Bring Your Leatherman

A Review of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I have been participating in a writing group through the Word on Fire Institute. The writing community has a no-AI policy. The “Writer Development Activity” this fall prompted members to write a book review. I share mine here.

No more small talk. Let’s Chautauqua. Robert Pirsig’s narrator in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is riding from Minneapolis to Montana and “would like to use the time to talk in some depth about things that seem important.” Though traveling with his 11-year-old son and two friends, readers are the privileged audience. What is good? How do we know? Will you sell out? Pirsig’s fictionalized autobiography could standalone as an elevating dose of colloquial philosophy, but the narrator isn’t putting miles on his motorcycle just to muse.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is about craftsmanship, technology, duality, non-duality, a father-son relationship, the pursuit of truth, identity, insanity, institutions, quality, and peace of mind. The narrator names his exposition on these matters after the Chautauqua tent shows that traveled America in the early 1900s. He notes the movement’s intention to entertain and edify and proceeds to substantiate himself as a storyteller and teacher, spiritual and otherwise. “How do John and Sylvia ever get through Minnesota winters? I wonder… If they can’t stand physical discomfort and they can’t stand technology, they’ve got a little compromising to do.” Readers also meet Phaedrus. The narrator only wanted to talk about this ghost’s ideas, but “the pattern of thoughts and memory that occurred last night has indicated this is not the way to go. To omit him now would be to run from something that should not be run from.”

Pirsig skillfully oscillates the reader’s perspective from descriptions of the motorcycle ride to contents of the narrator’s mind. Phaedrus’s quest for truth takes the Chautauqua’s center stage. A detailed account of Phaedrus’s academic philosophy adventure increases the comprehension challenge, but the sprinkled insights are worth staying tuned for. “He became aware that the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are never fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.” On the other hand, as Phaedrus’s story intensifies, readers may find themselves wanting to skim past the motorcycle ride updates, but wisdom gems are there too. The narrator describes and classifies a set of “gumption traps,” perceptual errors that frustrate our effectiveness. Using motorcycle maintenance as an example, he offers practical advice for overcoming external “setbacks” and internal “hangups” that may appear between us and our objectives.

“What I am is a heretic who’s recanted, and thereby in everyone’s eyes saved his soul. Everyone’s eyes but one, who knows deep down that all he has saved is his skin.” Pirsig shows the social consequences of a pursuit and goes on to paint the tragedy of forsaking as a triumph. Though the introduction to the 50th anniversary edition offers a clarification to address the “Hollywood ending” critique, the story is no more complete. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is for seekers not attached to seeking and finders not afraid to deepen.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 50^th anniversary edition, by Robert M. Pirsig (HarperCollins: 2009)