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The autumn voyage on which
he moved his boat from Bayfield Wisconsin on Lake Superior
to Florida through the Great Lakes to New York City via the
Erie Canal/Mohawk River Route of the New York State
Waterways and the Hudson River provides the backdrop to
Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, his follow-up novel to
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig then
cruised the U.S. Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas and
the U.S. east coat before crossing the Atlantic to spend
years living aboard in the England and the Scandinavian
countries before returning stateside, making his home in
rural New England. It was not until he was in his late 80s
that he finally sold Aręte because he had become too
old to sail her anymore, He died on April 24, 2017, and he
now sails, lives, and explores that great distant dream, unstopped
by the mystery
that can never be fathomed…the source of it all.
In a later interview he says
that if the two books are read 100 years from now, Lila
will be regarded as the most important. If that is true, I
don't know, but the older sailor in me enjoyed the later sea
voyage as did the younger artist of my youth relish the
cross-country adventure.
Cruising Blues and Their Cure by Robert Pirsig
(Esquire, 1977)
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