Details Of Books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus #1)
| Title | : | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus #1) |
| Author | : | Robert M. Pirsig |
| Book Format | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 540 pages |
| Published | : | April 25th 2006 by HarperTorch (first published April 1974) |
| Categories | : | Fiction |
Robert M. Pirsig
Mass Market Paperback | Pages: 540 pages Rating: 3.77 | 186082 Users | 8159 Reviews
Commentary To Books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus #1)
Maybe it's unfair to give a poor rating to a book I read in high school. However, I like to think that I was wise beyond my years and knew a phony, self-congratulatory, pretentious buffoon when I saw one. On the other hand, I did wear baggy overalls with Birkenstocks every day back then and wondered why I didn’t have a boyfriend, so clearly I didn’t know everything.But as I read through the reviews here, I am confronted by a rush of unpleasant memories about this particular reading experience. The narrator did indeed seem like a dick. And he may have been okay with that, because I got the impression that he’s one of those guys who doesn’t care if he comes off as a dick, because his purpose in life is to Figure It All Out, and disseminate his impressive knowledge to the masses of sheep-like mouth-breathers who wandered into Waldenbooks and picked up a mass-market paperback copy of his masterpiece. Their lives will be changed! The narrator is too busy unraveling the mysteries of the universe to bother with being likable. It’s a sacrifice, but someone has to do it. We should be thanking him!
And this is just an aside, but part of me always wonders if there is something wrong with me, or if I’m an elitist or delusional because I’ve never read a “life-changing” book. That’s right: a book has never changed me. I read as a kind of re-affirmation of what I think I already know, somewhere deep down. Or I simply read to experience the pleasure of a good story. I’ve put a book down and thought to myself, “Boy, that was a good book. I’m in such a pleasant/ponderous/gloomy mood now. Well done!” But never have I put down a book and thought, “Before I read this, I was wandering around on this thing we call Earth with the wrong ideas about life/people/religion/mechanical engineering, but now I have been enlightened. From this point forward, my life will be different. I will be a better person.” I don’t know. Maybe I just have a bad attitude, or think that I’m smarter than everyone else. Maybe I’m no better than our friend Mr. Pirsig. If you think that may be the case, I suppose you can just ignore this review completely and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
But! If you think I’m just like Pirsig, you would want to heed my advice about this book and avoid it, wouldn’t you? Aha! You see, you can’t like us both, otherwise the universe will implode. Or will it? Perhaps it is no more than a conundrum I have devised out of sheer malice and a masturbatory sense of self-importance. Perhaps I am full of shit. You’ll never know for sure.
You can’t escape this philosophy-ninja’s intellectual trap. Don’t even try.
List Books As Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus #1)
| Original Title: | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance |
| ISBN: | 0060589469 (ISBN13: 9780060589462) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Phaedrus #1 |
| Characters: | Phaedrus, Sylvia Sutherland, John Sutherland, Chris |
| Setting: | United States of America |
| Literary Awards: | National Book Award Finalist Nominee for Contemporary Affairs (1975) |
Rating Of Books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus #1)
Ratings: 3.77 From 186082 Users | 8159 ReviewsCommentary Of Books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus #1)
When I was quite young my brain said to me, after a particularly long and stoned session listening to Pink Floyd and discussing philosophy, 'oh give me a break'. So I said to my brain, 'there's no need to be so rude,' and my brain said, 'no seriously, I can't handle this anymore, really, let me take a break'. So it did and I've been operating on brain-stem alone ever since. I don't know it's made that much difference.I wonder if the author's brain was thinking like mine was? Certainly when I wasBrilliant! Pirsig might be something of an American Montaigne, producing readable philosophy with a minimum of abtractions. Thats a gift. After undergoing electro-convulsive therapy 28 times, Pirsig, in this book, gives his formerly insane self a doppelgänger-like alter-ego, Phaedrus, and bravely tries to piece together that formerly insane selfs thought in order to learn from it. This alone is fascinating. At the same time Pirsig is reviewing aspects of eastern and western philosophical
This book is extremely good and also important. It's a treatise on metaphysics as well as a compelling story which the author says is autobiographical. It's exactly right about the scientific method, and the way we go about discovering truth as a society and as individuals. The analogy of working on motorcycles is a good one. In my life it's been programming computers and figuring out how to get industrial machinery to work, but the same process works for all of the above. The thing I find most
This book is one of those books that I want to rate way higher than 3, but I don't think I'd quite give it a 4. I always have this problem with Netflix too! By reading the random reviews posted about this book, many of them are extremely negative, focusing on the "arrogance" of the narrator or his "absurd" search for quality. I think if you go into this 400 page novel with the expectation that it will be a light read about a motorcycle trip out West with a couple philosophical insights, you'll
Maybe it's unfair to give a poor rating to a book I read in high school. However, I like to think that I was wise beyond my years and knew a phony, self-congratulatory, pretentious buffoon when I saw one. On the other hand, I did wear baggy overalls with Birkenstocks every day back then and wondered why I didnt have a boyfriend, so clearly I didnt know everything.But as I read through the reviews here, I am confronted by a rush of unpleasant memories about this particular reading experience. The
OK, maybe I'm being a little too harsh. I actually enjoyed the idea of the cross-country motorcycle ride, the details about motorcycle mechanics, and especially the portrayal of the narrator's relationship with his son. The son was the best part of the whole book. Unfortunately, there wasn't much space for sonny, because dad was too busy advertising the author's brilliant philisophical insights. Even more unfortunately, the insights weren't brilliant, and consumed hundreds of tedious pages. It
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