Phaedrus: Who is he?

         In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the narrator begins with somewhat arcane references to Phaedrus, an Athenian philosopher in the time of Socrates. At first, I wondered if he meant to present and explore his own ideas in light of those of Phaedrus', but I came to see that most of the book details an extended parallel between the two men. The clues came slowly. Initially, the narrator (and "author," according to the book) wrote in terms of what Phaedrus might think of this and that, never dispelling the illusion that he was talking about Phaedrus, the philosopher of ancient history. Suddenly, the narration begins to make statements about what Phaedrus does/did think of the ideas of individuals way past his own time period (such as Kant.) At that point, I had to reconsider the Phaedrus that was being discussed, and it was easier to do that when the narrator gave background information on his life.
        The narrator was living a normal life, going to work and stagnating intellectually. One day after work, he went to a party and got very very drunk. The next morning, instead of waking up on his friend's couch as he had somewhat embarrassingly expected, he woke up in a mental hospital with broad-reaching amnesia about his past life. Weeks had passed since he had lost consciousness at that party. He experienced some sort of dissociative fugue, and after he lost his memory, he sort of began life anew. The narrator chooses to describe his past life as that of Phaedrus, and his ideas and decisions as belonging to the same. In essence, his exploration of Phaedrus in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an exploration of himself as the man he was and is now and his pursuit of the "ghost of reason" throughout his life. A critical appraisal of the book that is written on the front cover calls it "the fabulous journey of a man in search for himself." That is a very apt description, and Phaedrus constitutes the embodiment of the narrator's search for himself and ultimate truth, as well as a means by which he searches.