Reviews for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry into Values

The average rating for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry into Values based on 2 reviews is 1 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-02-23 00:00:00 Walt Walt Maybe it's unfair to give a poor rating to a book I read in high school. However, I like to think that I was wise beyond my years and knew a phony, self-congratulatory, pretentious buffoon when I saw one. On the other hand, I did wear baggy overalls with Birkenstocks every day back then and wondered why I didn�t have a boyfriend, so clearly I didn�t know everything. But as I read through the reviews here, I am confronted by a rush of unpleasant memories about this particular reading experience. The narrator did indeed seem like a dick. And he may have been okay with that, because I got the impression that he�s one of those guys who doesn�t care if he comes off as a dick, because his purpose in life is to Figure It All Out, and disseminate his impressive knowledge to the masses of sheep-like mouth-breathers who wandered into Waldenbooks and picked up a mass-market paperback copy of his masterpiece. Their lives will be changed! The narrator is too busy unraveling the mysteries of the universe to bother with being likable. It�s a sacrifice, but someone has to do it. We should be thanking him! And this is just an aside, but part of me always wonders if there is something wrong with me, or if I�m an elitist or delusional because I�ve never read a �life-changing� book. That�s right: a book has never changed me. I read as a kind of re-affirmation of what I think I already know, somewhere deep down. Or I simply read to experience the pleasure of a good story. I�ve put a book down and thought to myself, �Boy, that was a good book. I�m in such a pleasant/ponderous/gloomy mood now. Well done!� But never have I put down a book and thought, �Before I read this, I was wandering around on this thing we call Earth with the wrong ideas about life/people/religion/mechanical engineering, but now I have been enlightened. From this point forward, my life will be different. I will be a better person.� I don�t know. Maybe I just have a bad attitude, or think that I�m smarter than everyone else. Maybe I�m no better than our friend Mr. Pirsig. If you think that may be the case, I suppose you can just ignore this review completely and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. But! If you think I�m just like Pirsig, you would want to heed my advice about this book and avoid it, wouldn�t you? Aha! You see, you can�t like us both, otherwise the universe will implode. Or will it? Perhaps it is no more than a conundrum I have devised out of sheer malice and a masturbatory sense of self-importance. Perhaps I am full of shit. You�ll never know for sure. You can�t escape this philosophy-ninja�s intellectual trap. Don�t even try.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-06-22 00:00:00 Mas Rod I feel like Robert M. Pirsig has wronged me personally.