Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

No cover — Robert M. Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (2005, Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

430 pages

English language

Published Aug. 2, 2005 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

(1 review)

"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.

10 editions

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.