traveltounravel 's review for:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig

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This book was not at all what I expected. I feel the title did wonders for the sales and cult status of this book. It's surprisingly strange in ways I never would've expected. I didn't find Pirsig's writing to be very engaging. I struggled through a lot of it and felt it was two separate books combined into one that didn't quite correlate with each other most of the time, making it distracting constantly jumping back and forth. Reading the afterword, this makes more sense seeing the correspondence between Pirsig and his publisher who insists that Pirsig includes the story of his motorcycle trip with his son alongside Pirsig's spiritual/mental journey to his philosophical concept of Quality. In the introduction, Pirsig pleads that our narrator is not necessarily the protagonist but the antagonist... which makes it difficult when you're trying to sell a philosophical concept to people. "Listen to me about how to live your life! Just ignore that I am a total dick to my son and despite praising to live in the present moment, I am stuck inside my head throughout the entire motorcycle trip" The concepts he sells are good ones and exceedingly well-thought out... but he could've summarized it in an essay under 100 pages instead of 500+ pages! For me, "A New Earth" or "Man's Search for Meaning" aren't terribly far off from Pirsig's overall concepts and are much more enjoyable to read. Not as complex, but the same effect.