Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
This modern classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig, was originally reviewed and posted on YouTube on April 19, 2021, but you can watch the review on Rumble or listen to it on PodBean now.
So, this book joined my library when I was TDY with my day job in Colorado and I picked it up at a local Barnes and Noble in the philosophy section. One of the first philosophy books I every bought, I think I bought it expecting more motorcycles and less philosophy, because…? I mean, it’s in the title.
Anyway, here go. This book is, I believe, autobiographical. I mean, the motorcycle trip with his son Chris did happen. And while the narrator is never explicitly said to be Robert Pirsig, the events that are relayed in this book are the life story of Pirsig.
So, Robert Pirsig was something of a boy genius, the book mentions at one point the narrator had an IQ of 170. Which, I mean people who are super smart like that, can encounter some particular problems the rest of us can’t normally relate to. And the first bump he apparently hit was failing out of college at 15 years old because his mind got too entranced with scientific method. As he describes it in the book, hypothesis led to hypothesis and basically, at a certain point, EVERYTHING becomes a variable. Basically, there were too many options to choose from, so he failed out. He eventually joined the army and was in Korea for a bit where he was first introduced to eastern Philosophy. He eventually returned to the states where he returned to college and earned a BA in Philosophy, after which he spent 5 years in India where he studied Eastern Philosophy in depth. In the late 1950’s he and his first wife had two sons, Chris and Ted. For a few years he taught English at Montana State College, and in the book, this is where his true obsession is born.
He describes it as he’s prepping for class teaching rhetoric, and someone makes an offhand comment about teaching Quality. And from here, Quality is ALWAYS with a Capital Q. And identifying what is quality becomes an all-pervading obsession. Interspersed throughout his search for quality, we are introduced to multiple different philosophical thoughts, and the narrator seeks constantly to bridge a gap between classical thought and romantic thought, art and technology. And all of these connections and bridges are built through maintaining motorcycles. Seriously! There is a definite beauty described in connecting with the straight mechanics of the machine, the connection with life and nature inherent from riding a motorcycle versus riding in a car. The narrator describes how much more connected people who live a rural lifestyle are from urban dwellers, and how seeing the country by way of back roads and small-town USA is a connecting force.
While reading through these life lessons, Chautauquas as he calls them. I had to look that up. From context in the book, I’m assuming the narrator is referring to the more modern meaning of interfaith lecture, or adult schooling, versus the original meaning of the word, which was Iroquois, meaning a bag tied in the middle, or two moccasins tied together. Or maybe not. Maybe he does mean it in the way of joining together…multiple thoughts? Damn did I miss that?!
You know what, it doesn’t matter. They are life lessons that tie together! These life lessons intersperse throughout the story of his life, and while obsessing over Quality, he decides to pursue a PhD in Philosophy from the University in Chicago in the early 1960’s. And here is where he goes into a depression bad enough that eventually, he is forcibly committed to an insane asylum where he is forcibly administered electric shock therapy. I think, although I’d have to see if that’s one of the things I tabbed out, but I think the book mentions 28 times this was administered. That’s a lot. For the record, EST is no longer acknowledged as a viable treatment for any form of mental health disturbance.
Throughout the book, you get the sense that prior to being committed, the narrator was not in charge of his life, and the person who was in charge was Phaedrus. And the narrator’s life is broken into before, with Phaedrus in charge, and after, with the narrator just trying to get along in life. But in the intro to this edition, Pirsig says flat out that Phaedrus sees the narrator as a sellout, someone who just wants to fit in. And even Chris knows that the narrator is a fake, someone who is just going along to get along, and not really a real person. But throughout the book, throughout the Phaedrus’s search for Quality, it’s building. This tension is building between who he was (Phaedrus) and who he is meant to be (also Phaedrus), so you get the sense the “sanity” the narrator currently inhabits is the illusion. And the tension breaks in like the last 3 pages when Chris is crying over his lost father, who was Phaedrus, and the man left behind, who is narrator. And this pulls Phaedrus back to the front.
I’m sure there is a lot of deeply intellectual and intrinsically philosophical thought behind the symbolism of this book that just flew past me in the story. I’m sure of this because there is a companion book written by two PhD’s in Philosophy called Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. But THIS book, is beautifully written, it just pulls at the heart strings, and I caught a fair portion of the deep thinking that was thrown at me, even without an IQ of 170. It is a beautiful book that I am sure I’ll re-read at some point. Possibly with the guidebook to help me catch what I missed the first time through.
