Rating: 
Summary: Pure simplicity
Review: As another reviewer said, if you read a part of this book and don't get into it, put it down and wait for the right time. This book has so much to offer, but you need to want to listen. This is a book for one who is disillusioned with themselves and everything this ****ed up world appears to offer. It reveals your own inadequacies with such a caring hand because the author knows them in himself. Reading this book, I found someone talking about their own pain. This isn't a book aimed at healing the world. It's a book about stopping and looking at yourself and all the clasifications you make of other people and how quickly we blow off people when we really should be (and in actuality are) blowing ourselves. At the right time it's just a book that makes you realise you're not alone but you are stupid. Who can ask for more than to be reminded of that.
Rating:
Summary: It's interesting
Review: Since I don't possess an MC, this looked like a terrible waste of time, but even in the most trivial of doings, there's an entire philosophy behind. The book deals with crucial elements of the development of Western philosophy. If Western mentality today lacks desirable elements, it's extremely difficult to tell when or where or who chose a less favorable path. Mr. Pirsig suggests that the error can be traced back to the Greeks. This conclusion itself seems to relie on a misconception, because it's unlikely that there's anything like an ideel philosophy. Anyway, the book dares to adress such complex questions and gets away with it. That's an effort in itself worth 4 stars, I think. The story consists of a past and a present situation. Personally, I find the past far more interesting than the present. I admit that the story would suffer much if the present was erased, still, focus could have been even more on the past situation.
Rating: 
Summary: Philosophy for the lazy
Review: Pirsig's main achievement in this book is that he managed to write an insuferably ethereal chunk of pseudo-philosophical gobbleygook in a style so pleasant and informal that he manages to convince you -- against all odds -- that:a-his head isn't really up his arse b-you are reading a book about philosophy. Neither is true. The argumentation is sketchy. His off-the-cuff claims to have gone "way beyond Hegel" reveal an uninformed pedantry bordering on the megalomanic. Worst of all, this is a book that manages to convince generation after generation of 17 year olds that they have some sort of understanding of philosophical issues. On the other hand, his prose style is brilliant, and his capacity to make a real page-turner out of topics as obtruse as the ones he picks is admirable. Fun to read, yes, but please, oh please take it with a grain of salt.
Rating: 
Summary: A journey inward to explain the past, present and future.
Review: Comments on Robert Persig's, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". This sojourn has three levels. First, it is the story of a father and son taking a vacation, via motorcycle, on a cross country adventure. Second, it is an examination of the spriritual relationship between a parent and a child. Lastly, it is the portal to man's insanity, an examination of man's search for reason. In the first level, this is a story of a father and son, on a motorcycle, riding cross country with friends. There is no identified destination, just the daily routine of existance, driving, eating, sleeping and driving again. In the second level, the reader can examine the spiritual relaionship between the father and son. They seem to be searching for the door that will connect them to each other. Instead they are both helpless because they can see each other but are not able to connect with each other. This is demonstrated through dreams that both seem to have. Persig may be commenting on the state of being of mankind, in that it searches for something that it can't quite define, identify or reach. The last level is the portal to man's insanity. Persig creates image that the father, once labeled insane by humanity because of his search for the definition of Quality, realizes that he was not really insane, but thought at a differnet level or dimension than most people. The father addresses the issues created by nature and technology when the two roads meet. However, Persig demonstrates that many people do not, they just blindly except the conflict and fail to pursue the true meaning of it. Through Persig's examination of quality, technology, stuckness and rationality he analizes the dichotomy between the Classical and Romantic thought that is the foundation of Logic. Persig's physical journey ends before they reach their goal because he realizes they do not need to go that far. Persig suggests that he was the only obstacle towards his search for the truth. While the book neither teaches Zen or Motorcycle repair, it is Eastern in thought rather than Western in nature. This is demonstrated by the inward reflection the main character engaged in and the suggestion of a cyclical birth and death process at the very end of the book. This book is alot more than what it appears. It is entertaining, thought provoking and suggestive. While reading the book will satisfy the urge to be delightfully entertained, it will also cause the reader to think about the truths that so often are lost in the daily routine.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent. Very literally, "thought provoking".
Review: I first read this book in the early '70's, when I was reading many of the pop philosophy classics of that time and culture. It delighted me in it's simple pursuit of truth with it's arguments skillfully presented in metaphor. I felt that it stood head & shoulders above most of the sophomoric propaganda being touted at the time. I was extremely surprised to read some of the negative reviews printed here. I can only assume that these people "just didn't get it", or weren't really interested in doing any original thinking.
Rating:
Summary: A rock-solid philosophical work
Review: For those who have asked the same questions as the author, this book will be a journey. For those that haven't it will be a study at best and a waste of time at worst. I have asked the questions, and I can assure you that his answers, when offered, are not worthless or evasive. This is not a novel, and it in not intended for those who wish to be 'entertained' by the reading. This is about a search for truth, and only those who truly desire truth themselves will profit by it. True, it's not about Zen (at least on the surface) or motorcycles (except in passing), but the chosen title does as good a job as any. There just isn't any appropriately encompassing phrase that would represent this work. A basic knowledge of the history of philosophy and the basic logical thought process is definitely helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Talk about long-winded..........
Review: Man was this a waste of time. I had to read this book for class. What was my teacher thinking! Torture... that is what he was thinking.Talk about clarity....how bout none at all! This book was entirely too long , and it almost caused me to fail my class. Due to the fact that it was soooo boring i couldnt get past the first few pages!!! For those of you who like off and on books I recomend this to you .. Good Luck!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Like A Golf Ball Through A Garden Hose
Review: The only reason I gave it one star was that they didn't offer a zero-option. When I first read _ZaMM_ I was crushed that such a good title had been wasted. It contains neither Zen nor motorcycle maintenance. The title was designed to sell in surburbia. And for some unknown, "emporer's new clothes" sort of reason, it does. The book drones on with successive street corner rants better contained in a tome entitled _Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut, Sometimes I Don't_. I know Quality (one rant which dragged on for what seemed like nearly a thousand pages) when I read it... and this ain't it. At the time I read it, I *had* Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance going with my motorcycle. "<Profanity>," I thought, "I can write a better book on the subject than that." (And there are many folks who think I did.)
Rating:
Summary: Great philosophical text for the 20th century.
Review: This is modern philosophy at it's best. Pirsig skillfully explores the realms of Western thought and where it has originated from. It is a very intellectual text and story.
Rating:
Summary: What was that all about???
Review: I read this for my book club - and if it weren't for this I would have given up after struggling through the first 100 pages. Some people seem to really like this book. I just didn't get it. The meaning of "quality"? Enough already!! I feel like I just read a book about the meaning of "the". I'm the dummy though, for not following my instincts and putting it down after the first 100 pages. Hey - for those of you that really liked this book - I know of a bridge here in Brooklyn for sale....
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