This page is still in process of a few edit improvements.
Still to be added is an External Link to a Google Map showing the actual railroad tracks join-up at the no longer existing small town of Prineville Junction, plus links to several of HSG's photos that show the scenes of the Narrators Trip, leading up to, and after " The nothing curb, and a nothing gas station, going no where. ".
... Also to be added are => A) For further Reading Section at end of page. B) Suggestion (in special note at very top of page), that reader, have "up" the links of this page as separate "Tabs" on his Internet Browser OR even a second computer screen, such as a second computer, or even a Smart Phone!
... Also to be added is the standard format of bottom last two lines indicating history of the authoring of this page & file name. Otherwise most all is here and OK. Henry Gurr ZMMQ SiteMaster June 15, 2019

Why the Abrupt Turn South at Prineville Junction?

by David Matos with Henry Gurr

THESIS: The Abrupt Turn South At Prineville Junction Isn’t A Just A Literal Turn, But A Turning Point In The Novel Where The Narrator Begins To Confront His Return To Civilization, His Own Psychological Crisis, And His Deteriorating Relationship With Chris.

If you trace the ZMM route west on a map, you find Pirsig and Chris making a bee-line west through central Oregon. Then, abruptly their course makes a 90-degree turn south at Prineville Junction near Bend, OR, an intersection that has since disappeared in Bend's sprawl. Why the sudden change of direction?
((CORRECTION by Henry Gurr July 10, 2021 Not Bend, But ~4 miles North of Redmond, OR.))

The idea that there was an unplanned change of course is supported by the contrast between the actual ZMM Route and an earlier map, a draft of a possible trip out west marked out with felt tip marker by Pirsig himself on a 1951 National Geographic USA Wall map well before his actual 1968 trip. Pirsig gave this map to John Sutherland who in turn mailed it to ZMMQuality founder Henry Gurr in 2003. Gurr describes the map as follows...

“Upon this map was "inked-in" what appeared to be an early version of an idealized Trip West: The ink lines included Yellowstone National Park, continuing via the Snake River Plain and the Columbia River Plain, to the Pacific Ocean at Portland, OR. There turning south, continued along the Ocean Coastal Routes to San Francisco. The return from California, was mostly by way of the ‘49er’s California Gold Rush Trail thru Nevada, Idaho, & Wyoming, and then angled northeast back to Minneapolis MN.”

From studying the map, Gurr hypothesizes...

“Perhaps the Narrator’s [or Pirsig’s] original Summer 1968 plan was to continue his travel generally West , and from Prineville Junction go thru the mountainous Three Sisters Wilderness Area of Central Oregon. He then could follow a combination of the various secondary roads to the Oregon Pacific Coast, where he then would turn south, and follow the scenic Oregon & California Coast Highways, to San Francisco.”

Pirsig/the Narrator were was quite keen on reaching the Pacific Coast. This isn’t just supported by Pirsig’s own planning map route, but by the text in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (page 313) where the Narrator, stopping in a Klamath Lake roadhouse, realizes he has gone off course: “I see on the map we’ve taken a wrong turn way back and could have gotten to the ocean much quicker by another route.” Later, in Chapter 29, upon arriving at the Pacific, the narrator remembers, "this was our great goal all these days.”

But the nagging question remains, why that abrupt turn south that deviates from a bee-line to the ocean?

In real life, we actually have an answer : Henry Gurr, intrigued by the abrupt turn south, poses the question to Robert Pirsig directly in his correspondence with the author. In a letter from Pirsig to Gurr dated Feb 13, 2007, Pirsig says this about the turn south:

Dear Prof. Gurr .. I think that I remember that the reason for turning south at Prineville Junction is that I wanted Chris to see Crater Lake. …

So, at least in real life, a deliberate decision to change course had been made. If we assume that Pirsig’s actual trip mirrors the narrative in the novel, then we can use such clues to inform our understanding of the novel. Indeed, Pirsig intentionally wrote into Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance real facts about his 1968 motorcycle trip west to create a more vivid and engaging narrative. At the same time, we should be wary about the idea that the novel always mirrors real life. Normally, this is a good operating assumption in the case of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but it must be remembered that the novel is ultimately a fictionalized account. Only Pirsig himself or others who were there would know what was reality and what was fiction. Still, considering Pirsig’s’s attempts at realism, real life clues can help illuminate the text.

Pirsig’s remembrance that he turned south to show Chris Crater Lake certainly marks a break in a pattern. Prior to the turn in the novel, the Narrator had intentionally kept to the secondary roads, off the beaten path so to speak, avoiding tourist attractions such as Crater Lake. Likewise, a decision to change course to see Crater Lake shows a new concern for Chris and an attempt to entertain him. As Henry Gurr concludes: “The Narrator, becoming aware of Chris’s increasing hatred both of him, and the trip itself, he (the Narrator) finally decided to do more of what Chris wanted, for example tourist attractions, which he despised!" Gurr backs up his conclusion with listing of places and times when the Narrator does or does not do what Chris wants. For instance, stopping to the feed the ducks in Leggett, CA.

The abrupt turn south at Prineville Junction isn’t a just a literal turn, but also a turning point in the novel where the Narrator begins to confront his return to civilization, his own psychological crisis, and his deteriorating relationship with Chris. Their arrival at Prineville Junction triggers a reaction of gloom for the Narrator and tiredness clouds his judgment. Despite realizing he is struggling with exhaustion, he still falls into a classic gumption trap…

We arrive at Prineville Junction with only a few hours of daylight left. We’re at the intersection with Highway 97, where we’ll turn south, and I fill up the tank at the corner and then am so tired I go around in the back and sit on the yellow-painted cement curb with my feet in the gravel and the last rays of the sun flaring through the trees into my eyes. Chris comes and sits down too, and we don’t say anything, but this is the worst depression yet. All that talk about gumption traps and I fall right into one myself. Fatigue maybe. We’ve got to get some sleep. ..I watch the cars go by for a while on the highway. Something lonely about them. Not lonely—worse. Nothing. Like the attendant’s expression when he filled the tank. Nothing. A nothing curb, by some nothing gravel, at a nothing intersection, going nowhere.

The Narrator’s experience at Prineville Junction contrasts sharply with an earlier rest step [TOWN: Dayville>] where he and Chris sleep alongside the road. The nearby Chinaman’s Ditch and the trees watered by it are described as emblematic of Quality. Friendly locals sidle up to them and converse in an atavistic 30s attitude with the discussion going no place in particular. That scene stands in stark opposition to Prineville Junction’s overwhelming nothingness.

At Prineville Junction, the busy highways inform the narrator that he has reached the West Coast and civilization again, the biggest gumption trap of all, “the funeral procession”. With the return to civilization, the narrator is reminded of both his own psychological struggle attempting to reconcile his past and his worsening relationship with Chris, a ratcheting crisis that builds tension to the climax of the novel. On vacation, motorcycling West, the Narrator could run from his personal demons with Chris in tow much like the mythical rider trying to save his son from the Alderking in Goethe’s Erlkonig. But with the arrival at the West Coast and the looming end of the trip, the Narrator could no longer run from and ignore the situation. He is forced to reconcile with the Phaedrus side of his personality and also reconcile his relationship with Chris. As their relationship deteriorates, it is Chris himself who questions the Narrator why they "keep going and going.” Chris knows something is wrong and becomes more and more agitated until the conflict is finally resolved by novel’s end.

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