jmervosh 's review for:

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

1.0

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I read an abridged version, so caveats are necessary. However, I have not disliked a book as strongly in a long time. It was a book club choice, or I would have turned back fifteen minutes in. I can't think of any reasons to care about any character, and the narrator's meandering reminiscinces about his Greek philosopher alter ego read as pompous and ridiculous for the most part. It's hard to shake the feeling that the coherent life philosophy that supposedly underpins this book's popularity wasn't coherent at all. And the intertwined search for meaning with manifestations of mental illness just felt distasteful and stigmatizing for some reason. Needless to say, I was not a fan.