Rating: 
Summary: A truly meaningful book
Review: Some readers don't get what this book is about. The main point that I took from it is that I matter; That quality is a two way street defined by the interaction between subject and object. It is also a great read! THE most important book I have read, and I try to read the classics. It also lead me (15 years later) to read Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching." This is not a book, it is a journey that can change your life...if you're ready for it.
Rating:
Summary: My suggestion: Buy it now
Review: I am 33 years old and first read this book when I was a junior at college in 1986. I majored in English and have been an avid reader for years. At first, I was put off by the title, but decided to read the book anyway. I am glad I did. Robert Pirsig's book deals with quality and his book is a wonderful, solid example of quality writing. For me, Mr. Pirsig's discussion of quality forever altered the meaning of this word. Like others, I can say the book changed my life.
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Summary: Not 5 star, more like 5 Tera-star
Review: This book is the most impressive, encouraging, moving, inspiring book I have read thus far (I'm 31). It's not difficult. It's just big. It covers a gigantic range. Word up, people...the motorcycle journey is a frame for the interesting stuff, and allows us a short break while we process. They start low, running away. They climb. The climb gets tougher, then tops out with a gods-eye view of NOT the world as in planet Earth, but of life, the universe and everything. Too much for mere mortals such as us puny humans to endure, so what goes up must come down. Reach journey's end, and it's time to turn round and go home. And so the cycle (no double meaning intended) continues. Pirsigs message is, I think, this; the ultimate metaphysical truth is beyond our understanding - that is why it ('Quality') must be held undefined. Pursue it with our feeble mental capacities, and you will be declared insane (that's what happened to Pirsig, he was institutionalised, and got BIG voltage to the frontal lobes). The best advice he can give us after surviving this experience and, incredibly, still being able to write, is use your own judgement - 'What is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good - Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?' Nobody's ideas, notions, beliefs are absolutely true, they are all relatively true; relative to when we are, where we are, who we are. E=mc2.I'm sorry not everybody loves the book, but I cannot tell them they're wrong. Abandon shallow ego goals and open your mind to the sound of one hand clapping. Art & science aren't opposed opposites, they are both useful tools when you understand what they can do. Robert, thank you for your loving gift of this book. You will always live in my heart.
Rating:
Summary: wow.
Review: i'm happy that i finally read this book. i'm not one to suggest things that other people should do but everyone should probably read this book before doing anything else=).
Rating:
Summary: A must read!
Review: I was wary of this book at first glance, I saw it in a used book store and figured, hell, it's only 50 cents. I wouldn't take but enough to get a new one if anyone tried to buy it from me. The Author tells of a cross country trip with 2 friends and hs son, continually pondering life itself and likening the human mind to a motorcycle, and how best to maintain it. Theres even an ironic ending that totally threw me back. If you're interested in Bhudism or have been studying it for a long time, this book is easy to understand and the author provides the material in an easy to follow format.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not as good as...
Review: The follow-up, Lila, is better. Somehow the whole aspect of undefined quality in the first book makes it hard to be sure you're understanding.
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Summary: Event of the Millennium? Think again.
Review: The other night I was watching a discussion about outstanding people and events of the Second Millennium. The panel seemed to agree that the Apollo 11 Moon Landing was, beyond a doubt, the outstanding event of the Second Millennium. At that point in the discussion, I recalled a book that I had read over 20 years ago - none other than ZAAMM! I re-read the book and, sure enough, on page 170-171 of the hardcover, is his discussion of the significance of the Columbus Voyage. The Columbus discovery of a new world had "...just shook people up." "The whole Renaissance is supposed to have resulted from the topsy-turvy feeling caused by Columbus' discovery of a new world." The discovery had presented a new paradigm so powerful that "The only way that they could assimilate it was to abandon the entire medieval outlook and enter into a new expansion of reason." The Apollo 11 landing did'nt involve a paradign switch for us in that the "Moon exploration doesn't involve real root expansion of thought...It's really just a branch of what Columbus did. A really new exploration, one that would look to us today the way the world looked to Columbus, would have to be in an entirely new direction." Thanks, Robert, for giving a little order to these topsy-turvy times. Christopher and the guys sure have my vote! I am often reminded of your voyage when I see red-winged black birds swooping across highway 11 in North Dakota.
Rating: 
Summary: It helps if you ride a motorcycle, but not required.
Review: I first read this book before I got into motorcycling and didn't fully appreciate the biker situations. Later on in the book it gets silly/confusing with the ghost Phaedrus. Perhaps Pirsig got carried away on the philosophical angle. He should have kept it simpler and more meaningful like Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha".
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Summary: Think you understand the world around you? Think again.
Review: I'm sure that in any one persons life time an event occurs that in some way makes them view the world differently. For me this book was one of those events. It is easy to get excited when reviewing a book that you particularly liked so colouring your review of it with overemphasised "rhetoric" which other people generally take with-a-pinch-of-salt anyway. The facts are that this was very good book. I didn't open the book looking for what other people had told me was there. I wasn't looking to agree or disagree with Persig I just 'listened'. His words were not so much a guide (as some people say) but more a key which unlocked a way of thinking clouded by modern society. Everybody has questions. I think the problem that alot of people have with this book is that they expect to be handed the answers by Persig. All I can say is read with an open mind and let this book be the catalyst to your own journey.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: If you open up to this book, it will change your life and make it much more fulfilling. I first read it in my mid-teens, a time when many people are questioning and searching for what their existence means. Since then, I've read it over four times and as I change, I receive new insights into my life along with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Its a very unique book in that the physical storyline parallels the metaphysical plot and creates neural caonnections within your brain that allows one to do the same with their lives. This book is so great, I believe ALL PEOPLE SHOULD READ IT.
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