A Brief Report


I've finally abandoned Z&AoMM. I hate to do it in some ways but it just got too preachy and self-helpy and I'm not in the mood for that. Or maybe I am and it's just that it's hard to read about it. I'm also not sure that Pirsig's set himself up throughout the text to be as credible as a preachy person needs to be in order to get away with being preachy. I have to recommend going back to Plaid Column in early February (you can see how slow I am at reading this book) and looking at the concern about Pirsig expressed there. Are those who are self-helped, overly self-absorbed? So the cover is off and the book is lying over on the other side of the room out of my reach. I haven't decided what to do with it next. I've started reading the Scottish book, the one I got for Christmas. It's a history book and it has its good points and bad points. It's pretty funny in the sense that every few pages, the author reasserts the apparent main point of the book which is that Scots invented the modern world. I like that the author is well aware of the humour in his assertion and plays it up even as he is completely serious. The book seems to follow the pattern of a lot of contemporary, popular history books in its use of storytelling as a way of making history less boring so I guess the book is less boring than it could be but...hey! I'll reserve judgement. I'm only on page 15. Plus, being Scottish and all, I already know some of the stuff he's telling me (can't you tell that I've been surrepticiously dipping into Catcher in the Rye?). But, again, I've just started the book. I am looking for a good novel but don't know what direction to go in.

Lifting the Ban

I found a library book under a pile of T-shirts this morning. It’s been missing for a month. A month overdue.

“You will be responsible for any applicable fines”.
“You will be banned from use of RACER until the materials in question are returned".

I was happy to find it mostly because I couldn’t find it. I also couldn’t remember reading it. I could remember looking at the Table of Contents and realizing that I had already read most of the articles in other contexts and didn’t really need the book. I remembered bringing it home rather than leaving it at work. I wondered (briefly) if someone had taken the book from my office or if I’d already returned it…I avoid buying books but sometimes the library and my relationship to it really stresses me out. Plus, I honestly don’t read a lot of the books I check out…

But I’m still reading my 50 cent Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The green cover has fallen off. I want to be finished. I’m kind of done with it even though it’s not done. It’s very interesting reading a book that I read in years ago as a different person. It’s worth thinking about in terms of Pirsig’s journey into his own past and former identity which he doesn’t remember that well. I don’t remember my teenage self that well either. Is it important for me to read that self into this reading of the book? I might actually be too lazy to bother. It doesn’t feel urgent. It is, though, interesting to read so much about Pirsig's pursuit of radical pedagogy which I wasn’t interested in at all when I was a teenager but has a professional relevance to me now. I also very vividly remember how much the book influenced my thinking about subjectivity/objectivity and that I learned to think differently from reading it. I love the idea that a book can teach you, can be influential in that way. Now, I actually think I’m paying more attention to the ‘fixing the cycle’ part of the book than I did before. No idea why though.