Rating: 
Summary: Overrated!!! But still a good book
Review: A very overrated book by college proffesors and other pseudo intellectuals, but nevertheless it makes a good fiction book.
Rating: 
Summary: A great book!
Review: With 18,000 reviews already posted, I can be brief. This is one of my all-time top five favorite books, perhaps the only book I have read three times. It is one of those books that stopped me in my tracks for its profundity. It works on three distinct levels: 1) Persig explains the "One" ("All is One"--Hericlitus, the great Greek philosopher), the Transcendent and how the wisdom compares on the whole with current western philosopy. He explains where western philosophy went wrong, the split between Plato and Aristotle, how and where that arose. And he does so in easy to understand, exciting prose. This alone is worth the price of the book. 2) Persig tells the delightful story of his journey from his from his home to the west coast, which different parts of the journey serving as methaphors for the interesting events of his life. 3) He teaches, he makes a series of observations about life and the human condition, and those observations are at times profound. This is a terrific book about philosophy, about life.
Rating: 
Summary: Your Brain Either Hurts or Just Goes Numb
Review: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig gives a whole new definition to the phrase "deep thinking." The observations, conclusions, and speculations recorded in this novel are quite thought-provoking, but to the non-philosophical mind often become monotonous. The author ponders numerous simple themes in unnecessarily complicated ways. There are two kinds of readers who read this book: those whose brains hurt from thinking too hard, and those whose brains just go numb and refuse to take in anymore complex nonsense. I was probably both of these at one point or another in this book. One could also argue that there is a third type of reader-one who takes in every little detail and enjoyably soaks in every statement. I personally think that these people are insane right along with the narrator. But for any type of reader, there are many lessons that can be learned from the author's experiences, insights, and mistakes.
This story also gets the reader thinking about topics that a person would not typically think about. My initial response to the early chapters of the book was wonder and adventure, but then the tone of the book changed considerably. I often found myself having to read the same sentence several times in order to derive its meaning, and then once I understood the meaning, I was usually even more confused. The book does do a nice job of getting the reader into the mind of an insane person, and to understand how different minds think. The tone of the story was also very apparent, and the change in tone made lasting impressions on the reader. The novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, can be compared to its title-it's long, it's confusing, and it leaves the reader saying "huh?"
Rating:
Summary: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Review: When I was first assigned to read this book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance seemed to have quite an intriguing title. I had heard from others who had previously read it that I would learn to hate this book. I tried to keep an open mind as I started reading this book, which proved to be very difficult throughout the remainder of it. The book was extremely long and confusing.
It begins as Robert Pirsig takes his son, Chris, on a motorcycle trip from Minnesota to California. As they journey, Pirsig begins a Chautauqua, completely detailing everything around him. The reader would assume this is just a part of the story, perhaps adding a bit to the main plot. This is far from the truth. Pirsig tends to ramble on and on about the smallest details, especially Quality. In fact, the entire Part III is devoted to trying to describe an "indefinable" word. I can now say that I hate the word "quality" with a passion.
Along with his analysis of Quality, Pirsig attempts to explain the ideas of many great Greek philosophers, including Socrates and Plato. A person would have to have a basic knowledge of their philosophies to understand most of this. I, on the other hand, know very little and was lost the majority of the time. Because of this, I would not recommend Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to anyone not wanting a difficult read or anyone else for that matter. I'd keep a dictionary, and maybe an encyclopedia, nearby just in case.
Rating:
Summary: An Inquiry into Irrelevance
Review: "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is a book just as long and boring as its title. The story starts out like any good book, and its first few chapters introduce some interesting ideas about different philosophies for viewing the world. At the end of Part I, the reader is anticipating a good read, and Part II delivers quite an interesting journey of a strange man, Phaedrus, who is about to go insane. Then the unsuspecting reader is hit with Part III, the attempted definition of quality, which actually is an incredibly long rant on something so irrelevant that it is almost a burden to read. Pirsig's obsession with quality grows annoying very quickly, and progresses into a long, drawn out overdramatization of the time right before Phaedrus went insane. Those readers who actually stick with the book until the end are hit with a fairy tale like ending which leaves many questions unanswered. I would only recommend this book to someone who has a lot of time to kill or has an overriding interest in things completely irrelevant to everday life.
Rating: 
Summary: KLB (OHS)
Review: If your looking for a book that talks about philosophy, this is it, even though it is sometimes incredibly hard to make sense of it. This is truly a book that will force you to think. One must figure out what Pirsig is trying to say through pages upon pages of rambling about the meaning of things such as quality. This is a book to STAY AWAY from if you are looking for a good read.
The book starts as a seemingly interesting story about a boy and his father on a motorcycle trip; however, as the book goes on, more and more of Phaedrus, Pirsig's other personality, comes back. The further one reads, the more complex and impossible to understand it becomes. At points, I was just praying for Pirsig to go back to talking about the motorcycle trip, yet as the end neared, I became very interested in what was going to happen, and I must say, I was not let down.
Rating:
Summary: Never Ending
Review: I am usually very open to new concepts and different ideas that people have on different things. This thought process applied when my English teacher assigned us to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I began reading this book thinking and hoping it would get better. I was dreaming. This is one of the worst books that I've ever read. It was lengthy and tiresome. I think that it was unexciting because I didn't have a clue what Robert Pirsig was talking about over half of the time. I didn't agree with him on hardly any of his views and could not relate to him at all. To make matters worse, he had to pull his son into the mess. I think that he was a terrible father who was too busy worrying about himself. He hardly ever talked to his son and when he did, it was either meaningless mumbo jumbo or very pessimistic. I'm not exactly sure what the main message of the book was, therefore, the book itself was quite pointless. I would recommend that you not waste your time and effort trying to tackle this book.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: Robert Pirsig decided to discuss the nature of everything. In his book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he talks about many things. The book is an "inquiry into values, as indicated by the cover. This book does give a good in-depth look at values. I thought this was an interesting book. I found the philosophy interesting and the method in which he chose to display it somewhat entertaining. In this book a reader will find a great deal of ancient greek philosophy. If you aren't familiar with ancient greek philosophy, that is okay, because he explains it for you. In fact he explains it several times. I believe that is really the only reason that this book's rating is lower. If Pirsig were to cut back on the amount rambling and redundant topics, this book would for sure be a four or five star book. While i criticize Pirsig's way of writing, the topic of values is a tough issue to tackle. I think that Pirsig did a great job to show how he thinks of values. The relationship of Chris and Pirsig in the book gives us a way to look at two people, and how values affect them. To conclude, this book is a great book for someone who wants to think. I think that Pirsig's long speeches and thoughts in the book would make this book very difficult for a young reader. Also, the magnitude of what is being said would be hard for a younger reader to understand. This book does however have a good message about values, the trick is just getting through Pirsig's way of writing so that you can find this book. An interesting yet difficult book.
Rating:
Summary: Zen
Review: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a very difficult, but helpful book. Although it may not be the most exciting or entertaining story, the concepts discussed by Pirsig in this book are very helpful in learning many of life's important lessons. The way Pirsig approaches his ideas is also somewhat peculiar and confusing, yet he will always find a way to tie up any mixed up thoughts. He has an interesting outlook on how the concepts he explains pertain to almost every aspect of a person's life, and he uses them when performing maintenance on his motorcycle. On Robert and Chris Pirsig's journey across the country, they face their fair share of difficulties between each other that they must overcome. At the end of the book, Chris begins to see a split personality in Robert who is deeply taken by the teachings of Phadreus, an ancient philosopher. The conquering of this and many other troubles also teaches readers important lessons about people's relationships.
Rating:
Summary: Not an easy read
Review: I thought this book was one of the hardest books I have ever had to read. If I hadn't been forced to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I would have probably only read around the first twenty pages and put it down. There were many concepts in the book I didn't understand at all. There was one idea about quality that was pretty interesting at first. If you think about the term quality long enough, you start realizing you can't put a concrete definition to it. After awhile though, the author kept questioning quality and what it was which made it very long and drawn out. Many people actually liked the book, but the ideas he talked about were way over my head. I almost felt like I was wasting my time reading the book because I did not understand so much of what I was reading. The whole setting of him riding on his motorcycle with his son was actually pretty interesting and how there was conflict between their relationship because the author was fighting a battle with himself and his other half, Phaedrus. If you are an avid reader though and like a challenge then I would recommend this book to you. If not, don't read this book.
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