Zentimes

And now back to Zen. Or motorcycles. Whichever you prefer.

I suppose I'm getting into it a little more. A little. I've just cruised past Part II as father and son are climbing the literal mountain and father is doing his shtick and telling us all about mountains of the soul and the infinite number of paths available to traverse them.

Before this, we got a glimpse into the teaching years the cause of his (I suppose) insanity. Quality. What is it? He laments the fact that you can't define quality outside of one thing's relationship to another thing. My immediate response? Dude's fucking lost it. Quality, being an adjective, is, by definition, not something that is defineable outside of its relationship to something else. So... that kind of pissed me off. Even though I can see that his perception of what the secratary was saying about "teaching Quality" would have been more "romantic" than "classical"... It still seems silly. But I guess I'm ok with it.

The other big part I got through (seemingly) is the narrator trying to explain changing the roots of an idea instead of the branches. The just kept going back to Ishmael for me. I know Quinn was publishing 20 years later... and I imagine Zen was probably part of his literary upbringing... but he does a MUCH better job of explaining this idea. (one that SHOULD be obvious but isn't) He says it slightly differently (and it may have been in The Story of B... I can't recall)... but you have to change HOW people think, not WHAT they think in order to make any real changes in the world. Well, yeah. Teach a man to fish and what not...

Anyway... I'm trying to read this book somewhat outside of the context of myself. So as not to make anachronistic comparissons to non-contemporary authors. And to, perhaps, see this as something that changed the way people thought which, in turn, opened the doors for people like Daniel Quinn to put their thoughts on paper. The author (or, at least, the narrator) is still coming off as awfully pretentious. The language doesn't even sound like he excepts the reader to completely understand. And, so far, the narrative is just getting in the way of the philosophy. (Although I do have faith that this issue will be resolved for me by the time I finish the book.)