Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

May 23, 2007 Katherine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: buddhism

After years of people saying, "Oh, you're a philosophy major? Have you heard of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? You should read it!" I finally broke down and bought a copy. I am usually wary of books that seem to hold promises of sweetness and light and spiritual awakening, in this age of The Purpose-Driven Life and Silver Ravenwolf.

My thoughts on the book, even months after reading it, are still mixed. Artistically, I do think it's a polished and respectable piece of literature. It's...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Petra X rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-true-story, philosophy-religion, travel-adventure

When I was quite young my brain said to me, after a particularly long and stoned session listening to Pink Floyd and discussing philosophy, 'oh give me a break'. So I said to my brain, 'there's no need to be so rude,' and my brain said, 'no seriously, I can't handle this anymore, really, let me take a break'. So it did and I've been operating on brain-stem alone ever since. I don't know it's made that much difference.

I wonder if the author's brain was thinking like mine was?

Certainly when I was...more When I was quite young my brain said to me, after a particularly long and stoned session listening to Pink Floyd and discussing philosophy, 'oh give me a break'. So I said to my brain, 'there's no need to be so rude,' and my brain said, 'no seriously, I can't handle this anymore, really, let me take a break'. So it did and I've been operating on brain-stem alone ever since. I don't know it's made that much difference.

I wonder if the author's brain was thinking like mine was?

Certainly when I was reading this book and sort of enjoying it (2 stars-worth), I was also thinking I am just too old to be reading this sort of cod-philosophy, too old and not stoned enough. I read other people's reviews and have to conclude that they all saw something in this book that impressed them as deep and me as deeply populist. Either way, I didn't really enjoy it and it only gets two stars because the writing was ok, the book wasn't arduous to read, some parts of it were interesting and enjoyable.

I wasn't that keen on the author's exploration of his mental breakdown either. I find when other people tell me the dreams they had last night, or I have to read them in a book I turn off as well. I really don't know why, nor do I know if others also feel this way. When telling last night's major really interesting dream to someone else, I've never said, "Do you find this as boring as I would if it was you telling me?" Actually that's a load of guff, I don't tell other people my dreams because I suspect they would be bored rigid and neither do I tell them about my mental breakdown when I saw three rainbows in the sky and didn't kill myself because I couldn't find a nightie that was suitable. See, boring!

I kept thinking that the author of Shantaram and Pirsig would get on really well. They could sit in cafes in foreign parts swapping tales of derring-do, drugs and their fascinating insights whilst waiting for an audience to join them. That's a bit mean-spirited as Pirsig is a great deal more appealing as an author and person than the somewhat sleazy Roberts, but I think you get what I mean. And I will say that it's quite readable, the travel descriptions are very well done, the characters, apart from the hero, are in general interesting but... I still couldn't get into it.

Anyway, it's a Sunday, much love and an extra star!(less)

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Aug 20, 2007 Richard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those tolerant of shallow philosophy (e.g. Matrix fans)

There are three threads weaving through this book (none of which, as is pointed out, has much to do with either eastern philosophy or with motorcycle maintenance.)

The first is a straightforward narration by a man riding across the country with his young son and two friends (a married couple). This evocative travelogue is by far the most enjoyable aspect of the novel.

The second element is a sort of mystery as that man struggles with his memory; it's gradually revealed that he's on the road both t...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Riku Sayuj rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, reviews

Plato's Phaedrus said, "And what is written well and what is written badly...need we ask Lysias or any other poet or orator who ever wrote or will write either a political or other work, in meter or out of meter, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?"

Modern Phaedrus said, “And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”

I keep re-reading passages from Zen and the Art and Tao of Pooh and Siddhartha and try to make sense in the context of everyday l...more

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Aug 09, 2010 Christy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maybe it's unfair to give a poor rating to a book I read in high school. However, I like to think that I was wise beyond my years and knew a phony, self-congratulatory, pretentious buffoon when I saw one. On the other hand, I did wear baggy overalls with Birkenstocks every day back then and wondered why I didn’t have a boyfriend, so clearly I didn’t know everything.

But as I read through the reviews here, I am confronted by a rush of unpleasant memories about this particular reading experience. T...more Maybe it's unfair to give a poor rating to a book I read in high school. However, I like to think that I was wise beyond my years and knew a phony, self-congratulatory, pretentious buffoon when I saw one. On the other hand, I did wear baggy overalls with Birkenstocks every day back then and wondered why I didn’t have a boyfriend, so clearly I didn’t know everything.

But as I read through the reviews here, I am confronted by a rush of unpleasant memories about this particular reading experience. The narrator did indeed seem like a dick. And he may have been okay with that, because I got the impression that he’s one of those guys who doesn’t care if he comes off as a dick, because his purpose in life is to Figure It All Out, and disseminate his impressive knowledge to the masses of sheep-like mouth-breathers who wandered into Waldenbooks and picked up a mass-market paperback copy of his masterpiece. Their lives will be changed! The narrator is too busy unraveling the mysteries of the universe to bother with being likable. It’s a sacrifice, but someone has to do it. We should be thanking him!

And this is just an aside, but part of me always wonders if there is something wrong with me, or if I’m an elitist or delusional because I’ve never read a “life-changing” book. That’s right: a book has never changed me. I read as a kind of re-affirmation of what I think I already know, somewhere deep down. Or I simply read to experience the pleasure of a good story. I’ve put a book down and thought to myself, “Boy, that was a good book. I’m in such a pleasant/ponderous/gloomy mood now. Well done!” But never have I put down a book and thought, “Before I read this, I was wandering around on this thing we call Earth with the wrong ideas about life/people/religion/mechanical engineering, but now I have been enlightened. From this point forward, my life will be different. I will be a better person.” I don’t know. Maybe I just have a bad attitude, or think that I’m smarter than everyone else. Maybe I’m no better than our friend Mr. Pirsig. If you think that may be the case, I suppose you can just ignore this review completely and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

But! If you think I’m just like Pirsig, you would want to heed my advice about this book and avoid it, wouldn’t you? Aha! You see, you can’t like us both, otherwise the universe will implode. Or will it? Perhaps it is no more than a conundrum I have devised out of sheer malice and a masturbatory sense of self-importance. Perhaps I am full of shit. You’ll never know for sure.

You can’t escape this philosophy-ninja’s intellectual trap. Don’t even try.(less)

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Jun 27, 2007 Trevor rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: masochistic philosophers

Shelves: abandoned

I started reading this book because i'd heard from a number of people, including comedian Tim Allen, that it was good. In fact i read an entire Tim Allen book ("I'm Not Really Here") which was kind of about his experience reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence. Tim Allen, although not exactly a respectable philosopher (maybe not even just respectable), had some of Robert Pirsig's philosophy without all his inane bullshit. At least Tim Allen's book was funny.

Admittedly, i enjoyed the...more I started reading this book because i'd heard from a number of people, including comedian Tim Allen, that it was good. In fact i read an entire Tim Allen book ("I'm Not Really Here") which was kind of about his experience reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence. Tim Allen, although not exactly a respectable philosopher (maybe not even just respectable), had some of Robert Pirsig's philosophy without all his inane bullshit. At least Tim Allen's book was funny.

Admittedly, i enjoyed the book in the beginning. I could tell that the plot was going nowhere specific, but i like books like that. In fact i wrote one. But as i pressed on, page after page, chapter after chapter, i became first bored with it, then irritated. There are essentially three parts to this book, all of which are intertwined at irregular intervals:

1. The philosophy stuff. I really like this aspect of the book; all the time he spends talking about Phaedrus and Phaedrus's experiences was mostly fascinating to me. Phaedrus is the real star of the story and the only character i really liked.

2. The motorcycle maintainence stuff. Despite the fact that i had no idea what most of it meant, it's factual and to the point, and somehow intersted me just by the way it was written. At some point i even thought about buying a motorcycle, just from inspiration by this book.

3. The main story. It's a story about the narrator (Pirsig himself) and his son, Chris, on a motorcycle journey across the country with some friends. Chris is 11 or 12 and mostly just annoying, but the interactions between Pirsig and his son just make me think that Pirsig is a bad father. He always seems angry at Chris for no particular reason and Chris seems to cry a lot due to it. I wonder what Chris thought when he read this book. And it's no wonder to me that the guy's wife left him shortly after it was published (Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_P...]).

The main thing that i think the book suffers from is the way he abruptly switches between the topics. I've no problem with a rapidly shifting story, if the transitions work. Here, Pirsig would get me going enthusiastically through a Phaedrus segment, and right at the climax...dump me back into him and Chris doing something boring. Then we'd trudge along through that for a while, and suddenly he'd see something that reminded him of Phaedrus, and we'd come to another Phaedrus segment which was not a continuation of the previous.

I gave up on the book shortly after the halfway point where Phaedrus began repeating everything over and over and going absolutely nowhere. Sure, i'd like to see what ultimately got him committed to an asylum, but i don't feel like reading any more of this repetitive and bland crap to get there. Ok, you can't put a definition on "quality," i get it, move on to something else. I feel like what Pirsig is saying to me is, "I've got a point...but i'll never tell you what it is!" and i hate being taunted. Especially while reading. If this were a movie, chances are i'd tough it out and wait for it to finish just because i know it'll be done soon. But reading, although often more enjoyable, is more time consuming and nobody can deny that. And after wasting weeks of my life reading Robert Jordan's "The Shadow Rising," i've learned my lesson. Life is too short to waste on crappy books. There's lots of good stuff out there, i'mma go get it.(less)

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Jacob I haven't read this book in a while but from what I remember the name Phaedrus is referring to the lead character pre-breakdown.

"Sure, i'd like to see...more
Mar 10, 2008 12:18pm

Erin I disagree with the above. You never find out why he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, although the above is one hypothesis, "nervous breakdown" not...more
Jan 31, 2011 03:36am

Aug 10, 2008 Charlotte Sanders rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: someone who likes to torture himself.

OK, maybe I'm being a little too harsh. I actually enjoyed the idea of the cross-country motorcycle ride, the details about motorcycle mechanics, and especially the portrayal of the narrator's relationship with his son. The son was the best part of the whole book. Unfortunately, there wasn't much space for sonny, because dad was too busy advertising the author's brilliant philisophical insights. Even more unfortunately, the insights weren't brilliant, and consumed hundreds of tedious pages. It o...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Jason Koivu rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The author went insane and nearly took me with him! After years of putting this one off, I finally recently read it and was floored by how it was almost nothing like what I expected: motorcycle talk and philosophy. I did not expect the contemplations of a depressing, crazy person. But that's no reason to hate on a book, and I don't hate Zen..., I'm just not in love with it. I was close to giving it only 3 stars mainly for its inability to move. I mean, for a roadtrip book it certainly seems to l...more

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Mar 21, 2008 Mason Wiebe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

I must start by saying that this is one of my favorite books ever. Although it is deep and complicated and takes a lot of focus to read, I feel that there are a lot of great messages here in the author’s search for Quality. This was my second time reading this book, and I liked it more this time.
Interlaced with stories from an across-the-west motorcycle trip with his son and some friends, Pirsig tells the story of his past in an almost former life before being admitted to a mental institution a...more

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Aug 13, 2007 Tatiana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporaryfiction

This book is extremely good and also important. It's a treatise on metaphysics as well as a compelling story which the author says is autobiographical. It's exactly right about the scientific method, and the way we go about discovering truth as a society and as individuals. The analogy of working on motorcycles is a good one. In my life it's been programming computers and figuring out how to get industrial machinery to work, but the same process works for all of the above.

The thing I find most...more This book is extremely good and also important. It's a treatise on metaphysics as well as a compelling story which the author says is autobiographical. It's exactly right about the scientific method, and the way we go about discovering truth as a society and as individuals. The analogy of working on motorcycles is a good one. In my life it's been programming computers and figuring out how to get industrial machinery to work, but the same process works for all of the above.

The thing I find most excellent in this book is that it points out the step where the mystery comes in, i.e. coming up with new hypotheses, the long sought "aha" that comes when you're working on a hard problem. Science has no method for how you get that. You just play with the problem, turn it over in your mind, try things, strive to understand, and then the answer sometimes appears in your head. It's a complete mystery. There are stories in the history of science, about Kekule who figured out the ring structure of Benzene from a dream about a snake swallowing its tail, about Einstein at age 13 picturing what it would be like to ride the crest of a light wave, and on and on. This book showed me that buried in the heart of science is something generative and alive that defies scientific explanation, simply because it's outside the system.

"The truth knocks on your door, and you say 'Go away! I'm looking for the truth!' so it goes away." That's such an exact description of how our preconceived ideas often keep us from finding the truth. (The truth in this context is completely knowable once we've found it. I mean if the motorcycle runs afterwards, then we've solved the problem. That's why I love applied science and engineering.)

The other great idea that I use all the time from this book is that the very cutting edge, the place where the tire tread hits the pavement, is always messy and confusing and just a place of floundering around in uncertainty. He makes the analogy of a train, with all the cars full of facts that we know, and the engine, where new track is being laid, is not contained in any of the cars. It's always murky up there, and never neat and well-defined. So that unpleasant feeling of uncertainty, of confusion, of floundering around, it's the VERY THING that we should cultivate in order to discover the truth. I tell myself that when I'm in that situation, that I should revel in this feeling instead of dreading it. (And, in fact, I mostly get paid because I can stick through that feeling to the payoff, the "aha" part. The most important thing I learned in college is that something utterly confusing and befuddling can come clear if I will invest the effort to play around with it and figure it out. So I get to do that all the time now. =))

What I have found in the years of figuring out why programs or machines don't work, and fixing them, is that really very little in life and the universe is well-understood. We have this large mental construct of scientific understanding, and it's indeed impressive. We can cure typhoid now and build bridges that stay up (conscious irony). But even in the areas that we would like to think are very well known, and neat and clear, there is so much that isn't understood. Otherwise, why would these questions come up continually? Why doesn't this program work? Why is my pulper feed system not working the way we expected? Why did my motorcycle engine run so badly in the mountains? What made this bridge suddenly collapse during rush hour?

This book explores all of those ideas and sheds a lot of light on them. I understand the universe far better because of having read this book. That's why I gave it 5 stars, a rating I reserve for books that changed who I am or how I see the world.(less)

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Jul 05, 2007 Kevin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: metaphysics, spirituality

Well, this book is not for everyone, and I have certainly heard people say that they found it overblown, pretentious, pointless, etc. but I loved it and found that what I read and my life experiences as I read it formed a didactic and interesting dialectic with the content of the book.

The book itself interstices Pirsig's account of a motorcycle road trip with his son and some friends with the story of his personal and professional struggles developing his philosophy of "the metaphysics of qualit...more Well, this book is not for everyone, and I have certainly heard people say that they found it overblown, pretentious, pointless, etc. but I loved it and found that what I read and my life experiences as I read it formed a didactic and interesting dialectic with the content of the book.

The book itself interstices Pirsig's account of a motorcycle road trip with his son and some friends with the story of his personal and professional struggles developing his philosophy of "the metaphysics of quality". There is also some history of philosophy, although this is to provide an exposition for Pirsig's arguments, so he cherry-picks the stories and interpretations that he tells. This is fine because it is not meant to be a primer on classical or any other kind of philosophy; I don't really have an extensive philosophy background but the little I did know helped I think.

Not that they have anything to do with the book, but I have a couple of stories about it. I figure that most people who have any interest in this type of book are already pretty familiar with it, so I won't say too much about it other than that I couldn't put it down and I wholeheartedly recommend it. While I don't agree with Pirsig's entire viewpoint, most of it rang true and even that which didn't was still an excellent impetus for introspection.

I got a copy at a used bookstore (I'm pretty sure it was this one) on a trip up to San Francisco with my girlfriend and a mutual friend. At first I had been browsing, and had found a cool coffee table book on phrenology which the lady at the counter chatted with me for a little bit. Encouraged by the chatting, I asked her if they had a book I had been looking for, The Secret Teaching of All Ages by Manly P. Hall, which is an encyclopedic reference about the occult, masonry, astrology, etc. (although it is reprinted in paperback, the original book had lots of charts, illustrations, etc that would not fit in the smaller paperback format and had to be abridged, so I was looking for the original, which I am told is something of a collector's item in certain circles).

At this point, the warmth drains from her face. There is an ominous, beginning-of-a-movie-like silence, and she informs me, "No. I don't sell that book. I'm a Christian." When I ask for further clarification, she says that the book contains "a secret spell to undo the universe" and that she didn't want any part in helping anyone undo the universe, so she would not sell the book even if she had it.

Well, things got kind of awkward at this point, and while trying to avoid eye contact with her, I saw a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in a stack of books waiting to be shelved, and tried to help myself. My friend Ian H had told me it was really good and I figured I'd check it out. She swatted my hand away and sent someone to get me a copy off the shelf. She told me that it was by far the most popular title that they sold.

I didn't get around to reading the book until almost a year later, when me and Vinny were on our rail trip to and through Hokkaido. The book got really water damaged during our ill-fated hike up and down Rishi-fuji-zan right around when I was reading Pirsig's mountain climbing allegory. A lot of the stuff about how when "you can't move forward, you move sideways" and etc. resonated with my at times aimless wanderings over the past couple of years.

So, in summation, you'll really like this book, unless you instead think it's interminable, rambling, and obtuse like this review.(less)

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Feb 24, 2011 Tom rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read a lot of scathing reviews of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on goodreads, and I only know one person (my Dad) other than myself who has actually finished it. I know 5 people who couldn't finish it, calling it 'pretentious,' 'a load of rubbish' or just 'too hard.' Now, I enjoyed this book and rather than explain why directly, I think I would like to explain it through taking apart all of those negative reviews which I feel weren't thought through particularly well.

First off...more I have read a lot of scathing reviews of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on goodreads, and I only know one person (my Dad) other than myself who has actually finished it. I know 5 people who couldn't finish it, calling it 'pretentious,' 'a load of rubbish' or just 'too hard.' Now, I enjoyed this book and rather than explain why directly, I think I would like to explain it through taking apart all of those negative reviews which I feel weren't thought through particularly well.

First off, I have no respect at all for those people who said 'I read this book because I like motorcycles, all that philosophy was a load of shit' or 'I enjoyed the philosophical aspects of the novel but got bored with all that motorcycling jargon.' Did they actually read the title of the book, I wonder? I'm no expert on philosophy or motorcycles, so I got stuck with some parts of the book sometimes but I don't hold that against the book - it explains the content in the title.

Secondly, there are lots of people out there who criticize the philosophy of the book - calling Pirsig's philosophy self-referential and self-sustaining. Now this book is about a guy desperately trying to 'figure it out' and if you think about what your views on philosophical matters are, I doubt that you will fit exclusively into one school of thought. To work out my own answers to the big questions, I take a little bit of Aristotle, a little bit of Descartes, a lot of Sartre and so on... This is similiar to what Pirsig does in the book. It's no different. Yes, he's using other philosophers to back his ideas up - but what else could he do? It's one man's journey of discovering himself and if it doesn't agree with what you think, tough. I don't think I will be adopting Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality into my own philosophy of life, but I thought it was fascinating and wonderful to read about somebody elses philosophical journey. Also, its unique in this sense - I don't know of any other author who has been brave enough to attempt a book like this.

Thirdly, some people interpret this bravery as pretentiousness. How could this book possibly be pretentious when the main character is clearly not 'right' in the head? He states how he feels disconnected from the world, how he was been admitted into a mental asylum and is not a good father or husband. This shows that his philosophy hasn't really made his life all that better - if anything it's made him insane. Also, you have John and Sylvia's characters at the start of the book who enjoy ripping him apart for his philosophy.

Okay, enough swimming upstream. Now it's time to talk about what I liked about the book directly. While some people (understandably) didn't enjoy the abrupt switching from the narrator's inner monologue to the real world of the trip at hand, I thought that it was great. Whenever I got overwhelmed with trying to understand the philosophy, he'd switch to describing the canyon that they're driving through - which was a great relief sometimes. The descriptive writing is not amazing, in fact it often seems matter-of-fact, but this fits in with the mental state that you imagine the narrator to have. The storyline is simple, but sweet and honest - especially concerning the relationship between the narrator and his son. The things that really made the book for me, however, were the huge moments of shining recognition where I really related to what the narrator was saying. This happened often when he was talking about the philosophy of science, his romantic vs. classical ideas and his views on epistemology.

All in all, this book is a phenomonal read if you have an open mind and a long attention span. If you don't, you will probably have one of the three different complaints I spoke about before. But that's fine, this book isn't for everyone. I just wish people realised that rather than slating the book and giving it a bad review because they were too impatient with it.

I gave the book three stars not because I didn't agree with everything the author said, but because the descriptive writing and actual plot aren't particularly great and it's too hard a read to be considered a literary masterpiece. Most great novels set out to wrap some kind of message up in a unique story that has never been told before. In this case the message is huge, but it's not particularly well wrapped.(less)

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Jan 19, 2009 Aaron rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is one of those books that I want to rate way higher than 3, but I don't think I'd quite give it a 4. I always have this problem with Netflix too! By reading the random reviews posted about this book, many of them are extremely negative, focusing on the "arrogance" of the narrator or his "absurd" search for quality.

I think if you go into this 400 page novel with the expectation that it will be a light read about a motorcycle trip out West with a couple philosophical insights, you'll p...more

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Jul 14, 2008 Carolyn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Meghan Anderson

Recommended to Carolyn by: Jim Parker

I decided to finish the book I've been reading all summer: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. I've had a lot of complaints about this book, as I read it. It was a rather grueling endeavor, certainly not most people's idea of summer reading. Having just finished the book, however, I can say that it was well worth the experience. This book turns on its head our idea of what it means to be sane. The book can be described as generally a thesis on substance, form, and spir...more

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Nov 29, 2008 Rebecca rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: angry vets and burn-outs

Okay, I confess I haven't finished it yet. But I'm finding it so irksome I don't know if I'll be able to get all the way through it. Here's what I wrote on my bookmark 50 pages in:
"the author's logic is self-contained, entirely self-referential and so his argument is self-sustaining! He can set up armies of logical strawmen and have them elaborately duke it out in massive rhetorical battles taking place entirely without any grounding in reality.
He has the manic ADDH intelligence of the kind tha...more Okay, I confess I haven't finished it yet. But I'm finding it so irksome I don't know if I'll be able to get all the way through it. Here's what I wrote on my bookmark 50 pages in:
"the author's logic is self-contained, entirely self-referential and so his argument is self-sustaining! He can set up armies of logical strawmen and have them elaborately duke it out in massive rhetorical battles taking place entirely without any grounding in reality.
He has the manic ADDH intelligence of the kind that experiences UFO abductions, never finishes his degree, judges everyone as hopelessly inferior from behind the counter of the sporting goods store. Self-satisfied and superior with a fake Indian name he took on from the time he made deep eye-contact with a timber wolf. The kind of guy who never made it all the way back from 'Nam."

So that was 100 pages ago and I've had to change my evaluation a little. He went to Korea, not Vietnam.

He's driving me NUTS! It's one false premise and false conclusion after another-- astonishing leaps of logic (e.g. the more I do experiments, the more ideas for future experiments I have, therefore science only leads to more questions, therefore scientific pursuit is meaningless since the purpose of science is to know everything, and if I always have more questions, I'll never know everything. AAARGH!)

He's an irritating narrator: his female companions ooh and aah at his speechifying. "Gee, Bob, how do you think of this stuff!" while bringing him steaks. His male companions are awed and impressed with his technical knowledge and mystical skills. He wasn't kicked out of school for "laziness and immaturity" as the official reason went-- it was because his ideas were so RADICAL the whole university system would have come toppling down!

The only expert he cites is Phaedrus....who turns out to be himself! Before a nervous breakdown! He talks about discovering the beautiful power of Phaedrus' logic and writing. And it's himself, all along. Very annoying.

Ugh. I just want to say to him, yes, you're very smart. Yes, technology and art are a false dichotomy. But no, saying that does not turn the world inside out and make your the smartest person in the universe.(less)

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Aug 15, 2007 Charles Benjamin Haag rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone

Shelves: have-read

I confess that, when I first found this book on the shelf of a small and now-defunct used bookstore, my motivation was it's being one of those books that "everyone," or at least numerous people, read and recommended with that certain degree of enthusiasm and gravitas that spoke deeply to my peer-pressure-obeying 21-year-old self. I also confess that it took about three passes through it to connect it to my life in any meaningful way, due not to the author but to said life and its dearth of exper...more

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May 21, 2007 Zora rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Hippies

Shelves: gawdawful

I learned from this book that you can sell a billion copies of a book that no one should ever waste three minutes reading. This is just another neo-philosophy book disguised as a novel. I'm almost convinced that the only reason people buy this book is so that their pseudo-intellectual (read: pompous scumbag) friends will accept them into the hippie circle. Although I know about twenty people who claim to have read this book, I have yet to meet a single person who actually knows what it's about....more

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May 23, 2007 Wendy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: damngoodread

According to family lore, my brother gave this book to my father when he - my brother - was in college. When my father read it, it apparently made a very deep impression on him, 'cuz he turned around and bought 4 copies and gave one to each of his children.

I refused to read it for years because...well...because my father gave it to me. Sometime after college though, I picked it up and read it for the first time and, for the next 5 years, I read it once a year every June. Clearly, it made a very...more

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Dec 03, 2007 Erich rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Philosophers

Shelves: classics

Readers of Thoreau, Emerson, and Dillard will be entranced with this book. In the best traditions of transcendentalism, Zen is about the journey, and the answers that we find when asking the difficult questions, about fairness, and quality.

You, as the reader, are taken along on a journey. Pirsig writes with his hands and head, and analyzes a concept in much the same way he would diagnose a problem with his motorcycle. You begin with knowledge, and you form it into a tool with which to attack a...more

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Dec 14, 2008 Margaret rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

He starts pretty full of himself: he clearly believes that he has deep wisdom to impart. But when he starts telling the story, he loses the didactic tone, and captures my interest. I'd love to read the story as written by his son, captive audience to Pirsig's strange 1968 cross-country odyssey. Tragically, Chris was murdered in 1979.

And I GET the reference to Daedalus. It gets to be a bit narcissistic after a while.

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May 01, 2013 Camilo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, information-technology

I have mixed feelings about this book, most of them good.

What the author tries to transmit is a sense of how he feels the Quality, the excellence of caring when doing something, resorting to observations in a motorcycle roadtrip and his own past of being an university professor. The structuring of his own 'philosophy' sometimes gets a little complex, taking pieces from the Greeks and trying to harmonize it with more modern thinkers and his own thoughts. There's a lot of stuff to assimilate in or...more

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Dec 14, 2011 William Bredberg rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The story is about a man riding across the country on an eighteen day long journey together with his young son and his two married friends on their motorcycles. During this travelogue a second element is described. It is gradually revealed that he’s on the road both to escape his past and attempting to remember it. The narrator tells us the story of his past before being admitted to a mental institution as a result of going crazy in his pursuit of what he calls “quality”. This essentially holds...more The story is about a man riding across the country on an eighteen day long journey together with his young son and his two married friends on their motorcycles. During this travelogue a second element is described. It is gradually revealed that he’s on the road both to escape his past and attempting to remember it. The narrator tells us the story of his past before being admitted to a mental institution as a result of going crazy in his pursuit of what he calls “quality”. This essentially holds that quality is the fundamental reality of the universe.

Mainly there are a few different threads weaving though this book. These would be all the different philosophical aspects, the application of technology and maintenance of motorcycles onto our everyday problems, and the main story. It is pointed out, in the beginning of the book, that none of the said has very much to do with eastern philosophy.

During the telling of the story, the author thoroughly goes to the bottom with the idea of quality and philosophy, as well as technology and scientific methods. Further on, he also indicates a connection between them.

“He discovered that the science he’d once thought of as the whole world of knowledge is only a branch of philosophy, which is far broader and far more general. The questions he had asked about infinite hypotheses hadn’t been of interest to science because they weren’t scientific questions. Science cannot study scientific methods without getting into a bootstrap problem that destroys the validity of its answers. And so Phaedrus found in philosophy a natural continuation of the question that brought him to science in the first place. What does it all mean? What’s the purpose of all this?”

The book is exactly right about all the scientific methods, and the way we go about as a society and individuals, discovering and exploring different truths.
The way Robert Pirsig uses the maintenance of motorcycles during the characters journey as an analogy for the way we all function is very good. He points out that the unpleasant feelings of confusion or uncertainty that some situations can originate, is the very thing that we should cultivate in order to learn more about the truth and ourselves.

The thoughts that are brought up during the continuation of the story are deeply entrenched in philosophical meanderings. This cannot be emphasized enough, since these reflections eventually drove the narrator insane. Breaking down these concepts of thinking, the book presents some very significant messages and exceptional perspectives about the way we live our lives. The world can after all be observed from a big number of different angles. In this book the world is reflected upon from both a scientific and an artistic view, and if given enough time to consider and ponder, this book really states an argument to why both views are an integral part of our experience in living.
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Aug 15, 2010 Henry rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It took me almost seven years to finally finish this book, admittedly i was young, but i took it all the way round the world for almost a year and a half and still didn't finish it. I finally finished it in a three day orgy on a beach in Moorea and i wish i could say it changed my life but it didn't.

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Sep 12, 2011 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: auto-and-biography, spirituality-philosophy, lrp-going-further, non-fiction, read-in-2011, author-north-american

I have read this book at least 8 times over the years. An excellent metaphysical discussion blended with a father-son road trip. Inspired me to look into early Greek philosophy and explore my beliefs about rationality and the scientific method.

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Jan 21, 2009 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-classics, genre-nonfiction

This is one of those books you hear about your entire life that actually lives up to the hype. I was very impressed.

It helped to sleep next to someone who is far better studied in philosophy than I am. I took an introductory course in undergrad many moons ago and knew all the names Pirsig was contrasting, but I really only retained thumbnail summaries of their actual philosophies. Terran was very patient in taking breaks from Anne of Green Gables to dissect the implications of subjective and obj...more This is one of those books you hear about your entire life that actually lives up to the hype. I was very impressed.

It helped to sleep next to someone who is far better studied in philosophy than I am. I took an introductory course in undergrad many moons ago and knew all the names Pirsig was contrasting, but I really only retained thumbnail summaries of their actual philosophies. Terran was very patient in taking breaks from Anne of Green Gables to dissect the implications of subjective and objective world with me. It must have been jarring for him, but I think he vastly enhanced the nuance of what I was able to take away.

I was immediately drawn into the personal narrative, and in some ways I preferred it to the philosophical discourse from the beginning. However, by midway through, I started wanting to smack Pirsig for his dismissive treatment of his clearly bright and sensitive son. People out there: when your kid asks you what you're thinking and honest-to-God wants to know, COME UP WITH SOMETHING TO TELL HIM. Do no blow him off, even if you are thinking deep thoughts. It is incredibly precious that he wants to know. This conflict becomes the center of the personal story and reaches a satisfactory resolution, but the process gets agonizing before the end.

I made the mistake of looking up Pirsig on Wikipedia, where I learned that this boy Chris was knifed to death in a mugging in 1979. That hit with some of the blow of Ennis Cosby's death. I guess I would have already known this if I had read a more recent edition, and I'm curious to see Pirsig's commentary about it.

Of course, the real purpose of the book is to put forth a philosophy that combines the classic and romantic views of life and technology. I found his writing style to be incredibly accessible, and to a philosophy layman, the ideas seemed to jump off the page as profound and insightful. Unlike any traditional philosophy text that I have ever read, Pirsig tries to speak to everyman and not just high-thinkers. He weaves his ideas tightly with examples from everyday life, making them seem both true and relevant.

On the other hand, he went too far for me. The central premise of Pirsig's philosophy seems to be that "Quality is the Buddha." Quality is God. It is the source of our sense of the rightness and wrongness of things. It is the source of our perception of things. There is no subjectivity or objectivity, only Quality. And as a result, there are no objective facts to be discovered, only new facts that come into existence through our interaction with Quality. The truth is that I'm just too much of an empiricist to follow this thinking to the end of the road.

I did, however, drink about 75% of the Kool-Aid, and what I did drink seems to stand on its own merits. Quality is the interaction between subjects and objects. It is shaped by perceptions, ours and others', of the world around us. In the best case, it lifts us out of our own heads and shows a wider world of perspective. This perspective-expanding effect may in itself demonstrate good Quality, but any attempt to define it in more specific, objective, technical terms inevitably fails. It exists as indefinable and is yet is incredibly important to our happiness, and thus it can stitch together the rift between the classical and romantic experience. Even if you can't bring yourself to believe that Quality is God, this line of thinking has a lot to recommend it.

I highly recommend this book for the thought it inspires, however many of the ideas themselves work for you.
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Oct 02, 2012 John rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If this book were a person, and if he asked me what I had against him, I'd probably say something along the lines of, "I just don't like your face." Meaning that it's hard for me to articulate exactly why I don't like this book. The whole thing just bugs me. The title bugs me. The writing style bugs me. The congratulations-it's-a-girl! pink cover bugs me. The philosophy bugs me, especially because Pirsig has developed a bunch of silly jargon in order to make very simplistic concepts sound compli...more

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Apr 18, 2009 Clinton rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I feel like Robert M. Pirsig has wronged me personally.

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Jul 31, 2011 Bre Cregor rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

[ By the way...the best bit of advice from this novel had to do with the benefits of getting STUCK!...Love it.]

Any title which manages to mix spirituality, art, and an activity as seemingly mundane, frustrating, or practical as motorcycle maintenance deserves to be read.

This book was a refreshing surprise!

The protagonist is on an inner and outer journey and exploration, simultaneously. The outer journey has the complexities of travel partners, weather, physical exhaustion, and geography, and is...more

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May 05, 2013 Zak rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and couldn't recommend it enough, not that it needs any more praise. Brilliant philosophy grounded in a real story with real characters, not much more needs to be said. But I'll say it anyway.

It's a book of prose in thought -- the entire plot is told through the thoughts and recollections of a guy on a motorcycle vacation across the United States with his son. His goal is to create a Chautauqua, which from what I understand was sort of a...more I just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and couldn't recommend it enough, not that it needs any more praise. Brilliant philosophy grounded in a real story with real characters, not much more needs to be said. But I'll say it anyway.

It's a book of prose in thought -- the entire plot is told through the thoughts and recollections of a guy on a motorcycle vacation across the United States with his son. His goal is to create a Chautauqua, which from what I understand was sort of a travelling classroom with strong religious roots and a goal of spreading new ideas and challenging old ones. I may be wrong about some of that. But anyway, his Chautauqua begins with a narrow focus on the relationship between man and technology and steadily grows to a complete overhaul and rethinking of metaphysics and epistemology.

I don't really know how groundbreaking the philosophy really is. Hell, I'm not sure I could explain the philosophy right now without bumbling it and getting across the wrong message. It's pretty thorough and well thought out. Whatever the case, it's interesting and unlike a lot of philosophy, quite practical and applicable.

One significant piece of understanding that I took from it was exactly what sort of a thinker I am. Near the beginning of the book, the author introduces a dichotomy of thought (as a process) and understanding (as a result); the names he gives these opposing concepts are classic and romantic and both are easy enough to understand. Classic thought is purely analytical, breaking things down into smaller comprehensible pieces based on functionality and material and size and everything like that. the technical instructions of how to build something from Ikea is an example of classic understanding at work. Romantic thought is different, in that through it, our appreciation for the things that we experience is derived from the outset of our perception. A romantic thinker isn't too interested in figuring out how and when and under what circumstances the armoire was built, because all that matters now is that the armoire is here and it looks beautiful. you can apply that analogy to literally anything you see.

I learned that I am through and through a classic thinker and that it'd do me quite a bit of good to try to cultivate my romantically thinking side. Appreciate things in the very moment I see them instead of appreciating them in hindsight as worthy of appreciation for reasons a), b), c), etc. The overall point (and supposed end goal of the Chautauqua) is that these two different types of thought should play equal roles in your experience of the world.

And to go along with all the observations and random thoughts that the main character shares with the reader, there's some pretty fantastic bits about not just motorcycle maintenance but tending to technology in general that I really loved. I'm in the middle of trying to fix up a sh*tty bike that I bought for 50 euros a few months ago and it was fun to read advice on how to approach technical problems while I had a real life (and obviously very similar) project right in front of me.

I know a lot of people have already read this book, it's been a bestselling classic for decades now. But if you haven't and you're into philosophical fiction, this is a really fantastic approachable read and a potential life changer depending on where your head is at once you start delving into its ideas. There's a lot to get from this book.(less)

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Jul 14, 2010 Mary Etta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Polly's copy. In following my thoughts on the MT artist, Gennie DeWeese, I was reminded of she and her husband's connection with the book and author. I've intended to read the book, but never did. The route they drove is so familiar to me, I'm motivated once again. By the way the poster from Yellowstone Art Museum in my basement of the old chair at an open door to spring snow is Gennie's. She is still painting at 89 if the online info is correct.
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Deleted my former current read, "What Our Mot...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Robert M. Pirsig	11	209	Nov 01, 2012 12:45pm
Brain Pain: Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance	11	107	Dec 27, 2011 03:15pm
Correction in author's name	2	88	Jul 13, 2009 04:19pm

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