absolutely not

If, like Robert Pirsig and me, you've found on your rude awakening from the Sleep of Innocence down many a subtle corridor of life's nightmare "to an overwhelming conclusion," that living is not at all what it once seemed, this Incredible Handbook will be Required Reading for you.I just can't put it any more simply!But I’ll try again, by fleshing in some of the details… you see, Robert took his young son on a cross-country trek many years ago. Heavily influenced by America’s restless Beat Genera...

Brilliant! Pirsig might be something of an American Montaigne, producing readable philosophy with a minimum of abtractions. That’s 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 self’s thought in order to learn from it. This alone is fascinating. At the same time Pirsig is reviewing aspects of eastern and western philosophical thoug...

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: "I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning."I have read Zen probably four or five times. The clinical precision of the author is apparent in all the detail here ("left grip", "eight-thirty"). The self-reference of the author looking at his own watch will become a leitmotif as the entire book is about the author looking deep into his own soul (so deep in fact th...

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 was...

I just re-read this book and HAD to annotate it because it sent my head swimming. I'd studied quite a lot of philosophy since I read it a year and a half ago and so the philosophies didn't go over my head this time.First, I must say if you find the narrator off-putting, rest assured that the protagonist is NOT the narrator. The narrator is the nemesis who has eclipsed the protagonist; the story reveals their struggle. The introduction of my edition hints at this, but apparently some people haven...

I must start by saying that this is one of my favorite books ever. Although it is deep and complicated and takes a lot of focus to read, I feel that there are a lot of great messages here in the author’s search for Quality. This was my second time reading this book, and I liked it more this time. Interlaced with stories from an across-the-west motorcycle trip with his son and some friends, Pirsig tells the story of his past in an almost former life before being admitted to a mental institution a...

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 o...

There are three threads weaving through this book, none of which, as is cheerfuly owned in the text, has much to do with eastern philosophy or motorcycle maintenance. (And I have no problem with that intentional irony.)The first thread is a straightforward narration by a man riding cross-country with his young son and two friends (a married couple). This travelogue is evocative and engaging and by far the most enjoyable aspect of the novel. It had me fantasizing about buying a Harley and riding ...

I feel like Robert M. Pirsig has wronged me personally.