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1.62k reviews for:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
Robert M. Pirsig
3.53 AVERAGE
1.62k reviews for:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
Robert M. Pirsig
3.53 AVERAGE
I found very little zen about this book. More and more I felt frustrated and left behind while Pirsig cruised on his metaphoric and philosophical journey while I sifted through the dust trying to catch up.
A lot of small things that I glimpsed over while I read and need time to process. This book claims to represent a shift in culture, which I can agree with to a certain degree. The way motorcycles are integrated throughout the story does not feel forced and emphasizes both the author’s thematic message and interest.
first of all–i’d like to address the concern that people have with this book. namely that it’s ‘pretentious’ and the like.
which i can completely understand, considering the nature of the book, which can at first glance seem rather…shoe-gazy in the sense that it comes off very preachy. this is doubled by the fact that the narrator’s intelligence (and phaedrus’) is immediately made obvious, and the stereotypical ‘troubled genius’ certainly comes to mind.
personally, i’ve chosen to interpret it as it is–a book on the experiences and struggles robert m. pirsig’s had growing up and his experiences as an adult, and his stream of consciousness.
second of all–as the author mentions, the book is not exactly an accurate representation of zen, or the art of motorcycle maintenance, or both.
but that’s okay.
the book deals with several things–the narrator’s ‘past self’, who is referred to as phaedrus, his philosophical investigations, and how he was subject to electroconvulsive therapy (shock treatment) which completely changed his personality. i guess it is up to the reader whether phaedrus’ personality re-emerging towards the end of the book is a good thing, or whether the narrator loses his sanity as he falls back into his ‘old ways’.
in his introduction (or afterword. i forgot which. help.), robert m. pirsig writes that he believes in the first. and why wouldn’t he? the book is essentially a self-reflection, and it serves to show how he’s in a word, matured.
in the beginning, the narrator states that people have either ‘romantic’ or ‘classical’ approaches to life.
true to their names, a ‘romantic’ approach to life is one where people aren’t concerned with the semantics of life. to this effect, they are ‘happy-go-lucky’ people; people who do not place focus on rational analysis.
on the other hand, a ‘classical’ approach is the complete opposite–‘logical’ people who seek to know how things work and try to understand and assimilate that information.
essentially, the book aims to illustrate the middle ground between the two, alongside with the question on ‘Quality’, and what it entails for us (and how it even may change one’s perspective on life.)
the book also deals with the study of aesthetics and the narrator’s disdain towards the subject. which i found very interesting, considering that for the most part, the narrator had maintained a clinical and rather detached sense towards his surroundings and his thoughts and how he reflected upon them.
to wrap this mess of a post up, all i can say is that i truly enjoyed the book. for one (and i know this sounds really stupid), it got me thinking. philosophy essentially stems from That One Question. (that one question being the meaning of life, obviously.) and, yeah. the book forced me to question my values and the way i perceived things and how i could even better myself as a person–without the book being a self-help book.
..i guess what i’m trying to say is that the book’s good. has a good plot. has important questions. and helps you learn the different perspectives of living that life has to offer. which, obviously, is really cool, considering the fact that all that shit is offered within four hundred something pages.
so, yeah. if you have time to read it and Question Everything, go check it out.
which i can completely understand, considering the nature of the book, which can at first glance seem rather…shoe-gazy in the sense that it comes off very preachy. this is doubled by the fact that the narrator’s intelligence (and phaedrus’) is immediately made obvious, and the stereotypical ‘troubled genius’ certainly comes to mind.
personally, i’ve chosen to interpret it as it is–a book on the experiences and struggles robert m. pirsig’s had growing up and his experiences as an adult, and his stream of consciousness.
second of all–as the author mentions, the book is not exactly an accurate representation of zen, or the art of motorcycle maintenance, or both.
but that’s okay.
the book deals with several things–the narrator’s ‘past self’, who is referred to as phaedrus, his philosophical investigations, and how he was subject to electroconvulsive therapy (shock treatment) which completely changed his personality. i guess it is up to the reader whether phaedrus’ personality re-emerging towards the end of the book is a good thing, or whether the narrator loses his sanity as he falls back into his ‘old ways’.
in his introduction (or afterword. i forgot which. help.), robert m. pirsig writes that he believes in the first. and why wouldn’t he? the book is essentially a self-reflection, and it serves to show how he’s in a word, matured.
in the beginning, the narrator states that people have either ‘romantic’ or ‘classical’ approaches to life.
true to their names, a ‘romantic’ approach to life is one where people aren’t concerned with the semantics of life. to this effect, they are ‘happy-go-lucky’ people; people who do not place focus on rational analysis.
on the other hand, a ‘classical’ approach is the complete opposite–‘logical’ people who seek to know how things work and try to understand and assimilate that information.
essentially, the book aims to illustrate the middle ground between the two, alongside with the question on ‘Quality’, and what it entails for us (and how it even may change one’s perspective on life.)
the book also deals with the study of aesthetics and the narrator’s disdain towards the subject. which i found very interesting, considering that for the most part, the narrator had maintained a clinical and rather detached sense towards his surroundings and his thoughts and how he reflected upon them.
to wrap this mess of a post up, all i can say is that i truly enjoyed the book. for one (and i know this sounds really stupid), it got me thinking. philosophy essentially stems from That One Question. (that one question being the meaning of life, obviously.) and, yeah. the book forced me to question my values and the way i perceived things and how i could even better myself as a person–without the book being a self-help book.
..i guess what i’m trying to say is that the book’s good. has a good plot. has important questions. and helps you learn the different perspectives of living that life has to offer. which, obviously, is really cool, considering the fact that all that shit is offered within four hundred something pages.
so, yeah. if you have time to read it and Question Everything, go check it out.
This book is simply profound. It is not often I struggle through reading a novel, but this is by no means an ordinary novel.
The novel uses a story-within-a-story structure, which is tricky for an average narrative to pull off, but Zen not only succeeds with it but thrives, with the cross-country (motorcycle) sequences and the flashback (Zen) sequences both holding my complete attention.
The novel uses a story-within-a-story structure, which is tricky for an average narrative to pull off, but Zen not only succeeds with it but thrives, with the cross-country (motorcycle) sequences and the flashback (Zen) sequences both holding my complete attention.
What is quality? Much of this book is devoted to talking about something everyone knows. Why should I care? I can't answer that. I'll just say that I found the musings intriguing, even when I didn't quite follow and didn't quite care.
The examples of motorcycle maintenance to illustrate philosophical ideas was amusing.
The journey with his son is something that I can't imagine happening today. Not many get on a bike with a 12 yr old and ride cross country, camping haphazardly along the way. The country is not nearly so condusive to such.
One passage, where the narrator changes the oil by draining the old straight into the ground probably shocks people born in the 80s or later. But it's how it was done back then unfortunately.
Another passage that puzzled me:
"it's the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That's the way all the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn't separate from the rest of your existence. If you're a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren't working on your machine, what trap avoidances, what gimmicks can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together.
But if you're a sloppy thinker six days a week and you really try to be sharp on the seventh, then maybe the next six days aren't going to be quite as sloppy as the preceding six. What I'm trying to come up with on these gumption traps, I guess, is shortcuts to living right.
The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be 'out there' and the person that appears to be 'in here' are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together."
This suggests to me that it wouldn't be possible to create the great painting of high Quality if you yourself are a reprehensible person, a person of low Quality. Yet we ALL know of highly skilled people in various fields, displaying indisputably high quality in their craft, yet their person is thoroughly dispicable, indisputably low quality.
Nevertheless this is an interesting work.
The examples of motorcycle maintenance to illustrate philosophical ideas was amusing.
The journey with his son is something that I can't imagine happening today. Not many get on a bike with a 12 yr old and ride cross country, camping haphazardly along the way. The country is not nearly so condusive to such.
One passage, where the narrator changes the oil by draining the old straight into the ground probably shocks people born in the 80s or later. But it's how it was done back then unfortunately.
Another passage that puzzled me:
"it's the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That's the way all the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn't separate from the rest of your existence. If you're a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren't working on your machine, what trap avoidances, what gimmicks can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together.
But if you're a sloppy thinker six days a week and you really try to be sharp on the seventh, then maybe the next six days aren't going to be quite as sloppy as the preceding six. What I'm trying to come up with on these gumption traps, I guess, is shortcuts to living right.
The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be 'out there' and the person that appears to be 'in here' are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together."
This suggests to me that it wouldn't be possible to create the great painting of high Quality if you yourself are a reprehensible person, a person of low Quality. Yet we ALL know of highly skilled people in various fields, displaying indisputably high quality in their craft, yet their person is thoroughly dispicable, indisputably low quality.
Nevertheless this is an interesting work.
slow-paced
I understand I guess the context in which this was written and why it gave people something in the middle to cling onto (romanticizing life or succumbing to birding survival(?)) but what are you talking about? I was confused so much of the time and he never defines what quality really is. I guess it’s caring about what you are doing? It’s flow state? It’s empathy for others? Maybe I missed the point. I was expecting more zen too but this just felt like more philosophical rambling. The most interesting part was the split personality and the relationship with his son and that felt like such a small part of the book. What? I’d have a hard time recommending this in 2025
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Rating this book is a bit of a headache because more than anything it is about who you are at the moment you read it. I hated every minute of reading it but I cannot walk away from it and deny I did not gain some insight I needed. Self help but through the lense a miserable 40 year old man getting into zen buddahism in the 1970s.
Meandering, deeply personal, incredibly underwhelming ending that borders on unintentionally comedic.
Meandering, deeply personal, incredibly underwhelming ending that borders on unintentionally comedic.
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
I regret the fact that I bought this book. I originally purchased this book because I have heard good things about it, but after spending two weeks and 540 pages later, I sometimes think that this book is not worth the paper it is printed on.
Zen narrates a motorcycle journey that the author took with his son from Minnesota to California. First, they were joined by a couple, John and Sylvia Sutherland. But halfway in the trip, the Sutherlands leave and the ride is just between the unnamed main character (who is the author, thinly disguised) and his son Chris.
No, wait. That’s not what this book’s narrative was about. In fact, this motorcycle journey just served as a backdrop for the larger section of the book, which is this series of philosophical discourses that the author refers to as Chatauquas. It is amusing to see sometimes how he devotes 2 or 3 sentences updating the reader about the motorcycle narrative, and then says “Today’s Chatauqua will be about…” or “Today’s Chatauqua is long.” Yes, this book is pretty much a philosophical discourse, interspersed with a motorcycle travelogue.
The central thesis of this book is Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality. He asserts that Quality (i.e., what is “good”) is undefinable, and that one must rationally approach every aspect of life to fully enjoy it. He makes a contrast between the Romantic and the Classical view of things. He uses the Sutherlands as the archetype for the Romantics, who are described as baffled by technology, and yet when things do not work, they just purposefully ignore the problem with the hopes that it will go away. On the other hand, the Classical view embodied by the narrator is such that he dissects the problem in order to know more about what it is. Most of these examples were taken from motorcycle maintenance.
Now, that is all well and good, except that I find it hard to stomach his words. Instead of coming out as a guidance counselor, he comes out as a megalomaniac, with an ego so big that he just writes to hear his words. Let me explain further what I mean.
In doing so, I would first admit that I also have a big ego. I tell my friends that in order to complete a PhD (which I have), you have to have a big ego. After all, a dissertation is a written output of original ideas, ideas that you have to defend in front of several people who are more knowledgeable than you, have more expertise than you, more advanced than you. In short, before your ideas can be heard, you have to eat more rice, as a Filipino idiom says. Before you can display your big ego, you have to be humble.
The problem with Pirsig is that he isn’t. Because he thinks that he knows a lot about Quality, he is arrogant and thinks that everyone else is below him. He criticizes the Sutherlands for being Romantics, he criticizes the University of Chicago faculty for not letting him be heard. He even criticizes his own son Chris for being a child. What does he expect? That a human is born with all the mental skills needed to engage in rational thought?
The biggest problem I have is his lack of acknowledgment with respect to learning. Humans come in different stages mentally. Just because some humans haven’t learned to be rational yet doesn’t mean that they are immediately shoved by the wayside and treated as second-class citizens. Now, if they don’t want to learn, then that’s another story, but most of the time, humans are known for their cognitive plasticity. Humans face several sets of constraints, and depending on the constraints that they have to engage in, then the things they do and learn also change. Pirsig doesn’t seem to think that way, and instead writes as if human minds are static beings, and if a human is a Romantic, then he’ll dismiss them in a blink of an eye.
Another problem I have about Pirsig is his aversion to peer review. He seems to think that all the academic institutions should just take his ideas and accept it, without defending it or placing it under tough scrutiny. He criticizes these institutions for being backward and reactionary. But the thing is, I believe that if a system doesn’t work, then sooner or later, the powers that be will eventually shift it, and a paradigm shift will ensure. However, in order to induce a paradigm shift, one has to first convince several big minds in order for the shift to gain momentum. Pirsig is doing a very bad job convincing his committee, his readers, me, given the tone of writing he has adapted in this book.
So overall, I hated this book. I hated it that I regretted the fact I even bought it in the first place. I have nothing against philosophical novels, and I have nothing against novels or books which expose philosophical theories (I loved Ayn Rand's novels, for example). However, I hate it when people are megalomaniacs, and only write books to satisfy their megalomania. Perhaps if he can recognize the possibility that other people can be brilliant too. I know what I know, and I know what I don't know. Human knowledge is vast and certainly no human can master everything. It's this lack of respect to the whole chasm of human knowledge that has been present before him that irritates me. Perhaps this is the case why he published this book with a mistake: Phaedrus does not mean "wolf" in Greek. Maybe he thought his editor was below him and therefore this mistake went through, only to be acknowledged in a Foreword written years later.
Funny, the only part of the book that I liked, ironically, is the single line at the end of the book in the Afterword, which consists of a jumble of letters, which, he explains, is the result of his newborn crawling towards him and punching the keyboard a few times. I guess he didn’t think his newborn was stupid enough to erase that line of gibberish. I am giving this book 1 out of 5 stars.
See my other book reviews here.
Zen narrates a motorcycle journey that the author took with his son from Minnesota to California. First, they were joined by a couple, John and Sylvia Sutherland. But halfway in the trip, the Sutherlands leave and the ride is just between the unnamed main character (who is the author, thinly disguised) and his son Chris.
No, wait. That’s not what this book’s narrative was about. In fact, this motorcycle journey just served as a backdrop for the larger section of the book, which is this series of philosophical discourses that the author refers to as Chatauquas. It is amusing to see sometimes how he devotes 2 or 3 sentences updating the reader about the motorcycle narrative, and then says “Today’s Chatauqua will be about…” or “Today’s Chatauqua is long.” Yes, this book is pretty much a philosophical discourse, interspersed with a motorcycle travelogue.
The central thesis of this book is Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality. He asserts that Quality (i.e., what is “good”) is undefinable, and that one must rationally approach every aspect of life to fully enjoy it. He makes a contrast between the Romantic and the Classical view of things. He uses the Sutherlands as the archetype for the Romantics, who are described as baffled by technology, and yet when things do not work, they just purposefully ignore the problem with the hopes that it will go away. On the other hand, the Classical view embodied by the narrator is such that he dissects the problem in order to know more about what it is. Most of these examples were taken from motorcycle maintenance.
Now, that is all well and good, except that I find it hard to stomach his words. Instead of coming out as a guidance counselor, he comes out as a megalomaniac, with an ego so big that he just writes to hear his words. Let me explain further what I mean.
In doing so, I would first admit that I also have a big ego. I tell my friends that in order to complete a PhD (which I have), you have to have a big ego. After all, a dissertation is a written output of original ideas, ideas that you have to defend in front of several people who are more knowledgeable than you, have more expertise than you, more advanced than you. In short, before your ideas can be heard, you have to eat more rice, as a Filipino idiom says. Before you can display your big ego, you have to be humble.
The problem with Pirsig is that he isn’t. Because he thinks that he knows a lot about Quality, he is arrogant and thinks that everyone else is below him. He criticizes the Sutherlands for being Romantics, he criticizes the University of Chicago faculty for not letting him be heard. He even criticizes his own son Chris for being a child. What does he expect? That a human is born with all the mental skills needed to engage in rational thought?
The biggest problem I have is his lack of acknowledgment with respect to learning. Humans come in different stages mentally. Just because some humans haven’t learned to be rational yet doesn’t mean that they are immediately shoved by the wayside and treated as second-class citizens. Now, if they don’t want to learn, then that’s another story, but most of the time, humans are known for their cognitive plasticity. Humans face several sets of constraints, and depending on the constraints that they have to engage in, then the things they do and learn also change. Pirsig doesn’t seem to think that way, and instead writes as if human minds are static beings, and if a human is a Romantic, then he’ll dismiss them in a blink of an eye.
Another problem I have about Pirsig is his aversion to peer review. He seems to think that all the academic institutions should just take his ideas and accept it, without defending it or placing it under tough scrutiny. He criticizes these institutions for being backward and reactionary. But the thing is, I believe that if a system doesn’t work, then sooner or later, the powers that be will eventually shift it, and a paradigm shift will ensure. However, in order to induce a paradigm shift, one has to first convince several big minds in order for the shift to gain momentum. Pirsig is doing a very bad job convincing his committee, his readers, me, given the tone of writing he has adapted in this book.
So overall, I hated this book. I hated it that I regretted the fact I even bought it in the first place. I have nothing against philosophical novels, and I have nothing against novels or books which expose philosophical theories (I loved Ayn Rand's novels, for example). However, I hate it when people are megalomaniacs, and only write books to satisfy their megalomania. Perhaps if he can recognize the possibility that other people can be brilliant too. I know what I know, and I know what I don't know. Human knowledge is vast and certainly no human can master everything. It's this lack of respect to the whole chasm of human knowledge that has been present before him that irritates me. Perhaps this is the case why he published this book with a mistake: Phaedrus does not mean "wolf" in Greek. Maybe he thought his editor was below him and therefore this mistake went through, only to be acknowledged in a Foreword written years later.
Funny, the only part of the book that I liked, ironically, is the single line at the end of the book in the Afterword, which consists of a jumble of letters, which, he explains, is the result of his newborn crawling towards him and punching the keyboard a few times. I guess he didn’t think his newborn was stupid enough to erase that line of gibberish. I am giving this book 1 out of 5 stars.
See my other book reviews here.