Rating: 
Summary: explodes your insides, snaps you out of yourself and everyth
Review: i'd got hold of this book sometime during my undergrad days, when i was not making sense of the values around me. i remember reading this book with my friend and discussing it with him for days on. both of us were shaken to the core with that experience. and we went mad. it felt like something snapped inside us. we questioned everything in ourselves. we questioned our education, relationships, our world views. thats the power of this book. this book put in perspective all the things simmering in head for a long time. i could learn to see the world a bit more detached. i could define my own values, accept others'. in short pirsig led me gently into a world of enquiry.
Rating: 
Summary: Z.M.M. is a deep and impressive work
Review: Z.M.M. is a deep and impressive work which has sold millions of copies and stayed in print in many languages for over twenty years. I recently read it for the first time. It was good to wait until I was ready for it. I am not sure I can recommend the book, but I am glad I experienced it.
Mr. Pirsig presents the story of his search for the roots of deep philosophical views and his exploration of the branches of those views, from which branches hang all of the results Western civilization, not the least of which are universities, motorcycles, and mental hospitals. The philosophic system he proposes is to my knowledge unique and original, as well as marvelously free of endorsements or adherents.
I am very interested in exploring how the models or paradigms in which all of us live lead to action. I did not explore Z.M.M. with a purpose of determining whether his system is true or even useful. I just like to know what the world looks like inside other people's heads. The world from inside his head looks wondrously intricate and interconnected, a world in which a man's motorcycle maintenance methods are determined by the intellectual in-fighting of ancient Greek philosophers. He is generous in the detail with which he shares pieces of his fertile and facile mind.
I very much appreciate the effect reading the book has had on my experience of household repairs. I installed a dishwasher the day I finished the book. I found myself happily immersed in the project, even through a greater than usual number of "gumption traps." ZMM helped me see many obstacles and "wrong turns" more powerfully. I could be with the problem and still be in action. I enjoyed it more, regretted the time spent less, and feel more satisfied with my life. This shift has endured several weeks, through garage cleaning, shelf mending, and hard disk installation. My life has been greatly enhanced by just this one aspect of Pirsig's philosophy.
And yet...
The narrator's life described in ZMM strikes me as sad and lonely, filled with failure and lacking in purpose. Measuring it against the three tenets of MayoGenuine (be genuine, be learning, be transitive) is illuminating. His great strength is his genuineness. He is also an intense learner in the traditional sense of accumulating knowledge and building systems, yet this information never seems to support him in taking the actions that would give him a satisfying life. His behavior does not alter, so learning in the sense in which I use the word does not occur. Most tragically, he seems highly isolated from human relationships, preferring the role of sage observer to participant or leader. He seems entirely ignorant of the meaning and fulfillment available form implementing Transitive Structures. Without these structures, his increasing insight not only fails to support his expression, it ultimately undermines his very survival.
Luckily, his insight is available for others who may read this book and re-direct their own lives.
Rating:
Summary: I was blown away by the depth of this novel
Review: I'am 18 and was required to read this for a high school english course. The teacher forced us to read the entire book in one week. All I got from it was confusion we were slammed into the book and then right at the point where I might have had a glimmer of understanding we were ripped away just as fast so this summer when I can take my time I will reread it because I think that if read over at a slower pace this would be a most fabuless piece of literature.
Rating: 
Summary: It _Is_ Good! (If You Think So)
Review: (with apologies to Pirandello) Isn't it lucky that Zen patriarchs tend to be an enlightened lot, with an active sense of humour? If they weren't, I have no doubt they would sue Pirsig for libel. What this book contains is all the froth and gibber that you have to dispose of before you can discover Zen. People have a habit of saying that books they like 'changed their life', and this book gets a lot of that. Personally, I find that any book worth reading will change my life. This one didn't. Zen and the Art of Lacklustre Hippiedom has all the philosophical insight of Sophie's World, and all the entertainment value of the Boston Telephone Directory. So yes, I suppose it has some redeeming virtues. In short, a best seller.
Rating:
Summary: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Review: The duality of peoples' reaction to this book relates to the difficulty of finding and confronting issues in one own life. The first three times I attempted to read this I had to give up, but once I made it past (ch. 6?) it was an astoundingly important work, and the entire book, including chapters 1-5, became vital. Each time you read this thing it seems like a different book!
Rating:
Summary: painfully necessary
Review: This book is a deeply moving story of one man's struggle with mental illness. It's more than a "why things are" tale; one of the few that answers the question "so?" Pirsig teaches us a calm acceptance of taking things one day at a time. I recommend reading this book every couple of years. Modern-day Hesse but more realistic.
Rating:
Summary: America in its most attractive form
Review: First I realized more than ever before travelling through America like Pirsig did,is really attractive.(I'm a European: Belgium) Then I got that terrible motor-cycling passion. And finally I discovered the astonishing quest of a man desperately searching for foundations in life. This book tells different stories. A trip trough America that comes so much more.
Rating:
Summary: An invitation to an opening mind
Review: My favorite excerpts available at Z.M.M. is a deep and impressive work which has sold millions of copies and stayed in print in many languages for over twenty years. I recently read it for the first time. It was good to wait until I was ready for it. I am not sure I can recommend the book, but I am glad I experienced it. Mr. Pirsig presents the story of his search for the roots of deep philosophical views and his exploration of the branches of those views, from which branches hang all of the results Western civilization, not the least of which are universities, motorcycles, and mental hospitals. The philosophic system he proposes is to my knowledge unique and original, as well as marvelously free of endorsements or adherents. I am very interested in exploring how the models or paradigms in which all of us live lead to action. I did not explore Z.M.M. with a purpose of determining whether his system is true or even useful. I just like to know what the world looks like inside other people's heads. The world from inside his head looks wondrously intricate and interconnected, a world in which a man's motorcycle maintenance methods are determined by the intellectual in-fighting of ancient Greek philosophers. He is generous in the detail with which he shares pieces of his fertile and facile mind. The life he describes strikes me as sad and lonely, filled with failure and lacking in purpose. Measuring it against the three tenets of MayoGenuine (be genuine, be learning, be transitive) is illuminating. His great strength is his genuineness. He is also an intense learner in the traditional sense of accumulating knowledge and building systems, yet this information never seems to support him in taking the actions that would give him a satisfying life. His behavior does not alter, so learning in the sense in which I use the word does not occur. Most tragically, he seems highly isolated from human relationships, preferring the role of sage observer to participant or leader. He seems entirely ignorant of the meaning and fulfillment available form implementing Transitive Structures. Without these structures, his increasing insight not only fails to support his expression, it ultimately undermines his very survival. Luckily, his insight is available for others who may read this book and re-direct their own lives.
Rating:
Summary: if you don't want to think, don't read this, but otherwise..
Review: i had to read this book for my sociology class and it was the first assigned book i ever finished... got an a on the test too :) even as a 19 yearold, the book was very stimulating and really made me question the way we think and the way we are taught to think. definately need to read it again.
Rating:
Summary: Think you understand the world around you? Think again.
Review: I'm sure that in any one persons life time an event occures 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.
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