Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

John has heard about a different route for reaching Bozeman, one that the narrator knows Phaedrus used often. Phaedrus would use the road and was always in the area on frequent excursions into the surrounding wilderness. He took the trips to get away from the university and find solitude without the constraint of others around.

The lateral drift that Phaedrus embarked upon after being expelled from college led him into the army. He was sent to Korea, and the narrator points out that his letters and writing of the time were more emotional than before. While there, Phaedrus learned about Korean culture. On a trip back from Korea, Phaedrus reads The Meeting of East and West by F.S.C. Northrop, a book on Oriental philosophy. The book outlines the Eastern affinity for aesthetics and the Western affinity for the theoretical, a cultural split which parallels Phaedrus’s “romantic” and “classic” dichotomy.

Once Phaedrus returned to America, he decided to enroll in the university again, this time to study philosophy. According to Phaedrus, philosophy is a discipline higher than science, one that can allow him to ask the “bigger picture” questions that science would not entertain.