Finished it and loved it!
Finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance last night. If you read the thread, you'll notice I went from impressed to annoyed to finally very satisfied. That's a good book, one that can push all my buttons.
As for quality, I still stand by my subjective comment. And it really isn't a strange thing for a writer to say. My writing has value, quality, to me. If others find quality in it, then it should be published. If not, then it shouldn't. But I don't use that as a gauge for my skill as a writer or depth as a human being. It simply is what it is.
Think of it this way, Pirsig talks about the Amoeba avoiding an acidic environment (a low quality environment). Yet, there are bacteria that thrive in high acid environments. Thus, what is poor quality to one is good quality to another.
While I loved the book, I differ with Pirsig on quality being the reality we tap into. I think it is our love of quality that dominates our reality. We start with an innate, nonrational desire for quality (value or excellence). This is our nonrational well-spring, the source of which I connote as God. You may refer to it as the Void or Truth or Quality or Infinity. It's all the same. It is the starting premise from which reason is possible. But we often make the mistake of putting reason first as though it exists in a free-floating vacuum. That is what Pirsig is assaulting and I couldn't agree more. He admits that quality is subjective, but sidesteps the implications of this fact, seeing in its subjectivity a dubious justification for quality.
Of course, in the end, he realizes he erred by trying to define the undefinable and yet, that is what we all do. Zen scholars do the same thing. By telling what Zen isn't, you start defining what Zen is. Christians are equally guilty of this sin, describing the indescribable God. So if we are compelled to try for answers, then the answers must exist. We simply give up on them.
That's my thought anyway.
