writes the publisher. "He taught himself navigation in the days earlier GPS, and twice crossed the Atlantic in his minor sailboat, Aretê."

The protagonist of Zen attempts to resolve the conflicts between "archetype" values that create mechanism similar the motorbike, and "romantic" values like the beauty of a country road. He discovers all values find their root in what Pirsig called Quality:

"Quality . . . you know what it is, nonetheless y'all don't know what information technology is. Simply that's cocky-contradictory. But some things are amend than others, that is, they have more quality. Just when you endeavour to say what the quality is, apart from the things that take it, it all goes poof! There'due south zippo to talk near. Just if you tin't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how practice you know that it fifty-fifty exists? If no one knows what information technology is, then for all applied purposes it doesn't be at all. But for all applied purposes information technology actually does exist."

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Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/24/525443040/-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-author-robert-m-pirsig-dies-at-88