Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
by Robert M. Pirsig
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
- Amazon.com
Paperback: 380 pages
Bantam Books; ISBN: 0553277472; Reissue edition (April
1, 1984)
Lila:
An Inquiry into Morals
by Robert M. Pirsig
Paperback:Bantam Books; ISBN: 0553299611
Reprint edition (December 1992)
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