"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values" / Robert M. Pirsig

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values" /
Robert M. Pirsig

Bantam Books | 1984 | 434 pages |

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The extraordinary story of a man’s quest for truth. It will change the way you think and feel about your life. “ The cycle you’re working on is a cycle called ‘yourself.’ ” / “The study of the art of motorcycle

maintenance is really a study of the art of rationality itself. Working on a motorcycle, working well, caring, is to become part of a process, to achieve an inner peace of mind. The motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon” - Robert M. Pirsig / In his now classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts. 'Phaedrus', our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details - be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle / In his 'autobiographical' first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th Century - why has technology alienated us from our world? What are the limits of rational analysis? If we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of the philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th Century. With the exception of Poincare, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom 'Phaedrus' bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating 'Quality' to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the pre-modern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and non-rationalism with Western subject/object dualism / The magic of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility.