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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values

by Robert Pirsig

Arguably one of the most profoundly important essays ever written on the nature and significance of "quality" and definitely a necessary anodyne to the consequences of a modern world pathologically obsessed with quantity. Although set as a story of a cross-country trip on a motorcycle by a father and son, it is more nearly a journey through 2,000 years of Western philosophy. For some people,... (read more)

Top tags: philosophy,  spirituality,  fiction,  travel,  zen (all tags)

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Amazon Reviews (5)
 

Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Marilyn
  • Rated 5 stars

“I read this book in my sophomore year of high school. It was recommended to me by my favorite teacher. It was a really eye opening book then, and now some 20 years later, I can look back and see where I've used wisdoms from it many times in my life since I read it the first time. I'd recommend it to anyone.”

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Didn’t Like It

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.
scheruvi
  • Rated 1 stars

“It is a little bit amazing that I managed to finish this--a book I found deeply tedious, sometimes intriguing, and often irritating. Sheer determination saw the end of this dense 373 page, philosophical treatise on one man's quest to find the limits of rationality. And dip into insanity on the way.

Pirsig arranges his philosophical discourses around a nameless narrator who is on a metaphysical and actual cross-country trip with his son, and his two friends (who about halfway through...”

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Community:
  • Rated 4.012308 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 0 stars
  

Newest Comments

  • ajjoozaa

    ajjoozaa said:

    “the most imp thing this book does is shake our belief in the "absolute truth" of religion, what the narrator calls "ghosts".it really helped me to get over the fact that god or religion is completely a figment of our imagination, and that there is no such thing as god.from agnostic i am now an atheist, all thanks to this book.
    did anyone else feel like it..??”

    posted Friday, June 20 2008 ( | view 1 reply )
  • Selina C

    selina c said:

    “Felt sorry for Chris, his son in the book. Totally empathised with him when he sighed 'Dad..I'm bored!'. what does Dad do? Sends him home alone! An utterly self-absorbed father takes him out on a month-long motorbike trip expounding academic rhetoric to anyone who will listen. If I was as obssessed with theory as he was it would drive me up the wall. All in all, interesting, in a preachy kind of way but really felt sorry for the kid. Not a fun trip.”

    posted Monday, June 16 2008 ( | view 1 reply )
  • Patishil

    patishil said:

    “I picked up this book from a second hand shop. The title was interesting. Sat at a coffee shop to start me off on the beginning chapters. Woaahh! What a discovery! I'm not even midway through the book yet but I'm liking it for the ideas in it that we don't often hear rationalized everyday. I say take your time reading this. Put the down the book if specially if there's lightning that strikes your thoughts. And then keep your thoughts going ... and don't let go til you've exhausted it. The book makes you break down your thoughts and and then you go further into rationalizing his thoughts to compare it with yours. Get it? Well anyway, thanks to the internet.. what great resources you'll find on the background of this book. Robert Prisig... now who's ever heard of this name? But then the you realize by browsing the net that you've stumbled upon possibly one of the great books written by a distinguished mind. Oh! And what a surprise to find out that Prisig spent some years in a mental institution... I guess partly because his non-conventional thoughts were either too much for him to control or that it was just too much for a conventional world.
    OH well.. so much for that.
    So now I continue reading into this book... ”

    posted Wednesday, April 16 2008
  • Bharat S

    bharat s said:

    “The first time I read the book was in 1973. It was mind blowing in its scope and topicality. I've re - read it innumerable times, it covers a lot and I've tried to base my life and actions on it (sometimes well, sometimes not). After so many years I still find the message relevant. Living a life of quality has a lot of rewards, compromising on quality may be good materially for a moment, it doesn't last. Trust me, I've been on the rollercoaster.”

    posted Wednesday, April 9 2008
  • Anne B

    anne b said:

    “I've been wanting to read this...will keep it in mind for this year, thanks!”

    posted Monday, March 31 2008
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