Lila: Robert M. Pirsig - Softcover

The compendious and digressive qualities... keep you bumping through the pages... the voice of the narrator carries some of the folksy weight and salty wisdom of a Mark Twain. * Sunday Times * This is a book I'll come back to and read again... another one to be grateful for... * Scotsman * There's still this terrible sense of madness and reality behind it which makes you realize it was written because it had to be written... the journey's very much worthwile. * Time Out * Lila is unmistakably Pirsigian in style and content... this author is a Great Thinker. * Oxford Times * Written in everyday language, with searing disrespect for academia, this meandering holiday was a life-changer for me, both as a novel and a thesis. -- D.B.C Pierre Pirsig peppers the narrative with intriguing insights and provocative propositions - The Guardian, This is a book I'll come back to and read again...another one to be grateful for... * The Scotsman *

Phaedrus - a character familiar to readers of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' - is sailing down the Hudson River when he meets Lila Blewitt, an unapologetically sexual, psychologically unstable woman whom a mutual friend warns him against. But Phaedrus is drawn to her physically, and interested in her intellectually, finding her a culture of one in whom he discerns an unexpected Quality. Sailing with him to Manhattan, where her mental state deteriorates further, Lila promps Phaedrus to explore conflicts of values, such as those between Native Americans and Europeans, or between the insane and the normal.