Rating: 
Summary: Maybe, Maybe Not
Review: This is the kind of book that a person who is intelligent but uneducated in philosophy would pick up, read, and be excited and terribly enlightened by. This apparently was the state of many of the "hippies" who read this book when it came out. But for someone who has read Aristotle and Plato and the myriad of others, especially the Greeks, this book can seem almost ridiculously off-center in its generalizations. Whether it is or not, that is for the reader to decide, I suppose.The narrator is at first likeable, but as the book moves on and his madness becomes evident, you see his character become despicable, self-absorbed, mean, closed-minded, and, well, a hypocrite in a number of ways. This change may be a large part of the appeal of this book as a sort of psychological novel, though I am still not sure whether that is what Pirsig intended it to be. Despite the disgust and boredom I sometimes felt while reading, the book has a lot of good things to say about living and the self. Most importantly, if you pay enough attention it will definitely get you thinking. Overall, a controversial book, but worth reading if only for the thought and controversy it will provoke within your own mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Buried treasure
Review: Read this book. Talk about it. Share it with your friends. This book is more important than one thinks at first glance. I have read it 5 times over the past 25 years, first as a teenager thinking it was about motorcycles, next as a Philosophy major at Harvard, and each time I have gotten something new out of it. It is more than a travel adventure. It is more than a father/son reconciliation story. It is more than an autobiographical odyssey of psychological redemption. It is even more than an "inquiry into values." This book reveals the greatest crime perpetrated against intellectual history. While Pirsig is concerned with a synthesis of Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, he points us to the violence done by Plato in his attack on the Sophists. Until Plato, Philosophy was a part of the common life. Sophists wandered the Greek world offering instruction (for pay) in rhetoric and Philosophy, and this was deemed the normal course of life. Even Plato's revered Socrates conducted his discourses in the marketplace, the agora. The aristocratic and elitist Plato's crime (in my view) was to whisk philosophical discussion away from the agora and put it in the acadamy, where it has remained gathering dust for 25 centuries. His Theory of Forms tells us that few, if any other than himself, can see things as they "really are." The Republic tells us that only the philosopher-king (Plato himself being the leading candidate) is fit to rule. If all of Philosophy is a "response to Plato" as A.N. Whitehead put it, then we are debating with a traitor to humanity. Nothing is more relevant than a synthesis of the Philosophical and the Practical ways of being, as well as Eastern and Western ways of thinking. I have devoted my life to dragging the philosophical debate back from the academy into the agora where it belongs and where it can be of the greatest good to the greatest number of people. Reading and sharing this book with friends is a wonderful way to begin that pilgrimage yourself. I just wish someone would make a film of it. Can't you just see William Hurt in the lead?
Rating: 
Summary: Let Go. Please !!!
Review: This is an account of one man's slow and painful descent into madness. The descent is caused by compulsive thinking, with an obsessive need to find "The Answer" and to take on the established order. The object of the obsession is hardly relevant. The greatest value of this book is as a cautionary tale against over-thinking. The word "Zen" does not belong in the title of this book. Zen is something to be practiced and lived, and there isn't the slightest hint that Pirsig is in tune with this concept.
Rating: 
Summary: Bridging the gap
Review: Pirsig takes us on a literary chautauqua that dives into the split between romanticism and clasicism, and speaks magnitudes about the philosiphies and sciences of Eastern and Western Cultures. The book has seized rave reviews across the globe, and held best-seller status for record amounts of time. One wonders, what could possibly be in this book that has made it so accredited for such a long time? The answer is that the book takes the reader on a journey that was never supposed to happen. Pirsig elucidates, in four hundred pages, about the conflicts with his son, and himself. Phaedrus, Pirsig's former personality, is represented as a ghost from Pirsig's past. Phaedrus takes the reader through Greek logic, Eastern culture, and Buddhist beliefs. The book gives a good explanation of the differences in Eastern and Western cultures, and how the splitting of the two has caused problems throughout the world.
Coming from a background of the dry sciences, my reading of classical literature is hardly amazing. These two topics do not go together and rarely have anything to bridge the gap. This book does that job wonderfully. For the first time, I understood literature of this complexity, because it deals with the sciences and the arts; it kept me interested and also made me relate my life to the characters lives.
So, what do I suggest? If you have the time, the patience, and an open mind, this book will do you wonders and will stick with you for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: Resonance Required for Highest-Quality Experience
Review: "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is an entire experience in philosophy and spirituality condensed into what I found to be a very thought-provoking anti-novel. It has three main "streams" of thought: the story of the motorcycle-riding narrator and his son, the story of Phaedrus, and the Chautauqua that is the narrator's way of explaining Phaedrus' philosophy. Though the first two chapters of the narrator's musings are slow to bring the reader into the plot, intriguing mystery elements are revealed by the end of Chapter 3. By this time, the reader should know that Phaedrus spent his whole life searching for a ghost, found the ghost, "thrashed it good," and became one himself. However, the nameless narrator cannot tell Phaedrus' story without also giving the reader a crash-course in history, philosophy, and of course, motorcycle maintenance (through the Chautauqua, of course). I now warn those who cannot bear long lectures about dead historical figures, slippery concepts or technical minutiae to leave this book alone. Part I of the book is set chiefly in the Dakotas. During this part, the Chautauqua mostly discusses the classical-romantic split in people's thinking. What makes Robert M. Pirsig's discussions unique is how he deftly brings Zen concepts into the reader's understanding of the split. Part II begins with the narrator's arrival in Montana. It is the reader's first real encounter with Phaedrus (an unforgettable, though hardly endearing, character) and the first introduction to the "ghost" that he so passionately pursued. (The ghost's name: REASON. One of its popular haunts: SCIENTIFIC METHOD.) Part III takes place during and right after the narrator and his son's hike up a mountain. The chapters in this section are almost entirely devoted to the Chautauqua. The discussion of the ghost of Reason is dropped and a full, in-depth explanation of something outside Reason, Quality, is taken up. Pirsig takes great pains to say how Quality determines our values, creates our mythos and touches our hearts. Those who like taking detours when an interesting topic distracts them will love this part. Those who don't care for such detours and want to get on with the story will find this part long-winded and over-written. (This is their second warning!) Part IV continues and ends Phaedrus' story as the narrator and his son go through Oregon and California. In the Chautauqua, Quality is joined by Reason once more. The reader finds out how Phaedrus travelled to the University of Chicago, took his philosophical inquiry to its logical end, and finally became a "ghost" himself. His conclusions about what is Real, about what is True, about what is Beautiful, and about what is Best, can prove liberating to anyone who has been independently wondering about them. The ending also contains an interesting twist in the story of the narrator and his son. I can find connections between the ideas in this novel and those in the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the parables of Kahlil Gibran, the poetry of T. S. Eliot, the books of the Bible, and other great spiritual or philosophical literature that generations have read and shared. (Pirsig even explains the why and how of this phenomenon in the Chautauqua.) To best enjoy this story, the reader must relate to it--or resonate to it.
Rating:
Summary: Slow as molasses
Review: Yes, the book had interesting ideas. But the pacing was geriatric. Like watching paint dry. If it had been edited down to half it's size it would have been readable.
Rating:
Summary: I liked it
Review: This book is widely read among people involved with higher education. When you read the book, it becomes obvious why. Although it doesn't teach much about motorcycles, it doesn't give us a general idea of how we could live our life. As near as I am able to determine it has three basic plots. The first and most usual is a father and a son going on a motorcycle trip through the northwestern states. They ride the motorcycle through the country on a long trip back to their old home and anywhere else they feel like visiting. Second is the father trying to find a piece of his personality that he lost as a ward of the state. His previous self had been a collage Rhetoric teacher at some school in Montana. He lost it in a very interesting way. The third and most time and space consuming plot isn't really a plot but more like a discourse on modern life. Should you venture to read this book don't do it for the first plot or the second plot. They take up only a very small portion of the book, like say, two paragraphs every chapter. The big reason to read it would be for the ideas and thoughts of an insane or maybe genius collage professor trying to get the world to make sense to himself. If you're looking for action look somewhere else. The reason I liked this book had to do with the ideas. In every chapter he would say something that would make sense and be worth writing a book about in and of itself. He did; however, have one great though that cost him a personality. Now the main idea in as little space as I can manage and still have it make sense.( To me at least) It is generally believed that the world is made up of two things; subjects and objects. Objects being physical things and subjects being thoughts or Ideas. If we refine this further we get the romantic and the classical , the hip and the square, the poet and the scientist, radical and conservative, democrat and Republican. One side based on hard facts and the other on ideas and feelings. Each side has its good parts and nether one is necessarily bad. It comes to me now that before the professor lost his personality he was one and afterwards he was the other. What he came up with was a third party. He called it quality. It is some kind of force or reaction that creates the subjects and objects. It defines what they are. To understand this we must first try and define exactly what Quality is.
Quality is what makes 007 better than Spongebob Squarepants (which it is by the way). Quality is why we like to eat beef instead of beans. But what is it? We like different things for different reasons. Why is a salty fry better than a salty soup? If the Quality of a fry goes up depending on how much salt is on it does that mean that if you add salt to Cheerios they will have greater Quality?" SOOO, Quality is different depending on what the object is. Quality is not an object or a subject, it is something else entirely. If you think about it (for a while) you can see there is some logic to it. If nothing had quality we wouldn't care what we watched on TV because all shows would be the same, none would be better than another or worse than another. You wouldn't care what food you ate as long as it gave you nutrients, we would be Borg. There would be no bad because there would be no good. And if so there could be no God. 2 Nephi 2:13 If none of this make sense then try reading it again after you read the book. I can attach several interpretations to what exactly this Quality could be. Among them are free agency, the Holy Ghost, a conscious, or maybe even God. Really, it is judgement or the ability to judge. Which is comes closest to Agency I think. It kind of throws a whole new perspective on why we needed free Agency and why we couldn't live in the garden of Eden. The book give numerous examples as to how this third party can apply to every part of our life from living with technology to collage life. Between the lines of this Trinity of Object-Quality-Subject are hundreds of small pieces of other brain-blowing wisdom. He covers environmentalism, city v country living, motorcycles v car travel, and many others subjects. Most of these are deep enough that it is best to take a break so you can think about them for a while to get the full potential of the book. Going back to the Quality of the book(pardon the pun); the writing style was a little hard to follow and it will never be a great literary masterpiece in that effect. He uses abundant allusions to Classical Greek philosophers namely Plato's Discourse on Phaedrus( which is what the professor calls his lost identity) and a working knowledge of them would be useful. I say again, do not read this for action, story line, or motorcycles. It has very little in regard to these areas and if I knew anything about Zen I guess it would probably have little to do with that either. He also uses words that mean the same thing unless you define them the way he tells you to. It really has a substantial mucilaginous vocabulary throughout the work. On a final note this book is a really good one if you like that kind of thing. It has been studied by many collages including BYU. It is great if you know the Greek Ideas but is really not a "fun read" in the normal sense. You have to think about it and it may not be relaxing the way most books are supposed to be. You shouldn't read it all at once or even very much of it at a time. It is full of Ideas not all of which are necessarily true. Remember to put every thing you choose to believe to a prayerful test. In my opinion he had something worth thinking about under all that rhetoric as do most philosophers. Read the book, but only with the right state of mind and take your time.
Rating:
Summary: First half of book is great, second half disappointing
Review: I read the first half of the book with rapt attention, but when Pirsig starts to call Tao "quality" he is way off. Taoism has absolutely nothing to do with quality, it is literally translated as "The Way." It is roughly equivalent to Zen, which means "Meditation." Tao is undefinable in words, but if I had to I certainly would not describe it with such a capitalistic word. If anything, Tao is mindfulness, being in the present moment rather than in the past or future. I suppose back when the book was written there were not many good Eastern translations for Pirsig to imitate? By today's standards, his thoughts seem rather shallow and trite.
Rating:
Summary: ZM squared
Review: I am suprised at how many people that I have run into who have said that this book has changed their lives. Well, you can chalk up another changed life convert in me. After reading it eight times I lost track of the subsequent number of reads. It seems as if it just gets deeper and deeper with each read. My whole outlook on purpose and meaning in life has been slightly changed after thinking and pondering this book over the last three years; and in a good way. Take up the challenge of this book and see what all the fuss is about. I mean this book has its own online philosophy chat room/website dedicated to the real zealots of the cause! (www.moq.org) I imagine if you look hard enough you will even find a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance church somewhere.
Rating:
Summary: philosophical time capsule
Review: I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the first time a couple of years after it was published, when the eye-catching pink paperback cover was new to bookstores (I remember my parents talking about that bold color while we were on our own long trip of some kind). At that time, I was more or less the same age as the son of the book's narrator, Phaedrus, and of course I could not help but interpret the story from the younger man's perspective: this was an adventure story about a cross country trip, a boy learning about his father, an introduction to a life led by beliefs rather than instinct. Now, as an adult, I see things through Phaedrus' eyes -- which is to say author Robert Persig's eyes, since in terms of concepts (if not geography) it is considered autobiographical -- and I can recognize many of Phaedrus' musings and thoughts as those of a man who is at once confident of and also seeking his place in the world. The book is best known as a tribute or sequel to Henry David Thoreau's Walden, which Phaedrus refers to at several points. Others have pointed out, for example, that the protagonist's long (and not too interesting) discussion of what he carries in his knapsack recall Mr. Thoreau's own endless lists of the materials used to build his lakeside shack or the seeds he planted for his sustenance. But there is much more to this book than that. The provocative blend of Eastern and Western thought, the way he generalizes regarding his philosophical predecessors (and gets some things wrong), the conclusions he draws and the way he sometimes fails to follow his own advice -- they blend to create a picture of an intelligent, complex, and flawed character. Not unlike many of the book's readers. Maybe that is a key to the book's lasting impact -- at least to this point. Like Walden, the book has practically become an icon in the decades since it was published. A quick scan on Amazon reveals dozens of books using the title Zen and the Art of something ... of knitting ... of making a living ... of archery ... of falling in love ... of poker ... of day trading ... even of the actual maintenance of motorcycles. But unlike Walden, I think the high water mark for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has come and gone. It was an interesting and compelling re-read for me -- as it would no doubt be for others -- but as I worked through it I started to realize that much of its appeal was as a philosophical time capsule, a glimpse at a time when the globalization of ideas was still new, when East and West were further apart than they are today. Take that away and most of what is left is an adventure story about a cross country trip, a boy learning about his father, an introduction to a life led by beliefs rather than instinct. And that's not so hard to find elsewhere.
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