Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values - Hardcover

Pirsig, Robert M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0370103386 ISBN 13: 9780370103389

Publisher: William Morrow, 1974

Synopsis

1974. Reprinted. 412 pages. Illustrated dust jacket over brown cloth covered boards with gilt. Pages remain clear with minimal tanning and foxing. Text block edge is moderately foxed. Damp staining to paste downs. Front free end paper excised. Binding remains firm. Cracking to hinges, no damage to end papers. Boards have moderate edge-wear with bumping to corners and rubbing to surfaces. Mild crushing to spine ends with small splits. Book has a slight forward lean. Gilt lettering is bright and clear. Cloth has minor damp and dust stains. Clipped jacket has moderate edge-wear with chips, tears and creasing.

About this title

Review

In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.

Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.

In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. --Brian Bruya

From the Publisher

The extraordinary story of a man's quest for truth. It will change the way you think and feel about your life.

"The cycle you're working on is a cycle called 'yourself.'"

"The study of the art of motorcycle maintainence is really a study of the art of rationality itself. Working on a motorcycle, working well, caring, is to become part of a process, to achieve an inner peace of mind. The motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon." -- Robert M. Pirsig

"Profoundly important... full of insights into our most perplexing contemporary dilemmas... It is intellectual entertainment of the highest order." -- The New York Times

"It lodges in the mind as few recent novels have... The book is inspired, original... As the mountains gentle toward the sea--with father and child locked in a ghostly grip--the narrative tact, the perfect economy of effect defy criticism... The analogies with Moby Dick are patent. Robert Pirsig invites the prodigious comparison... What more can one say?" -- The New Yorker

"It's a miracle.. sparkles like an electric dream. Freshness, originality... that seduces you into loving motorcycles, as tender in their pistons as the petals in the Buddah's dawn lotus." -- The Village Voice

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 1974
• ISBN 10: 0370103386
• ISBN 13: 9780370103389
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 412