Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a book by Robert M. Pirsig. It tells the story of a motorbike trip across America that he and his son Chris undertook. It reads like a novel, and in fact I thought I was reading a fictional story for most of it. However, it is actually an autobiographical retelling.
Pirsig uses the rides to go into deep philosophical discussions he labells as “chautauqua”. These explore the meaning of the term quality and slowly retell his life story: he explored the concept as an academic, to such a degree that eventually led him to a breakdown.
I found the novel dragged quite a bit. I am simply not that interested in epistemology in its relation to quality. It is interesting to hear his life story, but I think you have to have a strong interest in philosophy to enjoy the novel to its full extent.
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Tags: mental health, motorbikes, philosophy, quality
This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2016 at 10:22 am and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.