Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Geoff 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.

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

Review of 'Zen and the Art of Motercycle Maintenance' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

This is one of those books where I dislike every character, and not in an entertaining way.

The narrator seems to think that he's wiser than his friend John because he's decided to teach himself to maintain his own motorcycle, while John has instead bought a reliable new bike (a decision which the narrator ascribes to a "romantic" fear of technology). He points out some of John's rookie mistakes, and related frustrations (trying to start the bike with the choke on when it was warm).

But his method doesn't seem to be any better. He fails to notice that he's out of gas and has to abandon his bike because it won't run. He strips a screw and can't complete a repair. More seriously, he endangers himself and his passenger by starting a long road trip with a badly worn tire, and somehow manages to destroy his chain guard along …

This is one of those books where I dislike every character, and not in an entertaining way.

The narrator seems to think that he's wiser than his friend John because he's decided to teach himself to maintain his own motorcycle, while John has instead bought a reliable new bike (a decision which the narrator ascribes to a "romantic" fear of technology). He points out some of John's rookie mistakes, and related frustrations (trying to start the bike with the choke on when it was warm).

But his method doesn't seem to be any better. He fails to notice that he's out of gas and has to abandon his bike because it won't run. He strips a screw and can't complete a repair. More seriously, he endangers himself and his passenger by starting a long road trip with a badly worn tire, and somehow manages to destroy his chain guard along the way. Over the course of the trip in the book, the narrator sends a significant amount of time doing maintenance and fixing problems that John simply doesn't have.

I've tried both of these approaches. I've owned a motorcycle that required a lot of maintenance. Sure, I learned lot about how motorcycles work, but it was also a waste of time to be constantly needing to fix it. I gave it away (okay, sold it for $1) and replaced it with a much newer model that requires almost no maintenance. That's not me being afraid of technology, it's me liking riding better than wrenching.

I didn't find the philosophy in the book any more convincing than the arguments about motorcycles.

Ian Slinger

rated it

April 4, 2016

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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