Suggestions are welcome. Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .English 287
Links relating to Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
On-line texts of the novel
An on-line version of the text of the novel (converted to HTML by Bryan O'Sullivan).
A downloadable version of the novel in pdf format.
Articles on the novel
George Steiner, "Uneasy Rider". This review of the novel, by a prestigious critic and scholar, appeared in The New Yorker and was instrumental in fostering a wide readership for it.
Bruce Charlton, MD, "A Philosophical Novel: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" -- a brief article on the novel. The author is Reader in Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Newcastle-on-Tyne in the UK. (A visit to Charlton's home page will give you an idea of his professional interests and publications.)
Jonathan Rubin, "The Triumph of Monism in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance": a college essay.
Some pages by Pirsig fans.
These have lots of out-of-date links. Since the authors of the pages may eventually repair these, I've included them here.
Other resources
We might begin where Pirsig ends his "Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition" of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (p. xiv of the Perennial Classics paperback edition): "For more on the real Phaedrus, who is not a villainous ghost but rather a mild-mannered hyperintellectual, let me recommend Lila, a sequel that has been properly understood by very few. Let me also recommend www.moq.org on the Internet, a group that is among those few that understand it." So then:
Robert Pirsig, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals.
MOQ.org -- "a forum for discussion and study of the Metaphysics of Quality as proposed by Robert M Pirsig in his books Lila: An Inquiry into Morals and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
The Robert Pirsig Resources Project at Tarleton State University.
Robert A. Disanto and Thomas J. Steele, Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (page at Amazon.com)
Exploring Plato's Dialogues: The Pheadrus: The Benjamin Jowett translation (1871); link to translation by Harold North Fowler (1914), and related internet sources.
A Selected Bibliography of Sources on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Suggestions are welcome. Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .
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copyright © 2003 by Lyman A.
Baker.
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This page last updated 02 November 2003.