GRAPEVINE

By DAVID ELLIS

More than 2 million people bought the 1974 book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in which author Robert Pirsig discoursed on philosophy, the psyche and values. After a 16-year silence, Pirsig has now turned in the manuscript for a follow-up that could reach booksellers by autumn. His publisher, Morrow, has gambled an estimated $2.3 million advance that many of the readers touched by the first work would rush to buy the second. In Lila, Pirsig chronicles a journey undertaken by Phaedrus, whom readers may recognize as Pirsig's alter ego in the earlier book. Phaedrus meets Lila in a bar and takes a sailboat ride with her up the Hudson River. Pirsig's agent describes the journey as a search for the "metaphysics of quality."

With reporting by Linda Williams