Rating: 
Summary: Where the Typewriter Meets Ten Hits of Acid Too Many...
Review: This book was frequently assigned to middle and high-school aged kids when I was growing up, and having finally read it later in life, I can only shudder at the thought of how many kids were turned off to reading, let alone Zen or philosophy by having this book foisted on them.The book is about nothing so much as a self-absorbed, navel-gazing hippy monster of a father who sees only the worst in his own son as he drags him around the country on the back of his motorcycle in persuit of some sort of psycho/spriritual quest. The tortured internal philosophical ramblings boarder on absolute schizoid nonsense, and offer no usable wisdom for happiness, enlightenment or remotely practical living, thinking or being. This book's endless pages of densely packed type have been fawned over by slack-jawed English professors for far too long. They are impressed and frightened by it's rambling inscrutability, and then jump on the "Wow! What a powerful and enlightening book!" bandwagon that they see all their peers clinging to. Don't believe the hype. It reminds me of another piece of New Age trash I read a while back about a woman who left her family and children to persue her 'Zen quest'. Pathetic. These people are more spiritually clueless than anyone, and yet they get bandied about as heroes. The secrets to the wisdom they seek are right in front of them the whole time, and yet they run (in the guise of 'sacrifice' or 'letting go'), and expect the rest of us to applaud and admire them for doing so. No applause here.
Rating:
Summary: So boring that i could hardly stay awake in it
Review: i propably wouldn't have even finished it if it weren't for school! The book will start a something then break off into something else then you have to wait to read the rest of what you were reading before. It wasn't good at all, i give it two thumbs DOWN!
Rating:
Summary: Looking for more
Review: For years I have talked to people who told me that this book changed their lives. Looking for enlightenment, I read it a couple of times and finally realized that there is nothing in it that a thoughtful ten-year old could not come up with. The book has long been overrated. For those of you whose lives have been changed by reading it, try something like Nietze or even Karl Marx and get ready.
Rating: 
Summary: Be careful what motorcycle you ride
Review: Zen is broken up into two parts: story and philosophy. Okay, so it's a book about a man riding his motorcycle across the country and trying to organize his thoughts at the same time. The story is basic; the philosophy is not. The narrator apparently had an identity crisis because he overloaded his brain. That is, all his "over the hill" philosophy finally drove him insane. So why, then, does he want to share it with the reader? I will admit, some of his reasonings and ideas are very good, but after a while it gets ridiculously repetitive and redundant. By the time the narrator touched the topic of "Quality" for the seventh time, I realized Zen to be a very boring and tedious book, slaughtered by greek (and otherwise meaningless) philosophy. The book conveys a very good message in the end, but it took way too long to get there. By the time I finished the book, I was just glad to put it back on the shelf and never speak of it again. I recommend only reading the first half of this book... and the last fifteen pages. Everything else becomes a waste of time. (...)
Rating: 
Summary: Give it a second chance....
Review: This book is great if you are on the edge of a great depression. If you want to spend some time on your own and investigate the innerworkings of your own mind, try giving a shot to ZaMM. The novel is about man taking a journey with his son and friends. However, the background of this journey is decorated with philosophical motifs, and the autobiographical nature of the novel gives the reader a chance to take a look at the background of the author. At some point throughout the book, philosophical approaches and definitions make the book very hard to read. At those times, leave the book aside and try reading it at some other time. I believe that the book is somehow about the second chances, thus give reading it a second try. It does WORTH the pain!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Courageous and Unforgettable
Review: Many of my thoughts keep returning to ZAMM. It has been a while since I read it last, and I am going to read it again. I have spent the last couple of hours reading reviews here, and it's evident that there is wide disparity in how readers receive this book. One has to wonder what that says. Is Mr. Pirsig onto something or not? Personally, I am confident that he is, and the way that it is done is so masterful as to be almost magical. At times, I can spot something that doesn't ring quite true, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because the truth that he is trying to tell is still there. Multiple themes are woven together: the ride across some of America's best with his only son and the relationship that's theirs alone, a narrative about insanity through the clouded memory of someone that had/has been labeled as such, an examination of western philosophy and its influence on western thought, an alternative eastern perspective, and more. For many of us that are writing reviews here, Persig begins to unlock a whole realm of possibility. The possibility that awareness of existence (quality, truth, God, whatever you want to call it) may be approachable by non-rational means. Neither logic, anlaysis nor the scientific method may provide the ultimate path. And, without these familar touchstones we are threatened to lose our certainty. Accepting this possibility is both liberating and frightening! It is to stand on the threshold of . . . In a sense, it's a simular place in thought to where the world stood when Columbus discovered the new world. To be willing to follow Persig with Phaedrus and participate in his Chautauquas is an adventure in courage. One must look into the frailities of our own sanity. It is tempting to deny to oneself this vulnerability, and doing so may render this book meaningless and shallow. However, the participative reader finds the captivation of an "Alice in Wonderland." Not a text, not a novel, not fiction. It is an autobiography! It's hard to believe that it's true, and the book ends before the story ends -- just like life and the reality that endures. Robert Pirsig is a hero to have gone so far in pondering the "deep channels", and then in sharing his bounty with us. I'm going to read it again. Thank you Robert.
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Summary: "What is Good and what is not good, Phaedrus ..."
Review: What is good and what is not good, Phaedrus ... need we ask ourselves these things?" Robert Pirsig is HUMAN, and blasts this feeling all over his novel. His duel against the ghost of Phaedrus is an arduous spiritual and intellectual conundrum. His dreams take you on a quest for truth ... about himself, and what it means to be alive. Pirsig's story about a man who comes to find his true self is a story of eloquence, which page by page, reveals a little more of not only the character (and therefore the writer), but also of YOURSELF. His story runs along a journey which encompasses his the grand West along with his son Chris and two friends: John and Sylvia, whom he cannot understand at times. The physical journey however is not even close to the importance of the spiritual and mental journey that Pirsig underwent, and in so doing makes you an active partcipant of the glory of self-discovery. It's a story about losing frustrations over intellectual deceptions, and hidden angers against philosophers, and against the screaming voice of Aristotle through the ages embodied in the division of knowledge into a set spectrum. It's about understanding something which is outside the normal realm of comprehension, a place where chaos exists because there is nothing to explain things with. He needs to find a new Rationality. But overall, as Pirsig invites you to be a speccial member of his mystical METANOIA (rebirth), the participation is caustic, and inaugurates you upon your own journey ... on "a motorcycle called yourself." This is one of those books that you'll remember when you're on a long road trip or driving home, the kind of book that you'll tell your grandchildren about over and over again. It 's the kind of book that will make you remember it as you go to bed. Frankly, this book changed the way I look at my life and the people around me. If you give it an honest chance, I think it will do the same for you. And generally, that's a very good thing. Enjoy, and Take Scheduled Care of Your Bike!
Rating:
Summary: written by a madman
Review: The worst book I have ever read! I had been told how great this book is and felt compelled to read it myself. What a waste of money and time. I would give it "0" stars but this does not allow that option. I don't need 380 pages to explain that madness makes no sense. I got absolutely no meaning from the book. I will never spend another dime on another book written by Robert Pirsig, ever.
Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: Robert Pirsig has written a book that is standing the test of time. It is both a dramatic and philosophical triumph. Pirsig begins his journey with an observation: his traveling companions, John and Sylvia, are strangely alienated from the technological world from which they derive so much benefit. John will not even consider maintaining his own motorcycle. Many Americans are just like them. Why? Pirsig traces the answer to the Greeks, specifically Plato and Aristotle who, he argues, conceived a system of thought in which beauty is severed from functionality (as if the engine of the motorcycle is somehow disconnected from the shiny chrome machine we see on the highway.) Functionality or "classic" thought became less attractive to us than "romantic" thought or beauty. Plato and Aristotle, Pirsig argues, committed a murder that their adherents have covered up ever since. The victim was quality. That is the philosophical issue in a nutshell. The story's high drama revolves around Pirsig's rediscovery of "Phaedrus," the person he had been before his manic exploration of quality literally drove him mad. One of the book's powerful ironies is that the deeper the protagonist digs into his forgotten past, the stronger his identification with the persona of Phaedrus and the more he isolates himself from Chris, who is frightened by his father's deep silences and the "return" of Phaedrus' ghost. In short, his very attempt to tear down the divide between quality and our lives diminished the quality of his relationship with his son, at least for a time. The larger issue remains: to the extent that an appreciation for quality does not inform our lives, we are less understanding, less excellent, less civilized and more alienated from ourselves and our neighbors. Viewed this way, the absence of quality is the absence of God. When Pirsig applies this critique to modern-day culture, he strikes familiar yet disturbing chords. Pirsig describes "primary" culture as the mass-produced television shows, pop music, consumer goods and products that in superficial ways bind us together. The more we embrace this "primary" culture, the less we are involved in the real communities around us and the lonelier we become. Pirsig contrasted the loneliness he experienced in urban, crowded environments with the peace he felt when riding his motorcycle through the open fields of the Midwest. "The explanation, I suppose, is that the physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance, and in Montana and Idaho the physical distances are big but the psychic distances between people are small." He continues: "I think if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another; or with programs full of things for other people to do.... The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think what I have to say has more lasting value." Today, we take discussion of quality for granted: Total Quality Management, the Pursuit of Excellence, Synchronicity -- an entire genre of business and spiritual literature revolves around the concept. Tom Peters, Steven Covey, Peter Senge and Max DePree are among the management gurus who circle the globe to engage in "quality" talk. If we have not fully digested Pirsig's critique, we have at least acknowledged the premise of his argument -- a culture that quits caring will not long endure, economically or spiritually.
Rating:
Summary: Reread it as a parent
Review: I don't get it. All of this praise for a book with a misogynistic, selfish a-hole for a main character? A road trip with your child is something to be savored between the two; yet I remember reading only two or three conversations between them. Granted, it's difficult to talk while riding a motorcycle, but you have to get off of it sometimes. And one of the few conversations is when Chris is told people are saying that he has mental/emotional problems. When you think of everything the poor kid had to go through with that nutcase of a father, I don't think Chris is the one with the problems. The book is not about philosophy; it's the rantings of a schizzo whose parenting skills make Joan Crawford look like June Cleaver.
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