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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (P.S.) Posters
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List Price: $16.99Amazonaws.com's Price: $11.55 You Save: $5.44 (32%)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
Fabric Type: 9780061673733
Legal Disclaimer: 0061673730
Maximum Color Depth: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Metal Type: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Publisher: 1
Region Code: 448
Total External Bays Free: October 01, 2008
Total Firewire Ports: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Total Parallel Ports: September 30, 2008
Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Features:
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
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
Product Description:
"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.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I have owned and read this book numerous times in my lifetime so I already knew what I was getting. I was replacing this book as my last copy had wandered away with a borrower, but I could not stand the thought of it not being in my library. This book was a life change for me; one of the most profound moments in my life and I recommend it to anyone.
Rating:  -
probably the most over-hyped book of all time....i like practical books..check out Live Like A Fruit Fly - also on amazon
Rating: -
The book is good, however, I would not recommend ever buying any products from the company I purchased this book from- (greatbookdeals)... This is by far the worst place I have ever made a purchase from and I am saying this in a nice way. Greatbookdeals have to have the worst communications and shipping on planet earth.. Please save yourself a headache and buy from anyone else. Greatbookdeals get well I don't have enough thumbs on my hands to give them a thumbs down.Would not recommend greatbookdeals ... Read More
Rating:  -
What tripe. This is probably the best selling philosophy book ever, but I'm still trying to figure out what Pirsig's "philosophy" is. It's got something to do with "Quality." That's all I could glean from it. The importance of Quality in our lives is illustrated by this book, which has none. It's said that 147 publishers passed on this before it became a best seller, which should inspire confidence that the waste of enough time will ultimately result in something, kind of like the billion monkeys who ... Read More
Rating: -
I first read this masterpiece of fiction when I was fifteen, I remember clearly it was 1980 and I spent days in my room trying to understand the big words and attempting to figure out all the characters Pirsig would reference, Kant, Hume, Poincare, and the ancient Greeks. Since we were well before a simple Wikipedia search, it would be years before I would hear most of their names again. What I do remember very clearly is that when I emerged from my room I knew I was going to college to become a Mechanical ... Read More
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