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Summary: Rings true
Review: This book obviously rings true in the hearts and minds of many people. I don't agree with some of the things in it, and think that maybe there is even a better word for the book's central concept than "Quality" (though I can't think of one--maybe that's part of its indefineability.) That fact remains however, that he awakened in me a way of looking at the world that changes everything. Baseing actions and viewpoints on the "quality" in things can save a lot of wasted effort in life, and make that life much more enjoyable. That, I think is the book's greatest point, and what I took from it. Pirsig tried to write his book as a classic, and I think he succeeded.
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Summary: WARNING - THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Review: Reading this book is a life-altering experience. I first read this book 12 years ago, and I have read it, re-read it, and re-read it, and re-read it. I keep coming back to the simple wisdom, the simple truths, and the simple elegance of this book. It is worth every penny, every page, every minute. I found the artificial dichcotomy between the subjective and objective to be a bit simplistic, but for the purposes of Pirsig's argument, they served a useful purpose. This is a book for seekers; while it asks more questions than it answers, the answers it gives are profound and worthwhile.
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Summary: A Philosophy Textbook Disguised as a Novel
Review: Quick Sum: If you are interested in reading a very interesting look into philosophy, then this is the most palatable way to do it without taking a night course.Longer Sum: The hero of this story once went insane as a graduate student as he searched for the answer to "What is quality?". The further he thought about and researched this question the further he felt that modern life, and modern thinking, was derailed from its true path thousands of years ago as Aristotlean thought won out over competing schools (Aristotle apparently loved putting things into categories and tree like structures. "Good" was beneath "Truth" but above "Rhetoric", that sort of stuff). When philosophy was first "created" it was decided that things were to be broken down into subjects and objects: things, and the observations of things. The hero's revelation was that Quality was neither subjective (that is, it resided inside the object regardless of what our opinion of it was) nor objective (it was whatever "we liked"), rather it was something that -gave rise- to things and the observations of things: in other words, Quality wasn't subjective or objective, it preceeded both and -created- them. So our current way of thinking - that things break down into subjects and objects, (romantic and classic), and start from there, is fatally flawed he felt. After the hero went insane years back he was subjected to shock treatments that wiped out his personality and most of his memory. As he travels across country in the present with his son (who he also worries has mental problems) his reflections on motorcycle maintenance and the benefits that categorizing the parts and the careful maintenance procedures give rise to old memories - he disliked Aristotle who believed in that sort of thing, yet here he has come around to that view from a different angle - that ultimately starts him down the same road to mental illness he went down before. But as he travels down this road to mental illness again he rediscovers his old self so he doesn't want to veer off it. Which self is the real him? While the book was very enoyable on different levels, I did have some problems with its underlying premise. Why Quality? When you go into such infinite detail as he does concerning philosophy you can just as easily ask "What is Harmony?" or "What is Purity?" or "What is Resonance?" and make the same academic conclusions. Also, his original idea to leave Quality undefined is just like saying "I can't define pornography but I know it when I see it". What's up with that? It's like doing a mathematical proof where you start with "OK, division by zero is now OK, let's see where that leads me". So the idea of going insane looking into Quality strikes me a little funny. OK, OK, it wasn't Quality itself that did it to him rather it was his feeling that current thought was all wrong, so alright. So overall I fully recommend this book if you're looking for something intelligent and engaging - food for real thought.
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Summary: The Exceptions Prove the Rule
Review: I read this book the year it was originally published, attracted no doubt by the word Zen in the title. Conversant with philosophy and especially Taoism, I found the book's subject matter interesting and thought provoking. I especially liked the tension Pirsig created with the confrontation between the college professor and the protangonist, Phaedrus. I likened it to a confrontation between an atheist and a minister who has lost his faith yet keeps on preaching in the face of his own doubt. I reread the book recently and then began looking through the various reviews logged at this site. The greatest recommendation for this great book comes from those who give it the lowest rating. As in so much of life, the ones in most need of understanding are least prepared to find it. The reasons they list for not liking the book are the very reasons it should be read. Does that sound zen-like? ZAMM is one of the great books of all time. Enjoy.
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Summary: A SLIGHT BREEZE AT SUNRISE
Review: Through his writting, Mr. Pirsig shows what wonderous joy is possible to have in one's life. As a long time and long distance rider I really appreciate this book. Another book which I trully appreciate is by Ariel & Shya Kane called "WORKING ON YOURSELF DOESN'T WORK." The Kanes' book is a classic one that guides you in creating an easy, fulfilling and rich life. The Kanes' also have some great audio tapes available such as Magical Relationships, which bring the listener right into one of their inspiring and fun seminars.
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Summary: What? ... WHAT? You haven't read this masterpiece? Why not?
Review: A review of this book by me, or even a thoughtful critique,could add nothing to what has been so well-said in the numerouseloquent essays among the 200 below. Among the decisively best dozen, reviewer Barron T. Laycock, only a few reviews below, describes "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" about as well as it need be done. Another finely-drawn perspective is provided immediately below by reviewer Cicha1994, who gets to the bottom of Pirsig's magic of delivering an incredibly complex synthesis with timely spoonfuls of sugar thusly: "Mr. Pirsig has an uncanny sense of timing, and he never allows the heavier passages to labor on too long. This is avoided by craftily interspersing his philosophical discourse amongst very down-to-earth and charming observations made during a motorcycle trip ..." Not daring to venture into the rarified air of the erudite reviews already here, I humbly offer a more fundamental observation, one that is "down-to-earth as fertilizer," as we say. How I came to read this book the first time -- of how many? -- I can't imagine. I have no interest in Zen, never owned a motorcycle and so needed no advice about keeping one humming. What I found I did have very strong interests in was everything Persig had to say. "Zen and the Art..." was an immediate best-seller when it was published 26 years ago. That couldn't have inspired my interest in it, for I have instinctive misgivings about best-sellers. But I did read it and have been all the better for it. Every subsequent reading has opened a little door or niche missed before. Call any used book store and mention of "Zen and the Art..." and you'll get immediate recognition of it, often a comment like, "Oh, yeah. That Robert Persig book. No, we can't keep them." Still selling like crazy, after all these years. There is a positively bone-chilling aspect about "Zen and the Art...". The millions who have read this supreme intellectual and artistic masterpiece -- many, many of whom, like me, were profoundly enriched by it -- came perilously close to being denied the experience. If memory serves, Persig's manuscript was rejected 122 times before William Morrow picked it up (probably after having also rejected it a few times). That says volumes about the dismal state of publishing back then, an industry that is in even blacker depths today.
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Summary: Does the quest for quality have to drive you quazy?
Review: It did to our narrator. But what a tale he tells! It seems that most of the reviews of this book revolve around the obvious lessons. But like Allen Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind," if you are not grounded in classic education you will wind up like me, wondering what this book is really about. The motorcycle analogy, like parables, tells a story with a hidden message that portends to be spiritual. While the meaning of our lives from an eternal perspective is danced around, it is not the central message of the tome, which I find it's weakness. I feel the author is looking for answers in the intellect, but they are only available in the soul. The quest for quality in life is a worthwhile journey that we all will account for someday, and this book will benefit all those who care to ponder the journey.
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Summary: Dull hippie philosophy
Review: Do you enjoy the intellectual depth that greeting cards provide? How about the careful thought that bumper stickers demonstrate? Are you excited by windbags, braggarts, pedants, and Mr Know-it-alls? Do you drool at the thought of yet another dispatch from the me generation, the baby boomers? If so, this book will thrill you. If not, in other words, if you enjoy challenging reading and original thinking you will find this tome dull, cliche-ridden, pretentious, and authoritarian.
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Summary: An odyssey of the modern-day self.
Review: Pirsig's narrator relates a picaresque intellectual narrative interweaving 3 metaphoric journeys with his main quest-- coming to terms with his own identity and the meaning of existence. In the present tense, it is his broken marriage and troubled relationship with his teenage son that occupy his thoughts. In the past, he is consumed by his failure as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, which found him at odds with Aristotelian, "logocentered" philosophical traditionalists. At a more timeless level, it is his identification with Phaedrus, the rhetorician whom Socrates discredits in the Platonic dialogues, that consumes him. Against the weight of all Western philosophy, with its influence on "dialectic," the narrator affirms and finally celebrates his unique identity as Phaedrus, whose search affirms "rhetoric," the power of the individual to create his own existential truths and construct a sense of identity. In the thrilling climax, the narrator reaches his geographical destination along with the hope of constructing a bridge with his son--not because of the discovery of some ultimate or transcendent truth but because of his own empowerment as "Phaedrus" to create such a truth. Pirsig reviews and critiques the whole history of Western philosophy, then like Nietzsche "deconstructs" it in order to celebrate the constitutive, creative role of the individual in determining the nature of world and self. The book is an unforgettable intellectual journey on many levels, into past, present, future, but don't expect much Zen. It's final affirmation of the individual quest, of the poetic vision of Phaedrus, belongs more in a Western Romantic, than Eastern, mystical tradition.
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Summary: A Narrative and Philosophical Masterpiece
Review: I first read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as a college senior twenty-five years ago. I remember then being frightened by how this man's determination to pursue a philosophical idea to its conclusion, even if it were against the grain of established conventions of thinking, drove him insane. I was afraid deeper study and questioning might do the same to me. I know now, however, that I'm not insane. I also know that twenty-five years ago this story of a man and his son travelling by motorcycle from Minnesota to the Pacific Ocean took deep residence in my soul. I've been a teacher now for twenty-three years, long enough to forget some of my initial influences. But, as I read this book all these years later, I realized that my philosophical view points, examples I use to illustrate ideas with my students, what I believe the purpose of an education is, and several other bits of pedagogy and ideology originated in Pirig's story. I highly recommend this book, maybe especially if you are unread in philosophy and would like a readable, enjoyable, and provocative entree into the history and vocabulary of philosophy. It's a deeply moving, intellectually stiumlating story. Its devotion to story-telling and philosophical inpuiry is indeed most rare.
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