About this title: The narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son becomes a text which speaks directly to the confusions and agonies of existence, detailing a personal, philosophical odyssey.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Acceptable. Book is in good reading condition. Cover has wear at edges and corners, and may have creases. Spine has wear at edges and creases. read more
Description: Fair. B000JQ2K9O An good copy-with a bent top cover corner edge. Book has some yellowing as well. Inscription written on inside cover. Pages sharp and clean. No remainder mark from publisher. Accurate Descriptions with Fast Shipping & Robust Packaging. GRY113S. read more
Description: Fair. Cover scuffed and creased and slightly dirty, spine cocked and creased, pages and covers dirty inside front and back covers, pages tanning but legible and easy to read. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam
Date Published: 1979
ISBN-13:9780553129236ISBN:0553129236
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Nice soft cover, lightly read, shelf wear to cover, light bend on top corner of front cover, aging. 373 p. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1999-11-18
ISBN-13:9780099322610ISBN:0099322617
Description: Good. Clean no writing, firm binding, has some corner turned pages, shelfwear to edges and corners. All items come from a smoke-free home. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam
Date Published: 1976
Description: Acceptable. Overall below average used book. May have highlighting, underlining, notes, price sticker on cover, or be an ex-library book. read more
"This is one of those books you hear about your entire life that actually lives up to the hype. I was very impressed.
It helped to sleep next to someone who is far better studied in philosophy than I am. I took an introductory course in undergrad many moons ago and knew all the names Pirsig was contrasting, but I really only retained thumbnail summaries of their actual philosophies. Terran was very patient in taking breaks from Anne of Green Gables to dissect the implications of subjective and objective world with me. It must have been jarring for him, but I think he vastly enhanced the nuance of what I was able to take away.
I was immediately drawn into the personal narrative, and in some ways I preferred it to the philosophical discourse from the beginning. However, by midway through, I started wanting to smack Pirsig for his dismissive treatment of his clearly bright and sensitive son. People out there: when your kid asks you what you're thinking and honest-to-God wants to know, COME UP WITH SOMETHING TO TELL HIM. Do no blow him off, even if you are thinking deep thoughts. It is incredibly precious that he wants to know. This conflict becomes the center of the personal story and reaches a satisfactory resolution, but the process gets agonizing before the end.
I made the mistake of looking up Pirsig on Wikipedia, where I learned that this boy Chris was knifed to death in a mugging in 1979. That hit with some of the blow of Ennis Cosby's death. I guess I would have already known this if I had read a more recent edition, and I'm curious to see Pirsig's commentary about it.
Of course, the real purpose of the book is to put forth a philosophy that combines the classic and romantic views of life and technology. I found his writing style to be incredibly accessible, and to a philosophy layman, the ideas seemed to jump off the page as profound and insightful. Unlike any traditional philosophy text that I have ever read, Pirsig tries to speak to everyman and not just high-thinkers. He weaves his ideas tightly with examples from everyday life, making them seem both true and relevant.
On the other hand, he went too far for me. The central premise of Pirsig's philosophy seems to be that "Quality is the Buddha." Quality is God. It is the source of our sense of the rightness and wrongness of things. It is the source of our perception of things. There is no subjectivity or objectivity, only Quality. And as a result, there are no objective facts to be discovered, only new facts that come into existence through our interaction with Quality. The truth is that I'm just too much of an empiricist to follow this thinking to the end of the road.
I did, however, drink about 75% of the Kool-Aid, and what I did drink seems to stand on its own merits. Quality is the interaction between subjects and objects. It is shaped by perceptions, ours and others', of the world around us. In the best case, it lifts us out of our own heads and shows a wider world of perspective. This perspective-expanding effect may in itself demonstrate good Quality, but any attempt to define it in more specific, objective, technical terms inevitably fails. It exists as indefinable and is yet is incredibly important to our happiness, and thus it can stitch together the rift between the classical and romantic experience. Even if you can't bring yourself to believe that Quality is God, this line of thinking has a lot to recommend it.
I highly recommend this book for the thought it inspires, however many of the ideas themselves work for you."
"He starts pretty full of himself: he clearly believes that he has deep wisdom to impart. But when he starts telling the story, he loses the didactic tone, and captures my interest. I'd love to read the story as written by his son, captive audience to Pirsig's strange 1968 cross-country odyssey. Tragically, Chris was murdered in 1979.
And I GET the reference to Daedalus. It gets to be a bit narcissistic after a while."
"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 probably end up with a similar negative review. However, if you go into this book with an open mind, and are willing to look at the world through the eyes of a man deeply entrenched in philosophical meanderings to the point of insanity then you will be rewarded with a new way to look at things.
Pirsig takes an 18-day motorcycle journey that he made with his son in 1968 and turns it into an autobiographical journey not only about this trip, but into his mind. Pirsig spent time in a mental hospital before this trip, and much of this book is the story of his trip entwined with the story of the "insane" Pirsig. Along with the story of his mental past, Pirsig attempts to break down many types of philosophy and explain the concept that drove him into the mental hospital. This concept is the concept that Quality is the only true reality. It is a very abstract concept and that's why there is so much mundane philosophical background information endlessly filling up the pages. However, I feel that once I finally conquered this book, I came away with some very powerful messages and unique perspectives about the world we live in and the way we live our lives. I recommend this to everyone looking for a thinker, but be sure you give yourself plenty of time to absorb everything this novel encompasses."
"I decided to finish the book I've been reading all summer: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. I've had a lot of complaints about this book, as I read it. It was a rather grueling endeavor, certainly not most people's idea of summer reading. Having just finished the book, however, I can say that it was well worth the experience. This book turns on its head our idea of what it means to be sane. The book can be described as generally a thesis on substance, form, and spirit, as I'll label them. Pirsig called these ideas classical, romantic, and Quality. It reads like a thesis, interspersed between bits of an intriguing and true tale of the author's life.
I would like to include here some of the passages that won my attention, but as I look back at the book I realize that there is no way to relate the context. You must read the book and be touched by its perspective. I cannot recreate what is a tapestry by pulling a few threads and claiming they are the best.
Perhaps, I will try later when I have some distance on what I've seen. I never want to read it again, because it was just too painstaking and complicated, and I have a finite amount of time to read (as we all do). Therefore, I hope to flip through the book and write down some of the quotes that struck me... just not today."
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