Customer Reviews

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

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It is no easy task to make a book interesting. Even when writing about events of great interest, a poor writer can make an event of great moment about as interesting as doing one's taxes. How much harder is it, then, to write a book about philosophy and make it not only interesting, but a page-turner? For that accomplishment alone, Robert Pirsig deserves great praise. <u>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</u> is a marvelous read that I tore through in a matter of days, so interested was I in the story Pirsig was telling. The technique he uses to discuss philosophy, a 'Chautauqua' conducted in the confines of the first-person narrator's thoughts as he takes a motorcycle trip with his son, is beautifully done and makes the book a fascinating read.

I'll start with a complaint, if only because the problem occurs at the start of the book. This edition is a reprint and includes some additional commentary by the author at the front. Unfortunately, that commentary reveals several rather crucial plot details, so the reader loses some of the surprise he might otherwise feel as various secrets are revealed. I'd recommend the new reader avoid the foreword until after he's finished the work, as I think I would have enjoyed the work even more if I had had to puzzle out just what was happening in the background.

Having said that, the book is still a great read. Pirsig's writing style is clean and evocative, drawing the reader into the semi-fictional world Pirsig uses as the backdrop of his Chautauqua. By moving back and forth from the events of the story and the backstory, Pirsig establishes two compelling narratives, which is part of what makes the book so difficult to put down. A good story tells a single tale that makes you eager to learn what happens next. Pirsig offers two tales, and they're both told well enough to draw the reader in and make each page a pleasure.

Philosophical purists may well complain that, by embedding his discussions of philosophy in stories, Pirsig buries the point of the narrative. I can understand that complaint, but I think it's unfounded. How Pirsig tells the story helps to illustrate his philosophical points as well as any more conventional philosophy text could manage, particularly as the book is written in such a way that it's easy for the reader to place himself in the author's place.

<u>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</u> is unlikely to give the reader a great deal of insight into either Zen or the art of motorcycle maintenance, unless the reader is already reasonably familiar with the subjects. What it does instead is far more entertaining, offering a new and different way of looking at the world and how we live our lives.

1. You have an interest in philosophy but have been put off by the literature spawned by academia on the subject.
2. You are passionate about pursuing meaning/value/purpose/that which is good.
3. You are interested in high-level thinking about the world; theorizing that could hold everything in the world together, from art to science to religion to motorcycle repair.
4. You have problems with either science or art (i.e., "I'm not a science/art person"), and would like a bridge to understand or appreciate better the world of science or art.

I write this review primarily because I consider this the best book I have ever read, and it has made a profound and lasting change in the way I think about everything. That said, it's a fact that some people will like this book and some won't. Rather than speak to the relative merits of the thoughts Pirsig proposes (judged how exactly?), I write more to offer my thoughts on whether the book will speak to you.

There have been some rather hostile reviews of ZATAOMM from philosophic academia and from those who think it is over-hyped or just plain boring. As to the former, some have suggested that the book is so bad that it will forever ruin the mind of anyone interested in studying philosophy. Anecdotally, I read this book when I was 17 and proceeded to earn a philosophy degree with honors from an ivy league university. More generally, I question the motives and mindset of anyone who feels that mere words could forever ruin a person's intellect.

That said, it would be a waste of time to analyze this book from the analytical paradigm of American philosophical academia. If that's your perspective, more power to you, but don't read the book if you can't/don't want to suspend that mentality for a moment to consider an alternate mode of thinking. As to those who find it boring, that's another way of saying the ideas raised in the book don't speak to you. While I felt it was a pleasure to read, ZATAOMM isn't a masterpiece of literature; it lives and dies on its ideas.

Finally, over-hyping anything is dangerous, so while I obviously loved the book, I advise anyone reading it for the first time to read it with an open mind, with no expectations. Pick it up--you'll know in the first thirty pages if you'll like it.

This is one of the great books of our time, but it is a fairly difficult read. If that doesn't concern you, there is no reason to continue reading the reviews. Just buy it.

WARNING: If you do continue reading the reviews, do not read the one entitled "Spaghetti thoughts put into words." He gives away a pretty significant part of the ending. You will enjoy it more if you don't know what's coming.

In a search for broader intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual vistas, I finally read the book I had been interested in for twenty years. I was ready to read it now, at this stage in my life, as a father, and the result was moving, even disturbing, at a deep level. If I had tried to wade through it twenty years ago, I wouldn't have made it, and if I did, I wouldn't have gotten a lot out of it.

It is not an easy read. There are times when it was a workout trying to follow the philosophical discourse. Part of the effort, intentional or not, was that the narrative was tracking the thoughts of an insane man. The thrust of the book, a first-person exposition of schizophrenia, expanded my understanding of mental illness in a way that no third-person study or medical or mental health text could have done. The father-son relationship was, as a sub-text, one of the more emotionally touching, almost painful, aspects of the book.

This unusual book does not fall into a catefory of any sort, and it is one of the best books I've ever read.

I was recommended "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" from someone with a little too much enthusiasm for the book. As a result I was a little let down. My friend's enthusiastic endorsement sounds a lot like the reviews posted up on this page.

The key question this book poses--"What is Quality?"--in my mind is never really answered. This may be like the Zen koan were a monk is hanging off the edge of a cliff by holding onto a branch with his teeth and a student asks him "Why did the Buddha come from India to China?" If the monk answers, he falls to his doom. If he keeps his mouth shut, he cannot answer. The answer to the question ends up being "MU", which is a Zen way of saying "unask the question".

All very quaint and insightful, perhaps, but a little over the head of this Western thinker. It's not that I don't enjoy exploring a question I know has no definitive answer, if only to gain an appreciation for the mystery it addresses. The problem is that I dislike metaphysics. I dislike jumping up one level and speaking of things in a convuluted and deliberately confusing matter by making concepts essential objects, by making grandoise claims about what happens between conscious experience and the event one is conscious of in a forum that doesn't demand a rational defense.

Pirsig apparently doesn't either, and he offers a few fleeting attempts at self-criticism before jumping right back into the metaphysical lingo and leading the reader back into the fray.

The book did get me thinking. I started to wonder "What is quality", and, more specifically, "Does this book have it?" As to the first question, I was led to think of it from angles I wouldn't have thought of before, but still am at a total loss. As to the second question, I think the answer is "yes", but a tentative "yes". Don't expect your socks to be knocked off by Pirsig's blizkreig through three hundred years of philosophical thought. Expect some uncomfortable chapters, some evocative and highly objectionable claims, and some unnecessarily confusing dialectic.

The book has an interesting narrative flow, and when concepts are introduced into this flow it can be quite enlightening. Unfortunately, it sometimes breaks this flow altogether, loses ground, and makes for less enjoyable reading. I recommend the book to those who are interested, specifically, in philosophy (not to be confused with "ideas about things", but the philosophy of the ancients).

First off, let me say I can see why this book is considered a modern classic. It delves deeply, and methodically, into the current human condition and how people are taught how to look at the world.

However, if you're looking for a casual read into Zen philosophy this book isn't for you. This book took me a while to get through. Much longer than it normally takes me for a book of this length. The "rhetoric" can be very complex and complicated at times, but it necessary for the depths the book is meant to examine. Pirsig examines the most basic, fundamentaly, and ancient ways of the modern Western Civilzation thought process.

It took a long time to write a review for this book. I generally try to write them within a week of finishing. It gives me time to absorb what I read yet it remains fresh in my mind. For some reason, this took a full 2 months before I wrote this review. That doesn't mean I forgot what I read, far from it. This book is so full of valuable discussion that it would be impossible to forget much of what it talked about. After all, the content here is heavy enough to maintain a cult following 30 years after it was first published.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is quite a good book. I don't know how else to start this review, other than to say exactly that. It's a classic that sat on my pile of books for years and years (and years - really, it was that long) before I picked it up. That's a shame, because this is something I should have been picking up again and again throughout those years. More than likely a timeless classic, Zen stays in touch with all levels of reader despite taking on a very mixed subject matter.

A philosophical journey brushed with Buddhist undertones, this is a mysterious autobiographical adventure where Pirsig jumps head first into a slowly moving story which delves in and out of the mind of the narrator. Focusing on the issue of value, Pirsig attempts to ferret out the core of quality which drives dinner conversation across the face of the Earth. What is good? What is bad? How do we assess elements of this nature which fit into these good and bad boxes?

Truth and value, pillars of our social institutions, come under the scrutiny of Pirsig in the pages of this book. Challenging illusions we delude ourselves into believing, the text offers numerous questions and commentaries which lead the reader to question many things they may have previously taken for granted.

Blending Eastern and Western thought, Pirsig walks down a well-trodden but poorly paved road that many in the West try and fail to comprehend. That doesn't mean Pirsig understands it any better (or worse) than others who have ambled down this same path. It merely means he walks down it, and lends space to both schools of thought without wholly selling out and decrying one as superior. An impossible stance to take for almost all who try.

At times the book does bog down in slow meditative conversation. I don't think it detracts enough to make the book less than excellent. But it is something to consider when going into it. Those expecting Earth shattering revelations will need to step back and reassess what they expect from a book. Much of the text is meant to be consumed and ruminated upon. Reading 100 pages in a day is a sure way to misunderstand most of it. You would do yourself a favor by limiting the number of pages taken in any one day to less than 10. Here is a book to promote thinking. Take the time to do just that.

This book can (and should) appeal to any variety of reader. However, it will likely appeal more to those who actively want to better themselves and their lives, but not in the typical American manner of throwing a fist-full of cash at it. The idea is foreign to many in a land of cash-based happiness. Pirsig does not address this. I merely bring it up to preface who might enjoy reading this. I imagine the Conservative base will not take kindly to the book. Likewise, people beyond a certain age (is that Thirtysomething these days?) will likely be less concerned with a lot of the ideas here, believing they already have all the answers they need. I strongly assert that any person from any angle can get a lot out of this work.

This is a book I plan on reading again. I have cautiously ordered his sequel, Lila, because this book was so good. I can't expect it to be nearly as good. But it goes to show how much I enjoyed the first one. Needless to say, this is highly recommended reading.

As a professor of philosophy and a former mechanic in the Marine Corps I can see why many see Pirsig's book as daunting, thick, and stifling. It is filled with philosophical history, philosophical thought, deep forays taking you to dizzying heights of thought - and smashing into the depths of a single screw on a motorcycle. I do think that the novice in either of these realms, philosophy or mechanics, would be well served to push through this book.

It is well written, paced, and fleshed out. An excellent book for anyone who has time and wants to read something 'deep'.

With all of that said - I could not help but think that Pirsig's foray into insanity could have been prevented had he searched for 'quality' in the Buddhists. He seems to have driven himself insane because he was attempting to reinvent the wheel.

This is not a draw back - but merely an observation. I will not be assigning this in any class I teach soon - but I constantly recommend it to students who are 'ready'.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more. (from the Harper Collins web site)

i liked it, but my wife was pulling her teeth out trying to read it. there are some pretty heady long philosophical tangents in here. Like acid? You'll like this book.