Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

An Inquiry Into Values

by ,

audio cd

Published June 12, 1999 by Brand: Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Audio.

ISBN:
9781559275576

View on OpenLibrary

3 stars (2 reviews)

"The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called 'yourself.'"One of the most important and influential books of the past half-century, Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a powerful, moving, and penetrating examination of how we live and a meditation on how to live better. The narrative of a father on a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest with his young son, it becomes a profound personal and philosophical odyssey into life's fundamental questions. A true modern classic, it remains at once touching and transcendent, resonant with the myriad confusions of existence and the small, essential triumphs that propel us forward.

45 editions

reviewed Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

Review of 'Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

This book started slow and frustrating but redeemed itself by the end. I’m not a philosophy expert by any stretch of the imagination but I found Part 3 engaging and thought provoking.

Part 1 felt, to me, marred by a sort of narcissism that was grating. Both the narrator and the author felt a bit like a “well actually” reply guy except instead of one exhausting tweet, he wrote a whole book. 

At one point the narrator describes a time when he felt seen and accepted as his true self, and it was when he stood at the head of a classroom and everyone hung on his every word. This is revealing.

But like I said, although this narcissism never went away, and the narrator remains, to me, deeply unlikable, the philosophy of the later parts drowns it out and it becomes worth reading.  

reviewed Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

not a good bedtime read

3 stars

This is the second time that I stop reading this book. I really enjoyed the journaling of the motorcycle trip, but that's only half of the story. After a day at work, sitting in bed, trying to wind down, the whole discussion about classicism vs romanticism and rational analysis, etc is just too dry and tiring to follow.