Well first off, I am very confused at this point in the
book. We still do not know who Phaedrus is. He literally can be anyone, the
narrator, someone from the past, an old friend. I have no idea at this point. Can
we just find out already? Pirsig now brought is the topic of the scientific
method in full detail. I agree with him in the facts that there will always
something else to experiment and investigate and while you are doing that,
something else will come up. That is what science is, but we have to ignore
some of the hypotheses you come up with and focus on one. You can later move on
if you would like.
Pirsig did
bring up a point again that I find to be very interesting. Which is better, the
journey of the destination? I have been asked this question multiple times and
the theme then came up in the novel. They actually ask this question at in one
of the rides in Epcot. I began thinking about it then and I honestly do not
know what I think. It honestly depends on the situation. If you are talking
about the road to college, the journey is important because you are getting to
the college you want to, but is the college the best part of the experience?
Vacationing must be the only certain destination that is better than the
journey. Well for me at least, but this is not the case for the narrator. He
would rather be philosophical on his bike travelling to his next location,
rather than getting to the destination. He says this clearly when he says its
is better to travel than to arrive. It frustrates me to not have a solid
answer, and I know there are not many solid answers in lif but I just want to
know what the book is about.
This book
has gotten to the point where I do not like reading it. It is hard to si down
and read and most of the topics are things that make me think and give me extra
topics to discuss with myself internally and get more frustrated. I see the
narrators point of view when I begin to do this. I am becoming convinced that
the author is reflecting how the narrator feels. Frustration at its finest.
I sympathize with Shannon when it comes to her frustration- it is becoming increasingly difficult to read this book, despite my appreciation for the past few chapters. I, too, am annoyed by the fact that we still do not know who Phaedrus is, and although it might be a cute mystery to add depth to the story, what it actually does is frustrate us, if not, bore us from guessing altogether. I think this is because the narrator is giving more and more information about Phaedrus as if we already knew who he was instead of leaving it with a mysterious air. Less is more when it comes to adding mystery and avoiding irritation. At least when I read Atlas Shrugged I was kept interested with the idea of who John Galt is (although, the mystery was killed for my there as well, but only because of the length of the book itself). I guess this book is not for everyone, and it is very difficult to read on a weekly schedule. It feels too broken up and disconnected, and I am having trouble deciding whether this is due to the actual story being this way or the fact that we are reading at this pace. I think this term paper blog assignment would have been much more exciting had we been given a story with a bit more narrative.
ReplyDeleteI have found a” funfact” for us, by the way. Apparently, this novel was rejected by 121 publishers before finally being published. Funny, right?