Rating: 
Summary: Definately off center on philosophy, but it reads ok
Review: So you are looking for a book on Zen philosophy? Why are you looking here? Go get a real "Zen" book, then read some Plato. When you've done that come back and have a good read from someone else's perspective. This books abilities lie in it's veiwpoint from someone else's perspective, not your's. Remember you are reading someone else's understanding of philosophy and you will be entertained, take it literally and to heart and you will throw it thru a wall.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly bad
Review: The only reason to read this book would be to learn a lesson about avoiding anything that has been hyped too much. This book is not only boring and badly written, it is astonishingly hypocritical: the tone is smug, self-satsified, preaching, everything that Zen philosophy is opposed to! The narrator's painfully inept treatment of his intelligent, sensitive son is all too typical: he doesn't listen, and tries repeatedly to impose his own vision of the world and of what his son should be like on the poor boy. What is Quality, the narrator asks? Well, maybe treating your child as a human being with emotional needs has something to do with it.
Rating: 
Summary: No Book is Perfect
Review: Just pick it up and enjoy it for what it is, not what one was told it is. Sure, some parts lack continuity, but this is a book to read at an enjoyable pace. Don't expect to have a life changing experience, just consider it an opportunity to think with more open-mindedness. It's a satisfying book which you won't soon forget.
Rating:
Summary: Is the Journey worth the Effort?
Review: Firstly, although this book has a cult following, it is as well to remember firstly that it is fiction, and secondly that it is intended to be the ravings of a man recently released from a loony-bin after electroshock therapy. Before he was this hippy motorcyclist he was 'Phaedrus', Professor of Rhetoric. This mechanism allows the author to philosophise behind a mask that can never be criticised. (It also allows him to come to a not particularly satisfying culmination to his rider's journey.) Having set this up, his addled-brain hero rants about the need to define perfection. This is not to say that this is not a well-written book, or than the overlying story about our hero and his son is not of interest - but the underlying stuff does get exceedingly deep in a philosophical sense, where the subject matter is hardly something of life-changing importance and one wonders if the effort to understand it all is really worth the effort. In fact, the philosophical bits can, in truth, get to be rather boring, and one feels racked by guilt if any attempt is made to skip them, lest some important clue about the true nature of the narrator comes through. It proves to be a very long journey! I would refer the reader to a much more rewarding philosophical journey, equally as good in exercising the mind, and one in which there is actually a significant philosophical outcome. Try 'God, Science and the Cosmic Jigsaw' by Jonathan Kingsley. This provides a very thought-provoking bridge between science and religion. There is not a word of fiction in it, but you will get far more out of it - without even getting your fingers oily with motor cycle maintenance!
Rating: 
Summary: Lao Tzu or Dr. Phil?
Review: The narrator used to be a different person he refers to as Phaedrus. The reader gets the idea that the narrator had been through the rigors of a mental hospital until he stopped being Phaedrus. Phaedrus was a Professor of Rhetoric, but couldn't stand his Epiphanies. Now in the present time of the story the narrator is on a voyage across America with his eleven year old son on the back of his motorcycle and, riding along with them are a middle-class, unaware couple who are friends but who don't really know the narrator or his son very well. They are riding their motorcycle, but know nothing about how to take care of one. The narrator knows everything about motorcycle maintenance and uses this subject as the basis for his philosophy. The narrator carries off the traditional role of "father knows best" to his son. He is rude and peremptory towards the boy. This personality clashes with the rest of his image as "wise philosopher." There is unending common sense philosophy and logic presented and the narrative is written around it. One thought that I found interesting was that the scholars of the medieval world taught that Earth is a flat platform. If one walks too close to the edge, one might fall off and be lost forever in the outer darkness. The people at that time were terrified of this possibility. But today, we are taught that Reason is the platform on which we live. If we move too close to the edge of Reason, we might fall off and be lost to forever to insanity. This is what now terrifies people.
It is an interesting book, but its seventies outlook comes through.
Rating: 
Summary: It took two goes, but i got there
Review: I managed to get the whole way through on my second attempt at this odd book - hard core philosophical discussion mixed in with the narrator recalling his past life as an insane philosophy-seeker mixed with the story of a road trip. The philosophy is so involved that it is esoteric and actually usually boring rather than mind expanding. And there is very little Zen!! It is hard to feel for the central character - he seems so interesting until he starts becoming so invovled in mind numbing minutiae. But there are some great sections on the riding and the 'art' that can be found in 'non-art' activities like motorcycle maintenance.
Rating:
Summary: Where is the Quality ???
Review: I finished the entire book to know the complete nightmare that the author put his son through. I read it recently with a author's postscript. He is just a creep and kind of scary and his "philosophy" is completely illogical. I just about cried for his poor son.
Rating:
Summary: Love/Hate
Review: I don't love or hate this book to the degree that most of these reviews seem to indicate.
My first and after twenty years continuing feeling about ZAMM is that Pirsig doesn't know where his strength lie.
That is to say he's a first rate storyteller! He should go with that and let the characters and the situations get across the message without the meatball philosophical diatribes.
I'm sure this has been said a zillion times but that's my two-cents worth.
Rating:
Summary: Bad philosophy
Review: Contrary to popular belief, this book is not a good introduction to the history of philosophy. For that, read a book on the history of philosophy. Also, Pirsig's philosophy is full of holes. He says that what you should strive at in life is "Quality," and leaves that very ambigious. But surely if you achieve quality as Mozart, Nietsche, van Gogh, and many others have, it does not mean that your life will be a good or happy one, just that you produced work of high quality. He never connects this achievement of quality to anything showing that your life is better or more meaningful or happier because of it. I found his thoughts on the educational system as the most worth while.
Rating:
Summary: guided meditation, cultural piece
Review: First of all, this book is amazing. I read it while at work (security job) in about 3 sittings of 4 hours a piece and I think that made a huge difference in the way I feel about the book. It is slow reading and some of the topics were difficult, but I am pretty well versed in psychology and philosophy and everything was explained so well that I feel like I came away with a great deal of new knowledge in both of those areas. If you want a summary of the books contents that has been given in the editorial review and the review just below mine. I have chosen to write about what the book meant to me. The thing about the book that amazed me so much is the way that it was able to take hold of my mind for hours at a time and lead me in diferent philosophical directions. It was like having a long philosophical discussion with myself and not even realizing it and it really reminded me of some guided meditations I've been on (only with a great deal more substance). To me, this book is required reading for anyone who considders themselves an intellectual or any lover of philosophy (especially metaphysics). It is a beautiful journey full of ups and downs and it really is one of the most important cultural pieces of the century. Please do yourself a favor and read this book. It is a long, difficult task, but well worth it.
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