Rating: 
Summary: Difficult but worthwhile reading!
Review: The author and his son Chris travel from Minnesota to California by motorcycle. At first they are accompanied by another couple, but, a bit later, father and son are left to continue their journey alone. Throughout the trip, the author is deep in thought which is reflected in the paucity of communication with his son and more communication with himself alone.A reader involved with this book must either have great fortitude or a fervent interest in philosophy to make it to the end of the story. Despite its haunting quality, its philosophic meanderings are often overwhelming for the casual reader. Best reserved for a reader who likes to "work" at reading, ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE, is a sad but profound story of philosophic theory, mental illness, and a father-son relationship which will leave a deep impression on those willing it struggle through it.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to follow...but not so bad
Review: To some extent I can agree with another reviewer that said this book was incredibly boring. But I basically attribute this to that fact that I did not quite get what the author was trying to say to me. Perhaps this is because I'm young and inexperienced in life or maybe it's because I have no experience in philosophy and therefore had no idea where he was coming from. This is a book that I will have to read again in a few years and then hopefully it will make more sense to me. In the end I walked away with something very valuable and I don't regret one bit that I suffered through all 418 pages. If you want an easy read...don't read this book!! If you are currently going through a time in your life where you're being very introspective and at the same time are feeling critical of the culture around you, then I would definitely recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Philosophy Lecture Posing as a Novel
Review: As an aspiring novelist with a degree in english and philosophy, I find it disheartening to find philosophy lectures thinly disguised as novels (Lila, Sophie's World -- could that title have slyly been borrowed from Sophie's Choice?). Also, Persig, in his so-called quest, refuses to acknowledge such modern philosophers as Nietzche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus, or even Rand. He also doesn't attempt to create a synthesis between eastern and western philosophy, as the title would suggest. Herman Hesse, for example, does manage an intriguing blend of eastern mysticism with western philosophy -- he is greatly influence by Nietzsche. Persig's prose is often flat, but his protagonists are very driven in their quest for metaphysical quality. But as characters, they don't -- for me, seem very interesting. If the reader is interested in the philosophical novel, may I suggest reading Sartre, Camus, Hesse, Rand, Mann, Dostoievsky, or Tolstoi.
Rating: 
Summary: Speechless
Review: What can I say one of the smartest things Ive ever done was reading this book,its chock full of insights and philosophy of why late 20th century living is the way it is.I was mesmorized from beginning to end. To those who have already read this book Lila,an inquiry into morals is also a similiar book from this author that is also great.
Rating:
Summary: A dry, but important book that will change your mind
Review: Are you into soul-searching? Do you think about your place in the world? How do you deal with technology and remain sane? If you have ever asked yourself some of these questions, you're in good company with Pirsig's classic book on "What is Quality?" He'll make you think about what makes something enjoyable. The book is academic in tone, and difficult to get through, but it's not a novel, so what did you expect? It's depth-charged. It doesn't sugar up the prose just so that it's easily digestable, but if you're going to read only one philosophical book in your life time from cover to cover, make this the one book you read. On my essential and must-read list.
Rating:
Summary: Quality
Review: Every spiritual seeker remembers the book which set them upon the path. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was mine. Pirsig asks students to step out of their four-walled classroom into his Church of Reason, in which quality is the state of things, of motorcycle repairs, and of life itself to be sought.
Rating:
Summary: An Exhilarating Ride Well Worth Taking!
Review: I first read this book in 1975. I particularly appreciated then the concrete illustrations used in the development of Pirsig's philosophy. However, I was not prepared at that time to follow the details of the logic used to develop his main point, namely, that in ancient Greece rationality had unfairly toppled mysticism as a valid source of knowledge. I always intended to read the book again and finally last month I found an open week, bought a copy of the new 25th anniversary edition, and went at it. The text is unchanged in content but the print is larger and much easier to read than in my old paperback edition. The margins are wider and allow more annotations. It is well worth getting this Anniversary edition. This time I got much deeper into Pirsig's main premise--the one noted above. Pirsig believes Quality to be the missing element in today's culture, but he says it must be kept undefined so that rationality will not be able to kill it again as it did thousands of years ago. My major satisfaction from this novel still comes from the unusually perceptive and cleverly-wrought metaphors that Pirsig presents to advance his philosophical arguments. I have so many favorite ones it is difficult to choose among them. For instance, he labels the University as "Church of Reason," indicating it fanatical devotion to rationality at the expense of other values not approachable through rational means. No wonder professors of philosophy feel threatened. Rationality is their bread and butter! Other illustrations: He compares the experience of looking out of a framed car window with the frameless view you get riding a motorcycle and uses this as an example of breaking down the subject/object boundary. He indicates that his objective is not to deal with "the 'news,' the silt of tomorrow" which accumulates when the river of culture bends, but to try to deepen the channels of "the best" that lies ahead along the river's future course. He likes to follow "an arrow that enlarges sideways in flight" rather then tracking its forward path in order to find "lateral truths" that point to falseness of axioms which prevent hitting the target. He points out that "institutions such as schools, churches, government, and political organizations of every sort all tend to direct thought for ends other than truth, namely, for the perpetuation of their own functions." I have often pondered this telling truth. Ultimately, he finds Quality to be the uppermost element of the triad of truth--the creator of both subject and object, residing in the interface between the two. His comparison of Quality with the ancient text of the Tao is exhilarating! The Quality of this novel is extraordinary for me. It exhibits many of the aspects of Quality in writing such as integrity, imagination, flux, continuity, suspense, insight, pathos, and allegory as it attempts to find the missing element in today's technology-dominated world. It is one of the five formative books in my life, and has a place on my "favorites" bookshelf next to Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" and the poems and essays of D.H. Lawrence.
Rating: 
Summary: OVER RATED
Review: THIS SO CALLED "CLASSIC" IS ONE OF THE MOST OVER-RATED BOOKS IVE READ. THE PLOT IS UNINTERESTING AND POINTLESS. I HAD TO FORCE MYSELF TO READ IT TO THE END. READ "JOHNATHON LIVINGSTON SEAGALL" INSTEAD.
Rating:
Summary: Unto which the book unfolds
Review: ZMM is the best book I have ever read, but it took some effort to get through. I actually picked it up several times based on the reviews of it given to me by other people, however each time I was bored within minutes and didn't get 20 pages into the book. I finally gave to book a real try on a lazy saturday Afternoon and found that the book truley is not about motorcycles but about a man's search for himself, about the difference in understanding, about what is real, about what is truth. While many say it is a book about philosophy and some look to it for this insight, I found that it is really a book about finding one's own understanding of the world. While the beautifull discriptions of the countryside and the trip may seem dull at times, they truly underline the journey of mind and enlightenment that is the purpose behind this book.
Rating:
Summary: Well-written, thought-provoking, and courageous.
Review: Part road novel, part philosophy, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ("ZMM") met with huge critical and commercial success when first published in 1974. Narrator and son ride from Minneapolis to San Francisco; meanwhile, both are haunted by the narrator's past insanity, brought about by his "chasing the ghost of rationality". A series of philosophical monologues addresses questions both mundane - how to fix a motorcycle - and metaphysical. Today ZMM retains a sizeable following, although criticism of it is very polarised: Pirsig's fervent self-assurance when dealing with philosophical questions converts some readers into "followers" and tends to exasperate everyone else. Mostly structured as a "solution" rather than an "inquiry", as the title claims, ZMM's philosophy is too often accepted without question, and it is frequently and regrettably true that the more positive the review, the more philosophically naïve the reviewer. Nonetheless, this should not disallow ZMM from being considered on its own merits. ZMM is not an introductory philosophy text, more a "once-in-a-lifetime" philosophical statement; the comparison has already been made with Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach", and Hofstadter's description - "a statement of my religion" - could well describe ZMM, too. When one considers the motivation required to sustain Pirsig's long and solitary struggle in writing and publishing ZMM, the rhetorical fervour of his arguments becomes more understandable. Those who attack Pirsig as pompous or narcissistic fail to appreciate the degree of self-belief needed to complete such a highly individualistic work. So, we can certainly admire him for trying - but is ZMM any good? Some of Pirsig's arguments rest uneasily, such as his blithe acceptance of scientific relativism; and in rejecting subject-object dualism, he paints himself into some peculiar corners, such as his disquiet at the lack of beer cans littering Crater Lake National Park. But there is much in ZMM that is good and thought-provoking, too, especially where education is concerned: all teachers should read this book. And even during his tougher metaphysical monologues, only the driest, most rigid mindset could fail to find Pirsig's rhetoric engaging. Here, his wild claims about the importance of his philosophical arguments are gently counterbalanced by his acknowledged previous insanity: Pirsig takes care to label them the "ramblings of a madman", though not without a certain knowing irony. ZMM is not just philosophy: it is also a fine piece of travel writing, and a history of Pirsig's teaching career. It remains a novel, however, and not an autobiography: whilst the events described did occur, subtle details have been changed. Most importantly, Robert Pirsig "the author" differs from the narrator, who in turn differs from his former personality ("Phaedrus"). The subtle conflict between the narrator's unifying philosophy, and the barely resolved tensions between narrator/Phaedrus and narrator/son, produces a fully intended irony. Criticism of the narrator is unfair and misguided when it is directed at the author. Pirsig writes with great clarity. Well-structured sentences and careful use of italics give his writing great explanatory power, reminiscent, for this reviewer, of the biologist Richard Dawkins. We may not agree with Pirsig, but we are rarely in any doubt about what he means to say. Nonetheless, there are inevitable uncertainties at the core of ZMM, concerning reason and its limits. The antipsychiatric "insanity as enlightenment" nettle is never fully grasped, though one senses that this is Pirsig's belief; moreover, the analytic intractability of the Eastern philosophy that he embraces means that ultimately, the "inquiry" never reasons its way to an answer. Those seeking an absolutist metaphysical system will not find it here, and one can imagine Pirsig's sense of unease at becoming a latter-day religious guru. ZMM is very much unique: four and a half years in the writing, but decades, one senses, in the germination. Fans will enjoy the 25 or so extra pages, cut from the original manuscript, available in DiSanto's "Guidebook to ZMM" - but skip the dreadful philosophy chapters. Pirsig wrote a sequel of sorts, "Lila", in 1991, but its sour atmosphere and slack reasoning make it strictly for the converted. Evidently Pirsig coped badly with his post-ZMM fame: one can imagine the sackloads of witless fan-mail. Unquestionably, for this reviewer, ZMM can stand alone: a model of clarity in written argument, a fine American road novel, and an inspiring demonstration of one man's ability to think for himself.
|
