Final Reaction

Reading this novel at the same time as many of the other books we have read this year has allowed me to make many parallels and connections. To begin I would like to discuss the similarities between Phaedrus, Mersault and the narrator from Notes from the Underground. Like Mersault, Phaedrus is not the type of person to pass judgement, this is due not only to his extraordinarily high IQ level but also to his way of thinking rationally and logically instead of with feelings and emotions. He makes me think of the clarity lecture because he is another example of the stage between winter and spring. Now, to compare Phaedrus to the narrator from Notes from the Underground, both of these characters have a way of viewing knowledge and facts as things that are not what we think they are. Let me clarify, like the narrator from Notes from the Underground, Phaedrus believes that a fact is actually just something that someone made up, similar to how the narrator from Notes from the Underground believes that religion and science are simply ideas that somebody made up. both of these individuals would agree that there is no end to knowledge because facts are constantly changing. They both touch on the idea that like life, science is always changing and there is and never will be a right and final answer to any problem. This is because no matter what, there is always a new experiment that can be performed or a new theory to be tested that will either confirm or deny the previous one. 

To comment on the style of the novel, I really enjoyed the parallel between the philosophical and theoretical ideas and the storyline that as developed with Chris and his father’s trip across the country. On top of that, I enjoyed the analogies to motorcycles and their maintenance that Pirsig used to discuss technology and its effect on people. I like how he talked about Einstein because Einstein is well known for his concerns about how technology will affect the individual and his or her interaction with the rest of society. Overall, it is definitely not a book that I would have read on my own but I am glad that I was compelled to read it because it is very insightful and it can be interesting if you learn to open your mind and accept that there is more than one answer.