You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
raymondgw 's review for:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
by Robert M. Pirsig
I grew up understanding that one day I had to read this book. English teachers mentioned it with reverence, always presenting it as the pinnacle of English literature and Western culture. Although I never got to it until now, well into middle age, I always felt like I was meant to read it. Then I saw a t-shirt with the book's cover and I knew I had to read it because I would be a poseur if I hadn't.
You know...it's a lot. And if I weren't so committed to finishing books I start I would have missed the magic at the end. Reading ZatAoMM, which I will, after looking at those letters, simply refer to as Zen from this point forward, is a lot like hearing about great loves and great relationships in the movies. The ones where they say "if you want the great bits of a person you have to accept all the bad bits too." The first 30-35% of Zen made me never want to read a book again. Ever. Any book. But you can see that I gave this 4 stars. Eventually this shifts from just being one man's philosophical inquiry into Quality and obsession over motorcycle maintenance into the story of a man who doesn't know how to connect with his son, or anyone else, or even how to connect who he is now with who he was then, because he literally was a different person.
All of the banality and endless minutiae is essential to understanding the mind of the unnamed protagonist and the journey he is on. And the philosophical inquiries and obsessions actually become 100x more interesting when he places them in context with his fight against himself. It just takes so long to get there. But when it does, Pirsig packs a punch. There's actually a MasterClass in here about how to show insanity rather than just saying "this character is insane." Erica Jong does it well too, but only in that one brief instance. This is a description of someone going over the edge and clawing his way back and trying to stay on solid ground, and failing.
Having read this once, I would read this again. Years from now. Not anytime soon. And hey, I finally get to wear the T-shirt now...that I bought 2 years ago.
You know...it's a lot. And if I weren't so committed to finishing books I start I would have missed the magic at the end. Reading ZatAoMM, which I will, after looking at those letters, simply refer to as Zen from this point forward, is a lot like hearing about great loves and great relationships in the movies. The ones where they say "if you want the great bits of a person you have to accept all the bad bits too." The first 30-35% of Zen made me never want to read a book again. Ever. Any book. But you can see that I gave this 4 stars. Eventually this shifts from just being one man's philosophical inquiry into Quality and obsession over motorcycle maintenance into the story of a man who doesn't know how to connect with his son, or anyone else, or even how to connect who he is now with who he was then, because he literally was a different person.
All of the banality and endless minutiae is essential to understanding the mind of the unnamed protagonist and the journey he is on. And the philosophical inquiries and obsessions actually become 100x more interesting when he places them in context with his fight against himself. It just takes so long to get there. But when it does, Pirsig packs a punch. There's actually a MasterClass in here about how to show insanity rather than just saying "this character is insane." Erica Jong does it well too, but only in that one brief instance. This is a description of someone going over the edge and clawing his way back and trying to stay on solid ground, and failing.
Having read this once, I would read this again. Years from now. Not anytime soon. And hey, I finally get to wear the T-shirt now...that I bought 2 years ago.