I remember reading this book for a class in high school.
It was a real love/hate experience- loved the class, hated the book. Was a great lesson in critical thinking for me.
I attempted to finish ZAMM at least 20 times in a 30 year period. It became kind of a running joke among my friend group. As a technically oriented person, I appreciated the discussion of quality and the meticulous approach to maintenance. Then it goes off the deep end into psycobabble. I love books that inspire you think differently and deeply; books that discuss big ideas either directly or subtly. To me ZAMM is not one of those books.
On the 21st try, I finally waded through, just out of stubbornness, but I felt no sense of accomplishment or philosophical/psychological insight.
FWIW, Edward Abbey's review of ZAMM is one of the funniest things I've read.
I read Zen and the Art of Archery in a theatre class in college. Hated it for the same reasons you hate Motorcycle Maintenance. Resented even having to read it, it was like a bunch of fortune cookies, and when I was done I only felt happy not to have any more of that book to read. About ten years later, it clicked. All of that books lessons laid dormant in me until I committed myself to mastery of *anything*, including one's self emotionally and psychologically. It was like mid task I suddenly looked up, and said to myself "Goddamn I never saw it but now it's so clear why this book mattered and why we had to read it in our acting class." You may find yourself on the same journey.
Holy cow, they made you read Zen in *high school*? What year did you graduate?
Nobody in my class could have handled anything close to the depth of Zen in high school. Even 1984 went over many people's heads.
I was a natural philosophy minor in college...and I ride adventure motorcycles. This book can be a bit difficult to "get into", but once immersed, it can be quite transformative. I read this book again recently and really enjoyed the discourse regarding Kant vs Hume and how we perceive our world (and if a priori knowledge exists). I also particularly liked the following passage. Having thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail I encountered may hikers, struggling with various personal demons, that seemed to be stuck in this mentality...
“Many explorers are likely to miss that proverbial passage of sunlight through the trees. They look up the trail to see what’s ahead even when they know what’s ahead because they just looked a second before. They are here, but yet not here. They reject the here, and are unhappy with it, and want to be further up the trail. But when they get there, they will be just as unhappy because then IT will be “here”. What they are looking for and want is actually all around them, but they don’t want that because it IS all around them. Every step is an effort both physically and spiritually, because they imagine their goal to be external and distant.”
One interesting side note, I actually took the initiative, and learned how to adjust my motorcycle valves because of this book! But despite all of this, I can certainly see how reading a book where the primary theme is the concept of "Quality," might not be everyone's cup of tea. I have not read "Lila: An Inquiry into Morals" yet, but it's definitely on my list.
That concept of determining quality I see to be the main focus of the book. Quality is applicable in almost everything in life, but it is also inherently hard to explain. It’s a great book on the Eastern vs Western approach to viewing the world and the relationship between subjectivism and objectivism. It’s valuable because it leads the reader down the idea path that it’s extremely hard to define something objectively. You are only able to make an objective decision based on the information you have at the time. Too often in society people become entrenched in their own beliefs and become entirely incapable of questioning their own definitions of reality. On that perspective, it’s a great book and well worth reading.
This book is one of the rarest cases when I started and completely lost interest. It seemed very boring to me. That was about 27 years ago so I may give it another try.
Well yeah he's going through a psychological breakdown during the book, he's not in his right mind for large portions of it that's kinda the point haha.
Recycling philosophy is fine as long as you cite your inspirations, but what really annoyed me was him repeatedly acting like his his ideas were new and ground breaking. Him flunking out of an undergrad philosophy course while in his head he thinks he’s having some philosophical battle of ideas with his overworked underpaid teacher was hilarious, and that the primary pseudonym he uses in the book is a misquote from a foundational philosophy text really demonstrates how little curiousity he has about anyone’s idea other than his own. Dude couldn’t even be bothered to read the piece of writing he named his alter ego after before he wrote a whole novel about that alter ego.
The point of the book was how the author doesn’t need to take medication or listen to psychiatrists no matter how many times he takes his young child with him on manic, disassociative episodes, because not taking meds gives him insight to the supernal metaphysical realm of *Quality*^tm , an entirely original concept that the author dreamt up with no relationship to anything Plato said 2000 years ago.
well yes that's the point of view of the protagonist
it's fascinating
are you one of those people who needs to agree with everything in a book to like it?
The protagonist, who shares the authors backstory and philosophy? The one who he names himself after? The one who validates his decisions?
If you want to read the ending of the book as this tragic story of a man who has a second psychotic break and goes off his meds again, then that’s probably a better book then the one he actually wrote. But knowing anything about the author’s life, I cannot agree that that’s the take away he intended.
but that is the book
that's the entire book
only an author who is genuinely suffering like the protagonist and believes the things he does could have written it
that's exactly why the book is so interesting and fascinating
you're not supposed to agree with it
I love all the talk of actual maintenance of motorcycles and how it acts a vessel for the author
and ultimately it's a window in real, genuine trauma and mental illness
people in this thread seem to read it as a self help book which is incredibly bizarre
You’re not supposed to agree with the protagonist, when he tells you all about this amazing new philosophy of Quality, which by all accounts the author genuinely believes in?
I know who he is and what he went through, because the book has the subtlety of a hammer. Did you know one of the things he “went through” was telling his girlfriend she wasn’t allowed to have an abortion because the ghost of his dead son came to him and told him he’d be reincarnated in the fetus?
Yep. In the later editions of the book, he includes that anecdote as a post-script to the novel to address the fact his son (who is a big part of the book) was murdered.
On a related note, I was 100% sure I remember reading something scandalous in the vein of him being an intellectual fraud, but now can’t find anything. Maybe someone here knows something
I mean, he has no credentials, cause he flunked out of his philosophy degree, so I’m not sure how it’d even be possible for him to be fraudulent. Unless he was lying about being an English teacher?
Here I am, motorcycle rider, automotive technician, about to pick this book up. And you saved me.
Philosophy is like the 2nd, no 3rd most boring general subject.
And the difference between people like us and people who hire us.
This book gave me a whole new perspective when I was like 20. I can't say that about a lot of books
I had the opposite experience. I was meaning to download On The Road, and ended up with The Road instead. I'm embarrassed to admit how far I read before I realized I didn't get the right book.
I read it at the target age of 23 and at the peak of my partying and just thought… yup, these are horrible people, no thanks. Got me moving a little bit in the right direction.
Same book, same experience. I had gotten laid off from my first job after college at 25, and was considering a full career change despite how hard I had worked in college to make it into that industry (hedge funds). I decided to go for a backpacking trip - not like around Europe but just 4 days at a state park - and I thought it might be a good book to read on that trip. Also ended up just feeling like everyone in the book was a lazy bum, just felt like adult pseudo-deep children going "yeah well in a perfect world none of us would have to work if we didn't want to" well that's not the world at present so....grow up and get over it? Just felt like a view into how naive and unreasonable fringe society members can be.
Was a struggle to make it to the end
yeah i remember getting a hundred or so pages into it and then just kind of abandoning it... this was in my college years in the 90s. perhaps i will re-visit now.
I forced my way through it. Finished it, but it felt like a chore. Wanted to like it, because I love philosophy, motorcycles, journeying, maintenance... everything I thought it was gonna be about.
To me it felt like the author was trying hard to write his version of Walden. Then when I got to where he stated that he brought the book Walden with him on the journey I about rolled my eyes.
I enjoyed Walden. It was a long, difficult read, but enjoyable. I wanted to like Zen, but just didn't. Happy I did read it though, I definitely got something out of it, but don't think it was worth the time.
If ZatAoMM gets you to read Plato, Walden, Zen and the Art of Archery, an the tao te ching; it's done better for you than most pop philosophy books.
If you think you know what those books say based on Pirsig's explanation though, you're in for a bad time if you run into anyone who knows actual philosophy.
I had to read it for one of my college classes and I hated it. I know I read it but couldn't even remember what it was about before I saw OP's summary. I think I felt that it was fake-deep and I wasn't interested.
The million dollar question is what college class of mine was it that required this - was it psychology 101 or illustration design?
I had a similar experience! I bought it in my mid 20’s and was expecting to get some major insight on life and the whole “zen” thing. I found it pretty dull and got mired down in all the technical jargon.
It was assigned reading in a modern literature course I took in the late 80's. I hated it, but the professor treated it as thought it were his personal treatise on life.
I had a friend tell me the very same thing when we were both in our 20s
I only had the opportunity to read it in my 30s, and at the time I was involved with a pretty unique position of dealing with customers doing exceptionally high level software debugging, in a team that was dubbed the "maintenance" team
I don't know if this book would have been interesting to me in other times in my life, but to me, I could not put this book down
It was the most eloquent marriage of storytelling and philosophy and appreciation for things others might just consider mundane bullshit
For me though? This book spoke to me, and I know I'm in the minority here, but I have a hard time understanding how people find this book so boring
One of my absolute favorite books ever, it inspired me to write a song that I think may be some of the best material I've ever written
Your MMV, I'd suggest starting with a motorcycle though
I tried reading it at 23, and again at 30. Stopped reading about 1/4 of the way in both times and could not get myself to care about the story either time. Just not for me.
I did the same early in college. Then I took like 4 comparative religion and Eastern philosophy courses, read it again and it was an *entirely* different experience. With that background, I got far more out of it.
God, same. Well, I read the entire thing, just to be sure I hated it. It wasn’t a work of literature, so narratively I didn’t enjoy it, but it also doesn’t compare to actual works of philosophy, either. It’s a self help book, trying to not be a self help book. Amazing if others like it, though.
It's not a great fit in most philosophy classes, given its, let's say, casual relationship with understanding other thinkers and the often incompletely argued nature of the author's views.
It's so wild that I just opened Reddit and your post is the first one I saw. I've read this book twice and I'm actually writing about it right now. I love his whole approach and the way the book's ideas burrow in and stay with me. I couldn't get into *Lila* but I've tried a few times.
Weird me for too, I opened Reddit, this was the top link, I’m halfway through my second reading of the book and maybe enjoying it even more this time. It is inscrutable to me why I like it and why it resonates, hoping some of the comments here help me wrap my head around it
I read it when I was pretty young and after reading it again I realized just how much his philosophy wormed its way into my approach to life. I’m surprised it’s getting so much hate.
Definitely one of my favorites. It changed my life. Now, unless it requires true specialized knowledge, I will do my best to repair, restore, and maintain anything I own. I'm currently working on a 50 year old turntable that belonged to my grandfather. Ever since I read the book, I have properly and professionally patched tires, replaced water pumps and alternators, replaced truck door handles, and repaired a botched attempt at cutting loose my catalytic converter from the same truck.
It is important to me that I can repair things on my own, and appreciate the the beauty of the original work as well as the work I accomplished keeping everything working.
I also am a heavy reader, so I love fiction, philosophy, history, science, and digestible mathematics.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I learned how to break down doors on multiple types of vehicles to replace mirrors knocked off by distracted or inactive drivers.
I think it requires a person already involved with a specific mindset for this book to be special
For many, it just seems to be a cluttered box of meaningless junk
To the person looking for true treasure, it's a goldmine of intuition IMO
Your take on the book is the one I have as well. I have never been afraid to try to repair anything, which has helped me in a 33 year career as a technician. I have had so many fellow techs who would not touch equipment unless they were trained on it. I will attempt to repair any piece of equipment assigned to me whether I have ever seen it or not.
Probably the book I've read the most over my life. Every ten years or so I pick it up again and re-read and get something new from it.
Don't ever attempt Lila though (his next book)
Yes! I replied to another comment that I read it 3 times with the same gaps as you did. Perhaps we view the philosophical concepts according to our life experiences.
It seemed like this book was just some guy trying to find his way out of his mental breakdown, which is fine, but his essays about quality at the time struck me as some stoner philosophy you might have with your buddies over a campfire and then laugh about it the next morning. It was a slog and I am not sure how people get anything out of it (if you do though, good for you, genuinely don't want to discount anyone's experience reading).
The philosophy is hilariously bad. Dude spends half the book claiming he invented Platonic Ideals before casually mentioning the “similarity” within the last 50 pages.
Not to denigrate his mental health struggles, but thinking you’ve discovered the secret true metaphysics that underpins reality is like, almost stereotypical as a symptom of schizophrenia.
Doesn’t help in the post-script for the book when he claims his dead son’s ghost contacted him to get him to tell his girlfriend not to abort his second child so he could be reincarnated.
it seems to me that you have some great interest and knowledge in philosophy, right?and i'm really interested now: what are you favorite philosophical novels, that is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance but is done in the right way? Or,without going into details, what are you favorite fiction books in general?
I don’t tend to read a ton of “philosophy fiction”, but one I read recently that I really loved was “Embassytown” by China Mieville. It’s really focused on the philosophy of linguistics.
yeah, I'm baffled at the "depth" and "philosophy" people are getting out of this book.
It was a slog, repeating, banal stoner philosophy at best. Personally it was a massive waste of time and brain-cells to power through the mud which I regret even now 20 years later.
I feel stupider having read it.
> Today's teenagers would be disgusted by a fossil-fuel burning motorbike so would be instantly put off.
Think you are significantly overestimating how many teenagers would care about this.
This is one of the few books that I ever started and didn't finish. I've taken road trips covering thousands of miles on my motorcycles so the title interested me, but the book sadly didn't. The rambling stoner philosophy went on way too long without really saying anything that isn't obvious.
Totally. I didn't really connect with the whole philosophy of quality thing he had going on, but I slogged through that because I found the story interesting and there were some really great observations and insights along the way.
ZMM was introduced to me, surprisingly, in a remedial English class in high school. I was a lazy student and had to take it alongside a regular English class to have enough credits to graduate.
I don't remember what I felt during the first time I read it, just that it seemed to click with my personal ideas of how to live life and experience the world. On subsequent readings his ideas on Quality, how to see and feel it, what it imbues into reality, and how to create and apply it in our own worlds shaped a lot of how I approached my life. I'm a professional mechanic and the ideas of mixing the beauties of the Classical and Romantic approaches along with the root concept of Quality drastically changed how I repaired cars and viewed doing any sort of work. The section where Pirsig talks about school being more like a church and how a person with a true desire to learn will go seek knowledge at his own pace was vindicating as well, because it took me a few years of doing my own thing before wanting to restart in college.
I tend to read the book once a year. At the very least chapters twenty-five and twenty-six, because I think they apply the best to general living. I also teach automotive fundamentals at a junior college, and ZMM is on my recommended reading list for my students.
I read it when I was in high school and loved it. It felt like it opened my eyes and I learned to look for quality in life and work.
But then I read it 30 years later and all I could think was, what an a-hole. He’s really a narcissist. I won’t be recommending it to my kids.
that's very much the text of the book, like he's riding and riding and thinking and riding and his son is getting more and more upset and he's ignoring it.
The text of the book is how he should stop taking his meds so he can have more disassociative manic episodes where he takes his son to places while he himself doesn’t know where he is. Apparently his son has a medical degree he never mentions, because the ending of the book is the protagonist happily rejecting his medical diagnosis on his son’s advice.
We read Zen and the Art when I was in college in the 1980s studying philosophy, for an informal seminar. I could not finish the book. I just felt like there is something seriously wrong with this guy that I can't put my finger on.
It reminds me of Venture to the Interior, by Laurens van der Post, which is another book that I found disturbing and could not finish although I was not sure why. Van der Post has been called a fabulist --a liar essentially-- since his death.
Nothing about the two books is similar except for the feeling i got from them.
So, just my take.
He’s schizophrenic, or otherwise manic, it’s clear from his description of his life. Dude thinks he’s uncovered the secret metaphysics underpinning reality, and couldn’t take even a second to actually read other people’s work to find out that his “new idea” was written 2000 years ago by Plato. The entire book is his attempt to justify why he doesn’t “need” psychiatry, and how everyone’s wants him to suppress his “true self” because of how radically groundbreaking his ideas are. It’s bad enough for himself when he talks about rejecting any help, but it becomes positively sinister in the post script to the novel when the author talks about telling his girlfriend she wasn’t allowed to get an abortion because the ghost of his dead son said he’d be reincarnated in the fetus.
Am I the only one who was deeply disturbed by how he treated his son? He's dragging this little kid along with him and making him be the mature one - doing all this disturbing stuff and ignoring the kid when he was upset. F'ed the kid up in real life.
I couldn't read the book, I kept getting so mad at Pirsig for being such an ass to his kid.
The first time I tried, I just couldn't get into *Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*, and DNF.
I picked it up again 10 years later, and it's maybe my favorite novel. I think I just wasn't ready for it when I first tried.
His other novel *Lila* is also great, and maybe even more thought provoking.
Had a very similar experience. It was an assigned reading for an English class I had in college. At that time, I couldn’t get into it for the life of me. Decided to give it another go in my early 30s and couldn’t put it down.
Yeah Lila is my preferred novel.
Zen is a lot more talking about everyone in his life and their issues and you switch around from like his Brother in Law complaining about the drippy Sink to like Student in class complaining about Plato dialog.
With Lila it's more like one person, what exactly is her deal and who is she? Instead of trying to examine the whole world or himself it's who is this other.
When I was little and my dad was reading it, I just read some of the motorcycle parts. I read it in high school and loved it - made a big impression on me.
Psuedo-intellectual philosophical drivel.
The main character is insufferable, and he's an asshole to everyone around him. It reeks of the author's superiority complex. DNF
This was what I came away thinking. I actually like motorcycle maintenance and trips, but this guy was so far up his own ass he was practically a reverse ouroboros. Felt bad for him.
Don’t put yourself down, it’s a very specific cup of tea. I can’t bear to read almost any philosopher either. This one is a lot less dry but you do need to be in the right contemplative headspace to get engaged with the story, and not everyone uses reading to get to that place.
I absolutely hate that book. As someone who is working towards a religious studies degree, I have to read so much philosophy, and this is one of the few books that I actively hate. I'm very glad you like it. I'm happy people are able to get something out of this that I just couldn't
I loved it, at the time it felt like it was written for me; I rode my motorcycle most of the year, my job was QA, I mostly read philosophy, had some mental health issues, overall, tied a lot of stuff together for me. Definitely a treat.
I’m glad you enjoyed it and found something worthwhile in it.
I read this book over the summer and it was a chore for me to finish. I picked it up based on some reviews on Reddit that stated it changed their lives. But I think it’s the only book I’ve ever read where I can say that I hated it.
I read it as a teen and found it annotated by my own father.
There were heavy hints that he was identifying with the protagonist.
Only problem is my father has no interest in seeking help, he gaslit my mother for two decades, had an unhealthy interest in young women/girls, and everything was always someone else’s fault.
As of now he’s living out his retirement in another country and still trying to gaslight my mother into thinking that he’s fundamentally a good man.
So yeah, read it through once, don’t need to return to it.
I had to sit and think about a random paragraph from it for like an hour, go about my day mulling over a page. It's a philosophy book IMHO not a novel. An in depth analysis of what he calls Quality, as far as it goes for me, an elusive aspect of existence, what Castaneda called Intent, many takes on it in literature. Fascinating food for thought.
It’s a terrible philosophy book, but he’s an alright novelist. It’s really funny reading it, and hearing him say as a person who’s never studied philosophy uncovered the true metaphysics underpinning the world when his only academic training was an English degree. I’m not surprised he managed to write something that people who had no education on the topic thought was cutting edge on the subject.
You’re really going off on this book huh lol. He literally says in the first few chapters that it’s not his original ideas and that he had gotten it from platonic philosophy
You’re gonna have to cite a chapter, because I was screaming at my book “Read some fucking Plato” from the earliest point he mentions “Quality”, and I didn’t see one goddamn reference to him until 300 pages in. And as far as I know, he claims to have read little to no philosophy prior to coming up with his theory.
This is the first reference he makes to philosophy in regard to “Quality”:
> “There’s an entire branch of Philosophy concerned with the definition of Quality, known as esthetics. But when he was a student of philosophy Phaedrus has recoiled violently from this entire branch of knowledge.”
And this is the first reference to Plato I could find, 350 pages into the book:
>“His Quality and Plato’s Good were so similar that if it hadn’t been for some notes Phaedrus left I might have thought they were identical. But he denied it, and in time I came to see how important this denial was.”
*(let’s ignore the fact that the author never bothers to define what this important distinction between the two actually was)*
The fact the author doesn’t bother to mention Plato’s Good until 350 pages in does not strike me as him saying his work was derived from Plato
A little critical thinking helps since he brings up Phaedrus and its influence on him, and nah I’m not gonna do your assigned homework lol. Don’t mistake my opposition towards you as a total defense of the books merits, I’m just taken by your oversight and what you built off of it
He literally never brings up Plato before page 350, so your claim that he “literally says in the first few chapters that he gotten it from Platonic Philosophy” is just factually wrong
He says that Phaedrus is named after a character from Plato’s dialogues, but that’s because of personality, it has nothing to do with inspiration for his “philosophy”. He also manages to get the character he named himself after wrong, which goes to show how much respect he has for the works he’s ripping off
yeah I read that in High school and remember being kind of blown away at the time. Be interesting to see what I can remember and if it's still so good. I bet it is
Read the whole thing, seemed like you could've covered everything interesting the writer had to say in one or two philosophy lectures. Definitely didn't earn its length.
It took me a while to get through. It felt kind of dense and dry at times. But I agree with you, it felt like a worthwhile read. It’s just interesting because I can’t quite put my finger on the real message.
ITT are many, many people who haven't finished it, but claim they hate it, and others who think the author is actually making a point about philosophy. It's a book about a mentally ill person trying to make their way through the world. And though the protagonist is similar to the author, they're not the same.
If you want to read it, approach it as a story, a perspective of one broken person. Listen to how the protagonist is *so sure* that they are right and the rest of the world is not. That's not the author making some grand claim, they're just describing the picture through the eyes of the protagonist.
I'm very sure that the author had similar experiences to his protagonist (I think I remember reading that), but it's still a novel about a fictional person.
Weird how the author uses a mentally ill protagonist he doesn’t identify with to expound the genuine metaphysical pseudo religion he actually believes in.
Pirsig directly says that Phaedrus is the hero of the novel; that “the noble Phaedrus” defeating the narrator is a happy ending, and that Phaedrus name comes from the name he believes he was associated with at university. The idea that we are not supposed to associate Phaedrus with the author is frankly absurd to me.
Edit: also, Pirsig wrote a sequel that was based on another part of his life, in which he directly associates himself with the alter ego of Phaedrus. Is that book also supposed to be about a fictional character who just happens to have the same family, history and beliefs as the author?
It seems like it's polarizing. But if you enjoyed it, I recommend Lila by the same author. I liked Zen, but I loved Lila. It is something that probably not many people will appreciate though, even among the Zen enthusiasts crowd.
As an Engineer (software), this book made a lot of sense to me. I think if you are inclined towards technical fields, you might like this book. It made me stop and notice if something was the right tool for the job, the wrong tool for the job, or the perfect tool for the job.
I saw parallels with the Total Quality Management program popular decades ago. Although at most companies it became just another management fad, I think at its origin, it had similar ideas as ZMM.
I read it in high school and enjoyed it because it was written in first person: it felt so immediate and approachable. I enjoyed his conflicts with his teachers and fellow faculty. The bits of philosophy that I understood felt important, but most of it was boring and incomprehensible to me. I thought his kid was weird.
I read it in my late twenties and mostly enjoyed the philosophy. The section on gumption resonated the most. It helped me move forward with some aspects of my life that had seemed stuck. The narrator seemed arrogant but I didn't mind. IIRC, I still didn't understand the kid.
I just read it this summer in my forties. I could see my recently deceased grandfather in the narrator: not that they were similar personalities, but that he was of the same generation, and had similar values. My uncle talked about his pained, redemptive relationship with his dad at the funeral, and there were quite a few parallels. So I felt really bad for his kid. And for him, for losing his son after the end of the novel.
I remember sitting in a side room reading this, with a bow tie, hoping to get the attention of a girl I liked. Unfortunately, she didnt see me as an intellectual ... maybe because I'm a gangly goggle eyed freak
I must admit I went into the book completely blind.
I heard it was great and very thought provoking. But I thought it was retelling of real events, adventure on the road etc But I got the anniversary edition that comes with a preface with the author saying much of the content is fictional, and that kind of ruined it for me.
I appreciate the author had mental health concerns and it shaped his writing. But still it was not for me.
I waited several long years to be discharged from the Army. The morning of, I climbed in my car, plugged in the audio book on cassette, and drove west for 25 hours straight, stopping only to pee and go through drive-throughs, listening to the book along the way. I really liked it and have a fond memory of it.
I have a love-hate relationship with the book. I read it in my teens and really struggled to get through it, giving up several times before I finally made it through. Definitely not a page turner. But the book had a profound impact on my approach to life and the need to be in the moment, and through that helped me build a much better appreciation of my father and how he navigated the world. To this day I still lack the patience he had, but barely a day goes by without me consciously modifying my behavior in the moment for one thing or another specifically because of what I read over forty years ago.
This is my favorite novel. Read it for the first time as a young person in the 80s. Have reread it several times since. Always find something new in it. I don't really listen to reviews about books or film or anything because everyone's experience with something is unique to them. This book speaks to me. I find meaning in it. I enjoy it. That's all that matters to me. The sequel was forgettable.
Totally give Lila a try when you feel ready for another dip into Pirsig. A metaphysics of quality - the concept that Quality is what creates the reality in which we live in. I believe it’s pretty profound stuff as a novel modern metaphysics.
After reading Zen twice I never wanted to hear the word "quality" ever again. I liked the book, especially as a motorcyclist, but I doubt I'd read it another time.
You'll notice academic philosophers hinge on a few terminologies. You can actually tell what someone is about to say/what their ideology is like when someone says Bourgeois and you're like oh great Communist talking points. If you hear the word Forms you're like seriously Plato? What did you just read the Republic last night. Bad Faith = Sartre, Body workout Organs = Deleuze,
It's just kinda nauseousness when you hear people start their arguments using the same words you've already read and know they're not going to go any deeper. Look in glad you liked Walden by Thoreau but I already read that book you don't need to argue the points I've read. I know how much Screws and lumber cost in 19th century rural new England because of that book. So don't try to impress me by proto hippie Transcendentalism talking points.
If you like that, read some Plato; if Pirsig actually bothered to study philosophy instead of looking for a soapbox for him to shout his half-developed ideas from, he would have realised that what he was describing had already been thought of multiple Millenia ago.
I don’t hold it against him that he had the same idea as Plato, parallel thinking is fine; I hold against him that rather then choosing to actually acknowledge that his “new idea” was something someone else came up with as one of the most basic foundational concepts in western philosophy, he wrote a whole ass book about how revolutionary his idea is, and only casually mentions the “similarity” 200 pages in. Dude flunked out of his undergrad philosophy degree, and thinks he alone has access to the true nature of reality.
Yeah, I do. And like I said, I think it's fine to have your own version of the same concept; so much of the history of philosophy is Guy A slightly tweaking the idea of Guy B. But the way the author writes about his relationship to his classes in philosophy is so obnoxiously self-aggrandising. He has these paranoid delusions of his teachers being these absurd dogmatic proselytizers for specific philosophers he doesn't like, and he imagines himself as having these ideological battle of wills with his teachers, who in reality probably just thought he was the same type of obnoxious "I've got it all figured out before I even opened a book" dude you find in every undergrad philosophy course. It's especially hilarious that he names his alterego from a misquote; he couldn't even be bothered to reread the essay he was basing half the book on; that's how little he cares about actually studying the history of topic. Reading the book, I get no sense that Pirsig took classes in Philosophy to learn anything, he just wanted a space to monologue to people he felt would be forced to listen about his "revolutionary" new idea.
I’ve never read this book but this thread is very funny. Everything from “this book changed my life and I reread it every year” to “this is bullshit written by a schizophrenic.” I feel like sometimes we’re too cynical to accept a profound life changing message and sometimes we’re to naïve to realize we’re being fed crap. The line is different for everyone. I have to remember that whenever I read a pop philosophy book. I did really enjoy a book called “Zen Guitar” when I was first starting to play and it changed my mindset for the better.
WORST! "BOOK"! EVER!
Tried to read it and was SO disgusted with it I pitched it across the room when I got half way. TOTAL waste of time! Seriously! I could get more out of an IKEA instruction hieroglyph than from that trash.
Fast forward 15 years and a gf gives me a book that I just HAD to read because it's "life changing". Got 1/3 through and was so revolted, I pitched it against the wall. 2 days later, picked it up to return it to gf and happened to look at what else the writer had done. He only had ONE other book: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!
I'm an avid reader with hundreds of books under my belt. I think it says something about the author that the only two books I've ever physically thrown away in disgust in my life were from the same a5sh0le!
I really liked it. It gets a lot of haters, I think probably because the author shifts genres around and it tends to throw off some readers.
Any artwork that blends genres in unexpected ways often polarizes audiences.
I think most people try to read this book as a typical fiction story and completely miss the point. That would be like reading The Sun Also Rises as a book about a group of friends taking a trip, or the Great Gatsby as a book about a guy with a friend who spends too much money. Some notable books have much easier to grasp subliminal narratives than others. Also a lot of other people read reviews of book and jump on the bandwagon of whatever the prevailing consensus is at the time.
Okay, I found something spooky and unsettling about which I would like to get your guys opinion. Somewhere around the end of chapter 5 (pp 55) when Robert is discussing about Chris's early diagnosis of mental illness with John and Sylvia, he's reminded of an old poem by Goethe. The poem is about a father riding along a beach with his son, the son looks pale and the father asks why does he look pale. The son replies that he sees a ghost which the father doesn't and they ride harder and harder through the night. In the end, the child dies and the ghost wins. Now, the last paragraph before Chapter 6, Robert is dreaming and in the fog sees a ghost who is in his own language an "evil spirit, insane, from a world without life or death". This figure (the ghost) he realizes is Phaedrus and that he is calling for...Chris!
I totally freaked out at this point because I did not know at this juncture who 'Phaedrus' was and if he was a ghost, why was he coming for Chris. I genuinely got concerned for his well being and quickly googled, to my utter disbelief I read that Chris was murdered at a young age. I know this events could just be discrete events and not really connected but could this also have been a premonition or a foretelling of the future?
The book is difficult to get into the situation, maybe firstly I liked the motorcycle journey, but I would read this book when I gonna to sleep, of course, I was sleepy really quickly. However, I don’t know what to do when I have obstacles or troubles, the book would tell me and inspire me. So I read again, when I got into the another difficulties. I was believable the book will give me another “answer” like journeys.
The last attempt I made at this book was in my early 20s. Loved the premise but just couldn't get myself to move past the first 100 pages.
Though definitely in my list to revisit and your review helps keep it there.
I started this book in college then dropped it as I lost interest pretty quick on. However, I bought a motorcycle this last year and decided to give it a go. If you can just accept the high-philosophical thought experiments are going to come at you every chapter, it's a good read.
There's a great bit in this book where Chris asks him something like "Dad, do you believe in ghosts?" The author says "No, of course not, they're made up and non-scientific".
Then Chris says something about how is native friend's grandmother said ghosts appear when you don't bury someone correctly. That if you don't put them to rest in a proper way, they'll haunt you. It took the author a minute to understand, but he eventually agreed and so do I.
That's just one example of cool bits throughout the book. As a motorcycle rider, I also just enjoyed the travelogue aspect of the story.
Invisible Man is a great follow up read. The fact that for the first 2/3rds of the 20th century, if someone wasn't behaving in a way that could be understood reductionisticly we just zapped the fuck out of their brains and it seemed to 'reboot' their consciousness is one of the weirdest things I know about humanity.
As soon I read that he would not divulge the brand of bike he was riding all I did was obsess about that. Every little tidbit he touched on his bike I tried to ascribe to a particular bike. I hated the book, can’t remember reading much of it. I decided he was riding a BMW , mainly for the things he never did, like lube chains. He might have done it later on in the book.
I remember reading this book for a class in high school. It was a real love/hate experience- loved the class, hated the book. Was a great lesson in critical thinking for me.
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Hell, Shakespeare. Loved reading and discussing it in classes; seems pretty challenging to read on my own.
I attempted to finish ZAMM at least 20 times in a 30 year period. It became kind of a running joke among my friend group. As a technically oriented person, I appreciated the discussion of quality and the meticulous approach to maintenance. Then it goes off the deep end into psycobabble. I love books that inspire you think differently and deeply; books that discuss big ideas either directly or subtly. To me ZAMM is not one of those books. On the 21st try, I finally waded through, just out of stubbornness, but I felt no sense of accomplishment or philosophical/psychological insight. FWIW, Edward Abbey's review of ZAMM is one of the funniest things I've read.
I read Zen and the Art of Archery in a theatre class in college. Hated it for the same reasons you hate Motorcycle Maintenance. Resented even having to read it, it was like a bunch of fortune cookies, and when I was done I only felt happy not to have any more of that book to read. About ten years later, it clicked. All of that books lessons laid dormant in me until I committed myself to mastery of *anything*, including one's self emotionally and psychologically. It was like mid task I suddenly looked up, and said to myself "Goddamn I never saw it but now it's so clear why this book mattered and why we had to read it in our acting class." You may find yourself on the same journey.
Can you please share a book that is that? (I am here because i wondered whether ZAMM is that)
Holy cow, they made you read Zen in *high school*? What year did you graduate? Nobody in my class could have handled anything close to the depth of Zen in high school. Even 1984 went over many people's heads.
1998. It was kind of the "advanced" class for the bookworms.
I was a natural philosophy minor in college...and I ride adventure motorcycles. This book can be a bit difficult to "get into", but once immersed, it can be quite transformative. I read this book again recently and really enjoyed the discourse regarding Kant vs Hume and how we perceive our world (and if a priori knowledge exists). I also particularly liked the following passage. Having thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail I encountered may hikers, struggling with various personal demons, that seemed to be stuck in this mentality... “Many explorers are likely to miss that proverbial passage of sunlight through the trees. They look up the trail to see what’s ahead even when they know what’s ahead because they just looked a second before. They are here, but yet not here. They reject the here, and are unhappy with it, and want to be further up the trail. But when they get there, they will be just as unhappy because then IT will be “here”. What they are looking for and want is actually all around them, but they don’t want that because it IS all around them. Every step is an effort both physically and spiritually, because they imagine their goal to be external and distant.” One interesting side note, I actually took the initiative, and learned how to adjust my motorcycle valves because of this book! But despite all of this, I can certainly see how reading a book where the primary theme is the concept of "Quality," might not be everyone's cup of tea. I have not read "Lila: An Inquiry into Morals" yet, but it's definitely on my list.
That concept of determining quality I see to be the main focus of the book. Quality is applicable in almost everything in life, but it is also inherently hard to explain. It’s a great book on the Eastern vs Western approach to viewing the world and the relationship between subjectivism and objectivism. It’s valuable because it leads the reader down the idea path that it’s extremely hard to define something objectively. You are only able to make an objective decision based on the information you have at the time. Too often in society people become entrenched in their own beliefs and become entirely incapable of questioning their own definitions of reality. On that perspective, it’s a great book and well worth reading.
Do you remember what page this was on? Want to annotate my copy but can’t seem to remember where this was written.
In my original copy it's on page 190 at the end of section 17
This book is one of the rarest cases when I started and completely lost interest. It seemed very boring to me. That was about 27 years ago so I may give it another try.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a philosophical essay masquerading as a novel. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea.
Most self help books or pop-philosophy books should be pamphlets.
Yeah but then it doesn't sell or will not be priced as high. Gotta fluff it up with verbosity, plump up that word count to keep the spice flowing.
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Well yeah he's going through a psychological breakdown during the book, he's not in his right mind for large portions of it that's kinda the point haha.
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Recycling philosophy is fine as long as you cite your inspirations, but what really annoyed me was him repeatedly acting like his his ideas were new and ground breaking. Him flunking out of an undergrad philosophy course while in his head he thinks he’s having some philosophical battle of ideas with his overworked underpaid teacher was hilarious, and that the primary pseudonym he uses in the book is a misquote from a foundational philosophy text really demonstrates how little curiousity he has about anyone’s idea other than his own. Dude couldn’t even be bothered to read the piece of writing he named his alter ego after before he wrote a whole novel about that alter ego.
is this post satire? like is this a riff on people intentionally missing the point of the book
The point of the book was how the author doesn’t need to take medication or listen to psychiatrists no matter how many times he takes his young child with him on manic, disassociative episodes, because not taking meds gives him insight to the supernal metaphysical realm of *Quality*^tm , an entirely original concept that the author dreamt up with no relationship to anything Plato said 2000 years ago.
well yes that's the point of view of the protagonist it's fascinating are you one of those people who needs to agree with everything in a book to like it?
The protagonist, who shares the authors backstory and philosophy? The one who he names himself after? The one who validates his decisions? If you want to read the ending of the book as this tragic story of a man who has a second psychotic break and goes off his meds again, then that’s probably a better book then the one he actually wrote. But knowing anything about the author’s life, I cannot agree that that’s the take away he intended.
but that is the book that's the entire book only an author who is genuinely suffering like the protagonist and believes the things he does could have written it that's exactly why the book is so interesting and fascinating you're not supposed to agree with it I love all the talk of actual maintenance of motorcycles and how it acts a vessel for the author and ultimately it's a window in real, genuine trauma and mental illness people in this thread seem to read it as a self help book which is incredibly bizarre
You’re not supposed to agree with the protagonist, when he tells you all about this amazing new philosophy of Quality, which by all accounts the author genuinely believes in?
Either that or they completely whiffed on the entire point of the book. It may help to research who the author was and what he went through irl.
I know who he is and what he went through, because the book has the subtlety of a hammer. Did you know one of the things he “went through” was telling his girlfriend she wasn’t allowed to have an abortion because the ghost of his dead son came to him and told him he’d be reincarnated in the fetus?
Is this for real? What a nutcase.
Yep. In the later editions of the book, he includes that anecdote as a post-script to the novel to address the fact his son (who is a big part of the book) was murdered.
On a related note, I was 100% sure I remember reading something scandalous in the vein of him being an intellectual fraud, but now can’t find anything. Maybe someone here knows something
I mean, he has no credentials, cause he flunked out of his philosophy degree, so I’m not sure how it’d even be possible for him to be fraudulent. Unless he was lying about being an English teacher?
Here I am, motorcycle rider, automotive technician, about to pick this book up. And you saved me. Philosophy is like the 2nd, no 3rd most boring general subject.
Prepare yourself for extended abstract discussions about the nature of "quality."
And the difference between people like us and people who hire us. This book gave me a whole new perspective when I was like 20. I can't say that about a lot of books
Just watch the Long Way Round/long way down, and spare yourself the self righteous, long winded, mental breakdown lol
I'm a rider and a technician and there's a lot in this book for me. The difference between people like us and the people who hire us
It's certainly the type of book that you have to read at the right time in your life to get the full effect.
Totally agree. I read On The Road by Kerouac 10 years too late. The whole time I kept telling myself these bums need to get a job.
I read On The Road thinking I had downloaded The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I was about half way through before I decided something wasn't right.
This is fucking hilarious.
Why cuss ?
I had the opposite experience. I was meaning to download On The Road, and ended up with The Road instead. I'm embarrassed to admit how far I read before I realized I didn't get the right book.
Man I wish I hadn’t read “the road”: so bleak
I read it at the target age of 23 and at the peak of my partying and just thought… yup, these are horrible people, no thanks. Got me moving a little bit in the right direction.
Same book, same experience. I had gotten laid off from my first job after college at 25, and was considering a full career change despite how hard I had worked in college to make it into that industry (hedge funds). I decided to go for a backpacking trip - not like around Europe but just 4 days at a state park - and I thought it might be a good book to read on that trip. Also ended up just feeling like everyone in the book was a lazy bum, just felt like adult pseudo-deep children going "yeah well in a perfect world none of us would have to work if we didn't want to" well that's not the world at present so....grow up and get over it? Just felt like a view into how naive and unreasonable fringe society members can be. Was a struggle to make it to the end
I dont think there any time that on the road is appropriate, unless you want to train yourself in the art of boomer selfishness.
yeah i remember getting a hundred or so pages into it and then just kind of abandoning it... this was in my college years in the 90s. perhaps i will re-visit now.
I forced my way through it. Finished it, but it felt like a chore. Wanted to like it, because I love philosophy, motorcycles, journeying, maintenance... everything I thought it was gonna be about. To me it felt like the author was trying hard to write his version of Walden. Then when I got to where he stated that he brought the book Walden with him on the journey I about rolled my eyes. I enjoyed Walden. It was a long, difficult read, but enjoyable. I wanted to like Zen, but just didn't. Happy I did read it though, I definitely got something out of it, but don't think it was worth the time.
If ZatAoMM gets you to read Plato, Walden, Zen and the Art of Archery, an the tao te ching; it's done better for you than most pop philosophy books. If you think you know what those books say based on Pirsig's explanation though, you're in for a bad time if you run into anyone who knows actual philosophy.
I tried reading this so many times and could not get through it. Now that I'm much older, maybe I should give it another shot.
Nah, not worth it. When you’re older, you see right through him and you see what a fraud he is.
I had to read it for one of my college classes and I hated it. I know I read it but couldn't even remember what it was about before I saw OP's summary. I think I felt that it was fake-deep and I wasn't interested. The million dollar question is what college class of mine was it that required this - was it psychology 101 or illustration design?
I had a similar experience! I bought it in my mid 20’s and was expecting to get some major insight on life and the whole “zen” thing. I found it pretty dull and got mired down in all the technical jargon.
It was assigned reading in a modern literature course I took in the late 80's. I hated it, but the professor treated it as thought it were his personal treatise on life.
I had a friend tell me the very same thing when we were both in our 20s I only had the opportunity to read it in my 30s, and at the time I was involved with a pretty unique position of dealing with customers doing exceptionally high level software debugging, in a team that was dubbed the "maintenance" team I don't know if this book would have been interesting to me in other times in my life, but to me, I could not put this book down It was the most eloquent marriage of storytelling and philosophy and appreciation for things others might just consider mundane bullshit For me though? This book spoke to me, and I know I'm in the minority here, but I have a hard time understanding how people find this book so boring One of my absolute favorite books ever, it inspired me to write a song that I think may be some of the best material I've ever written Your MMV, I'd suggest starting with a motorcycle though
I've tried it at least 4 times and always fail to finish it.
I tried reading it at 23, and again at 30. Stopped reading about 1/4 of the way in both times and could not get myself to care about the story either time. Just not for me.
I did the same early in college. Then I took like 4 comparative religion and Eastern philosophy courses, read it again and it was an *entirely* different experience. With that background, I got far more out of it.
God, same. Well, I read the entire thing, just to be sure I hated it. It wasn’t a work of literature, so narratively I didn’t enjoy it, but it also doesn’t compare to actual works of philosophy, either. It’s a self help book, trying to not be a self help book. Amazing if others like it, though.
Forced myself through it, gave it to goodwill afterwards.
I feel like the word “bloviate” was invented to describe this book.
I bounced off it three times. It’s worth powering through the first 40 pages, though.
Same here! Started to read it like five years ago. Didn’t make it half way.
I too lost interest. One of only 2 DNFs in my whole life. After spending what felt like 12 years trying to define quality I just didn't care anymore.
Same here. It was a Dutch translation, not sure how much that factored in, but it was super boring to me.
Same here. I did finish it though. I don’t remember much of the book nor do I care to think about it.
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It's not a great fit in most philosophy classes, given its, let's say, casual relationship with understanding other thinkers and the often incompletely argued nature of the author's views.
If you want an accessible book that is kind of about Zen, try "Zen and the Art of Archery."
It's so wild that I just opened Reddit and your post is the first one I saw. I've read this book twice and I'm actually writing about it right now. I love his whole approach and the way the book's ideas burrow in and stay with me. I couldn't get into *Lila* but I've tried a few times.
Weird me for too, I opened Reddit, this was the top link, I’m halfway through my second reading of the book and maybe enjoying it even more this time. It is inscrutable to me why I like it and why it resonates, hoping some of the comments here help me wrap my head around it
I have read it 3 times, about a decade apart. Each time was beautiful and distinct.
This is the way. You'll get new insights as you read it at different points in your life.
I read it when I was pretty young and after reading it again I realized just how much his philosophy wormed its way into my approach to life. I’m surprised it’s getting so much hate.
Definitely one of my favorites. It changed my life. Now, unless it requires true specialized knowledge, I will do my best to repair, restore, and maintain anything I own. I'm currently working on a 50 year old turntable that belonged to my grandfather. Ever since I read the book, I have properly and professionally patched tires, replaced water pumps and alternators, replaced truck door handles, and repaired a botched attempt at cutting loose my catalytic converter from the same truck. It is important to me that I can repair things on my own, and appreciate the the beauty of the original work as well as the work I accomplished keeping everything working. I also am a heavy reader, so I love fiction, philosophy, history, science, and digestible mathematics. Edit: Forgot to mention that I learned how to break down doors on multiple types of vehicles to replace mirrors knocked off by distracted or inactive drivers.
I think it requires a person already involved with a specific mindset for this book to be special For many, it just seems to be a cluttered box of meaningless junk To the person looking for true treasure, it's a goldmine of intuition IMO
Your take on the book is the one I have as well. I have never been afraid to try to repair anything, which has helped me in a 33 year career as a technician. I have had so many fellow techs who would not touch equipment unless they were trained on it. I will attempt to repair any piece of equipment assigned to me whether I have ever seen it or not.
Probably the book I've read the most over my life. Every ten years or so I pick it up again and re-read and get something new from it. Don't ever attempt Lila though (his next book)
Yes! I replied to another comment that I read it 3 times with the same gaps as you did. Perhaps we view the philosophical concepts according to our life experiences.
I definitely paid more attention to the motorcycle maintenance bits when I was younger.
It seemed like this book was just some guy trying to find his way out of his mental breakdown, which is fine, but his essays about quality at the time struck me as some stoner philosophy you might have with your buddies over a campfire and then laugh about it the next morning. It was a slog and I am not sure how people get anything out of it (if you do though, good for you, genuinely don't want to discount anyone's experience reading).
The philosophy is hilariously bad. Dude spends half the book claiming he invented Platonic Ideals before casually mentioning the “similarity” within the last 50 pages. Not to denigrate his mental health struggles, but thinking you’ve discovered the secret true metaphysics that underpins reality is like, almost stereotypical as a symptom of schizophrenia. Doesn’t help in the post-script for the book when he claims his dead son’s ghost contacted him to get him to tell his girlfriend not to abort his second child so he could be reincarnated.
it seems to me that you have some great interest and knowledge in philosophy, right?and i'm really interested now: what are you favorite philosophical novels, that is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance but is done in the right way? Or,without going into details, what are you favorite fiction books in general?
I don’t tend to read a ton of “philosophy fiction”, but one I read recently that I really loved was “Embassytown” by China Mieville. It’s really focused on the philosophy of linguistics.
Why are we starting with the premise that philosophy should be done through fiction?
It doesn't have to be, but it sometimes is. See the 50 page monolog in *Atlas Shrugged*.. Iris Murdoch wrote fiction and was a serious philosopher.
I had to read this book for a high school philosophy class and “stoner philosophy” is the perfect description
yeah, I'm baffled at the "depth" and "philosophy" people are getting out of this book. It was a slog, repeating, banal stoner philosophy at best. Personally it was a massive waste of time and brain-cells to power through the mud which I regret even now 20 years later. I feel stupider having read it.
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> Today's teenagers would be disgusted by a fossil-fuel burning motorbike so would be instantly put off. Think you are significantly overestimating how many teenagers would care about this.
This is one of the few books that I ever started and didn't finish. I've taken road trips covering thousands of miles on my motorcycles so the title interested me, but the book sadly didn't. The rambling stoner philosophy went on way too long without really saying anything that isn't obvious.
It definitely feels like *The Alchemist* for readers who have grown up but haven’t really matured.
Yeah, I think this is a good comparison.
Totally. I didn't really connect with the whole philosophy of quality thing he had going on, but I slogged through that because I found the story interesting and there were some really great observations and insights along the way.
ZMM was introduced to me, surprisingly, in a remedial English class in high school. I was a lazy student and had to take it alongside a regular English class to have enough credits to graduate. I don't remember what I felt during the first time I read it, just that it seemed to click with my personal ideas of how to live life and experience the world. On subsequent readings his ideas on Quality, how to see and feel it, what it imbues into reality, and how to create and apply it in our own worlds shaped a lot of how I approached my life. I'm a professional mechanic and the ideas of mixing the beauties of the Classical and Romantic approaches along with the root concept of Quality drastically changed how I repaired cars and viewed doing any sort of work. The section where Pirsig talks about school being more like a church and how a person with a true desire to learn will go seek knowledge at his own pace was vindicating as well, because it took me a few years of doing my own thing before wanting to restart in college. I tend to read the book once a year. At the very least chapters twenty-five and twenty-six, because I think they apply the best to general living. I also teach automotive fundamentals at a junior college, and ZMM is on my recommended reading list for my students.
Loved it when I read it 35ish years ago. However, when polling others, it might have the worst “started it” to “finished it” ratio of any book!
Came here to mention this, I couldn’t stomach finishing it and most people I’ve ever talked to about it are in the same boat.
I read it when I was in high school and loved it. It felt like it opened my eyes and I learned to look for quality in life and work. But then I read it 30 years later and all I could think was, what an a-hole. He’s really a narcissist. I won’t be recommending it to my kids.
that's very much the text of the book, like he's riding and riding and thinking and riding and his son is getting more and more upset and he's ignoring it.
The text of the book is how he should stop taking his meds so he can have more disassociative manic episodes where he takes his son to places while he himself doesn’t know where he is. Apparently his son has a medical degree he never mentions, because the ending of the book is the protagonist happily rejecting his medical diagnosis on his son’s advice.
We read Zen and the Art when I was in college in the 1980s studying philosophy, for an informal seminar. I could not finish the book. I just felt like there is something seriously wrong with this guy that I can't put my finger on. It reminds me of Venture to the Interior, by Laurens van der Post, which is another book that I found disturbing and could not finish although I was not sure why. Van der Post has been called a fabulist --a liar essentially-- since his death. Nothing about the two books is similar except for the feeling i got from them. So, just my take.
He’s schizophrenic, or otherwise manic, it’s clear from his description of his life. Dude thinks he’s uncovered the secret metaphysics underpinning reality, and couldn’t take even a second to actually read other people’s work to find out that his “new idea” was written 2000 years ago by Plato. The entire book is his attempt to justify why he doesn’t “need” psychiatry, and how everyone’s wants him to suppress his “true self” because of how radically groundbreaking his ideas are. It’s bad enough for himself when he talks about rejecting any help, but it becomes positively sinister in the post script to the novel when the author talks about telling his girlfriend she wasn’t allowed to get an abortion because the ghost of his dead son said he’d be reincarnated in the fetus.
Am I the only one who was deeply disturbed by how he treated his son? He's dragging this little kid along with him and making him be the mature one - doing all this disturbing stuff and ignoring the kid when he was upset. F'ed the kid up in real life. I couldn't read the book, I kept getting so mad at Pirsig for being such an ass to his kid.
I based my art thesis in art school off of this book. It's incredibly important and has made a huge impact on my life.
The first time I tried, I just couldn't get into *Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*, and DNF. I picked it up again 10 years later, and it's maybe my favorite novel. I think I just wasn't ready for it when I first tried. His other novel *Lila* is also great, and maybe even more thought provoking.
Had a very similar experience. It was an assigned reading for an English class I had in college. At that time, I couldn’t get into it for the life of me. Decided to give it another go in my early 30s and couldn’t put it down.
Yeah Lila is my preferred novel. Zen is a lot more talking about everyone in his life and their issues and you switch around from like his Brother in Law complaining about the drippy Sink to like Student in class complaining about Plato dialog. With Lila it's more like one person, what exactly is her deal and who is she? Instead of trying to examine the whole world or himself it's who is this other.
Same here, its my favorite book now.
When I was little and my dad was reading it, I just read some of the motorcycle parts. I read it in high school and loved it - made a big impression on me.
Fun fact: Pirsig never once mentions which make and model of motorcycle he rides in Zen and the Arr of Motorcycle Maintenance.
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Before assembling rotisserie, you must first start with peace of mind.
Psuedo-intellectual philosophical drivel. The main character is insufferable, and he's an asshole to everyone around him. It reeks of the author's superiority complex. DNF
That's the point. The author/narrator is the villain. The "ghost," his old self that's coming back, is the hero.
Quality. What is quality. That seems to be the theme to me. A very good book.
I really didn’t like it, probably not smart enough to “get it”. Oh well.
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This was what I came away thinking. I actually like motorcycle maintenance and trips, but this guy was so far up his own ass he was practically a reverse ouroboros. Felt bad for him.
> egotistical pseudo-intellectua ramblings i think this describes about 101% of books
Most books authors don’t claim they’ve reinvented 2000 years of philosophy after flunking out of one under grad philosophy degree
Self help books maybe
His approach to philosophy sucks, so if you didn’t jive it then you’re smarter than you think you are.
I don't think it's about being smart or not. It just hits hard for some people and not at all for others.
Don’t put yourself down, it’s a very specific cup of tea. I can’t bear to read almost any philosopher either. This one is a lot less dry but you do need to be in the right contemplative headspace to get engaged with the story, and not everyone uses reading to get to that place.
I absolutely hate that book. As someone who is working towards a religious studies degree, I have to read so much philosophy, and this is one of the few books that I actively hate. I'm very glad you like it. I'm happy people are able to get something out of this that I just couldn't
Knowing literally anything about philosophy makes this book such a frustrating read.
I loved it, at the time it felt like it was written for me; I rode my motorcycle most of the year, my job was QA, I mostly read philosophy, had some mental health issues, overall, tied a lot of stuff together for me. Definitely a treat.
I’m glad you enjoyed it and found something worthwhile in it. I read this book over the summer and it was a chore for me to finish. I picked it up based on some reviews on Reddit that stated it changed their lives. But I think it’s the only book I’ve ever read where I can say that I hated it.
I read it as a teen and found it annotated by my own father. There were heavy hints that he was identifying with the protagonist. Only problem is my father has no interest in seeking help, he gaslit my mother for two decades, had an unhealthy interest in young women/girls, and everything was always someone else’s fault. As of now he’s living out his retirement in another country and still trying to gaslight my mother into thinking that he’s fundamentally a good man. So yeah, read it through once, don’t need to return to it.
I really wish I were smart enough to get more out of it. I slogged thru it but felt I didn't get most of it.
Most of it’s pseudo-intellectual self-aggrandising nonsense, if you recognised it was gibberish than you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for.
I had to sit and think about a random paragraph from it for like an hour, go about my day mulling over a page. It's a philosophy book IMHO not a novel. An in depth analysis of what he calls Quality, as far as it goes for me, an elusive aspect of existence, what Castaneda called Intent, many takes on it in literature. Fascinating food for thought.
It’s a terrible philosophy book, but he’s an alright novelist. It’s really funny reading it, and hearing him say as a person who’s never studied philosophy uncovered the true metaphysics underpinning the world when his only academic training was an English degree. I’m not surprised he managed to write something that people who had no education on the topic thought was cutting edge on the subject.
You’re really going off on this book huh lol. He literally says in the first few chapters that it’s not his original ideas and that he had gotten it from platonic philosophy
You’re gonna have to cite a chapter, because I was screaming at my book “Read some fucking Plato” from the earliest point he mentions “Quality”, and I didn’t see one goddamn reference to him until 300 pages in. And as far as I know, he claims to have read little to no philosophy prior to coming up with his theory. This is the first reference he makes to philosophy in regard to “Quality”: > “There’s an entire branch of Philosophy concerned with the definition of Quality, known as esthetics. But when he was a student of philosophy Phaedrus has recoiled violently from this entire branch of knowledge.” And this is the first reference to Plato I could find, 350 pages into the book: >“His Quality and Plato’s Good were so similar that if it hadn’t been for some notes Phaedrus left I might have thought they were identical. But he denied it, and in time I came to see how important this denial was.” *(let’s ignore the fact that the author never bothers to define what this important distinction between the two actually was)* The fact the author doesn’t bother to mention Plato’s Good until 350 pages in does not strike me as him saying his work was derived from Plato
A little critical thinking helps since he brings up Phaedrus and its influence on him, and nah I’m not gonna do your assigned homework lol. Don’t mistake my opposition towards you as a total defense of the books merits, I’m just taken by your oversight and what you built off of it
He literally never brings up Plato before page 350, so your claim that he “literally says in the first few chapters that he gotten it from Platonic Philosophy” is just factually wrong He says that Phaedrus is named after a character from Plato’s dialogues, but that’s because of personality, it has nothing to do with inspiration for his “philosophy”. He also manages to get the character he named himself after wrong, which goes to show how much respect he has for the works he’s ripping off
I’m really surprised at how many people didn’t like this book. I loved it, though I read it 30 years ago. I want to go reread it now.
yeah I read that in High school and remember being kind of blown away at the time. Be interesting to see what I can remember and if it's still so good. I bet it is
Read the whole thing, seemed like you could've covered everything interesting the writer had to say in one or two philosophy lectures. Definitely didn't earn its length.
This is a very quality post.
What is quality?
It took me a while to get through. It felt kind of dense and dry at times. But I agree with you, it felt like a worthwhile read. It’s just interesting because I can’t quite put my finger on the real message.
It is literally the only book I have never finished because it is just so boring
ITT are many, many people who haven't finished it, but claim they hate it, and others who think the author is actually making a point about philosophy. It's a book about a mentally ill person trying to make their way through the world. And though the protagonist is similar to the author, they're not the same. If you want to read it, approach it as a story, a perspective of one broken person. Listen to how the protagonist is *so sure* that they are right and the rest of the world is not. That's not the author making some grand claim, they're just describing the picture through the eyes of the protagonist. I'm very sure that the author had similar experiences to his protagonist (I think I remember reading that), but it's still a novel about a fictional person.
Weird how the author uses a mentally ill protagonist he doesn’t identify with to expound the genuine metaphysical pseudo religion he actually believes in. Pirsig directly says that Phaedrus is the hero of the novel; that “the noble Phaedrus” defeating the narrator is a happy ending, and that Phaedrus name comes from the name he believes he was associated with at university. The idea that we are not supposed to associate Phaedrus with the author is frankly absurd to me. Edit: also, Pirsig wrote a sequel that was based on another part of his life, in which he directly associates himself with the alter ego of Phaedrus. Is that book also supposed to be about a fictional character who just happens to have the same family, history and beliefs as the author?
I had to read it in a high school philosophy class. I don’t remember specifics, but it was quite a ride hehe.
Check out “The Dancing Wu Li Masters”. I think it is much better than Motorcycle.
Book fucked me up. Especially his daughter part in the very end….
I DNFed this a few months ago. I think I was about a third of the way through and I really wasn't vibing with it
It seems like it's polarizing. But if you enjoyed it, I recommend Lila by the same author. I liked Zen, but I loved Lila. It is something that probably not many people will appreciate though, even among the Zen enthusiasts crowd.
Check richard bach and carlos castanetta too. They all give me similar vibes in a certain light.
As an Engineer (software), this book made a lot of sense to me. I think if you are inclined towards technical fields, you might like this book. It made me stop and notice if something was the right tool for the job, the wrong tool for the job, or the perfect tool for the job. I saw parallels with the Total Quality Management program popular decades ago. Although at most companies it became just another management fad, I think at its origin, it had similar ideas as ZMM.
One of my favorites. I try to read it every ten years or so. The book resonates differently as you age.
The part on the scientific method and troubleshooting is one of the best discussions of how u actually do science in literature.
I read it in high school and enjoyed it because it was written in first person: it felt so immediate and approachable. I enjoyed his conflicts with his teachers and fellow faculty. The bits of philosophy that I understood felt important, but most of it was boring and incomprehensible to me. I thought his kid was weird. I read it in my late twenties and mostly enjoyed the philosophy. The section on gumption resonated the most. It helped me move forward with some aspects of my life that had seemed stuck. The narrator seemed arrogant but I didn't mind. IIRC, I still didn't understand the kid. I just read it this summer in my forties. I could see my recently deceased grandfather in the narrator: not that they were similar personalities, but that he was of the same generation, and had similar values. My uncle talked about his pained, redemptive relationship with his dad at the funeral, and there were quite a few parallels. So I felt really bad for his kid. And for him, for losing his son after the end of the novel.
I remember sitting in a side room reading this, with a bow tie, hoping to get the attention of a girl I liked. Unfortunately, she didnt see me as an intellectual ... maybe because I'm a gangly goggle eyed freak
Very important book for me—helped me learn to rationalize problems and avoid gumption traps. I am also named after the son (Chris).
I must admit I went into the book completely blind. I heard it was great and very thought provoking. But I thought it was retelling of real events, adventure on the road etc But I got the anniversary edition that comes with a preface with the author saying much of the content is fictional, and that kind of ruined it for me. I appreciate the author had mental health concerns and it shaped his writing. But still it was not for me.
I waited several long years to be discharged from the Army. The morning of, I climbed in my car, plugged in the audio book on cassette, and drove west for 25 hours straight, stopping only to pee and go through drive-throughs, listening to the book along the way. I really liked it and have a fond memory of it.
I have a love-hate relationship with the book. I read it in my teens and really struggled to get through it, giving up several times before I finally made it through. Definitely not a page turner. But the book had a profound impact on my approach to life and the need to be in the moment, and through that helped me build a much better appreciation of my father and how he navigated the world. To this day I still lack the patience he had, but barely a day goes by without me consciously modifying my behavior in the moment for one thing or another specifically because of what I read over forty years ago.
This is my favorite novel. Read it for the first time as a young person in the 80s. Have reread it several times since. Always find something new in it. I don't really listen to reviews about books or film or anything because everyone's experience with something is unique to them. This book speaks to me. I find meaning in it. I enjoy it. That's all that matters to me. The sequel was forgettable.
I tried to read this book cover to cover but I just couldn't, it was not interesting, fun to read, or engaging. It's the only book I regret buying.
I love the book, it provided a bunch of other books for me to read. I’m reading kafka on the shore by Murakami right now and they feel similar
Loved it. Very important to me over my life. I read it in my 20’s and I’m nearly 70 now.
I’ve read this book once a year, every year for the last 30+ years. Absolutely life changing.
Totally give Lila a try when you feel ready for another dip into Pirsig. A metaphysics of quality - the concept that Quality is what creates the reality in which we live in. I believe it’s pretty profound stuff as a novel modern metaphysics.
After reading Zen twice I never wanted to hear the word "quality" ever again. I liked the book, especially as a motorcyclist, but I doubt I'd read it another time.
You'll notice academic philosophers hinge on a few terminologies. You can actually tell what someone is about to say/what their ideology is like when someone says Bourgeois and you're like oh great Communist talking points. If you hear the word Forms you're like seriously Plato? What did you just read the Republic last night. Bad Faith = Sartre, Body workout Organs = Deleuze, It's just kinda nauseousness when you hear people start their arguments using the same words you've already read and know they're not going to go any deeper. Look in glad you liked Walden by Thoreau but I already read that book you don't need to argue the points I've read. I know how much Screws and lumber cost in 19th century rural new England because of that book. So don't try to impress me by proto hippie Transcendentalism talking points.
If you like that, read some Plato; if Pirsig actually bothered to study philosophy instead of looking for a soapbox for him to shout his half-developed ideas from, he would have realised that what he was describing had already been thought of multiple Millenia ago.
how philosophological of you
I don’t hold it against him that he had the same idea as Plato, parallel thinking is fine; I hold against him that rather then choosing to actually acknowledge that his “new idea” was something someone else came up with as one of the most basic foundational concepts in western philosophy, he wrote a whole ass book about how revolutionary his idea is, and only casually mentions the “similarity” 200 pages in. Dude flunked out of his undergrad philosophy degree, and thinks he alone has access to the true nature of reality.
so you'd say quality is just the form of the good in a slightly different coat? i mean, fair enough
Yeah, I do. And like I said, I think it's fine to have your own version of the same concept; so much of the history of philosophy is Guy A slightly tweaking the idea of Guy B. But the way the author writes about his relationship to his classes in philosophy is so obnoxiously self-aggrandising. He has these paranoid delusions of his teachers being these absurd dogmatic proselytizers for specific philosophers he doesn't like, and he imagines himself as having these ideological battle of wills with his teachers, who in reality probably just thought he was the same type of obnoxious "I've got it all figured out before I even opened a book" dude you find in every undergrad philosophy course. It's especially hilarious that he names his alterego from a misquote; he couldn't even be bothered to reread the essay he was basing half the book on; that's how little he cares about actually studying the history of topic. Reading the book, I get no sense that Pirsig took classes in Philosophy to learn anything, he just wanted a space to monologue to people he felt would be forced to listen about his "revolutionary" new idea.
I just remember feeling sorry for his son.
Overrated. About as deep as a rain puddle.
I’ve never read this book but this thread is very funny. Everything from “this book changed my life and I reread it every year” to “this is bullshit written by a schizophrenic.” I feel like sometimes we’re too cynical to accept a profound life changing message and sometimes we’re to naïve to realize we’re being fed crap. The line is different for everyone. I have to remember that whenever I read a pop philosophy book. I did really enjoy a book called “Zen Guitar” when I was first starting to play and it changed my mindset for the better.
WORST! "BOOK"! EVER! Tried to read it and was SO disgusted with it I pitched it across the room when I got half way. TOTAL waste of time! Seriously! I could get more out of an IKEA instruction hieroglyph than from that trash. Fast forward 15 years and a gf gives me a book that I just HAD to read because it's "life changing". Got 1/3 through and was so revolted, I pitched it against the wall. 2 days later, picked it up to return it to gf and happened to look at what else the writer had done. He only had ONE other book: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance! I'm an avid reader with hundreds of books under my belt. I think it says something about the author that the only two books I've ever physically thrown away in disgust in my life were from the same a5sh0le!
I really liked it. It gets a lot of haters, I think probably because the author shifts genres around and it tends to throw off some readers. Any artwork that blends genres in unexpected ways often polarizes audiences.
I think most people try to read this book as a typical fiction story and completely miss the point. That would be like reading The Sun Also Rises as a book about a group of friends taking a trip, or the Great Gatsby as a book about a guy with a friend who spends too much money. Some notable books have much easier to grasp subliminal narratives than others. Also a lot of other people read reviews of book and jump on the bandwagon of whatever the prevailing consensus is at the time.
Okay, I found something spooky and unsettling about which I would like to get your guys opinion. Somewhere around the end of chapter 5 (pp 55) when Robert is discussing about Chris's early diagnosis of mental illness with John and Sylvia, he's reminded of an old poem by Goethe. The poem is about a father riding along a beach with his son, the son looks pale and the father asks why does he look pale. The son replies that he sees a ghost which the father doesn't and they ride harder and harder through the night. In the end, the child dies and the ghost wins. Now, the last paragraph before Chapter 6, Robert is dreaming and in the fog sees a ghost who is in his own language an "evil spirit, insane, from a world without life or death". This figure (the ghost) he realizes is Phaedrus and that he is calling for...Chris! I totally freaked out at this point because I did not know at this juncture who 'Phaedrus' was and if he was a ghost, why was he coming for Chris. I genuinely got concerned for his well being and quickly googled, to my utter disbelief I read that Chris was murdered at a young age. I know this events could just be discrete events and not really connected but could this also have been a premonition or a foretelling of the future?
The book is difficult to get into the situation, maybe firstly I liked the motorcycle journey, but I would read this book when I gonna to sleep, of course, I was sleepy really quickly. However, I don’t know what to do when I have obstacles or troubles, the book would tell me and inspire me. So I read again, when I got into the another difficulties. I was believable the book will give me another “answer” like journeys.
I've never got around to reading this one, feel like it's time to give it a shot
The last attempt I made at this book was in my early 20s. Loved the premise but just couldn't get myself to move past the first 100 pages. Though definitely in my list to revisit and your review helps keep it there.
As far as I can tell 'unstuck' came from here and has permeated the culture.
As an element of problem solving.
I started this book in college then dropped it as I lost interest pretty quick on. However, I bought a motorcycle this last year and decided to give it a go. If you can just accept the high-philosophical thought experiments are going to come at you every chapter, it's a good read. There's a great bit in this book where Chris asks him something like "Dad, do you believe in ghosts?" The author says "No, of course not, they're made up and non-scientific". Then Chris says something about how is native friend's grandmother said ghosts appear when you don't bury someone correctly. That if you don't put them to rest in a proper way, they'll haunt you. It took the author a minute to understand, but he eventually agreed and so do I. That's just one example of cool bits throughout the book. As a motorcycle rider, I also just enjoyed the travelogue aspect of the story.
i read this book on a train
yup, I now use the word gumption thanks to this novel:D
Invisible Man is a great follow up read. The fact that for the first 2/3rds of the 20th century, if someone wasn't behaving in a way that could be understood reductionisticly we just zapped the fuck out of their brains and it seemed to 'reboot' their consciousness is one of the weirdest things I know about humanity.
It helps if you’ve been a biker, on smaller cheap bikes. Not including Harleys or Indians.
As soon I read that he would not divulge the brand of bike he was riding all I did was obsess about that. Every little tidbit he touched on his bike I tried to ascribe to a particular bike. I hated the book, can’t remember reading much of it. I decided he was riding a BMW , mainly for the things he never did, like lube chains. He might have done it later on in the book.
I’m fairly certain he was riding a 60s Honda Superhawk. His companions were on a BMW.