Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

[Anonymous No.16332763]

Is this actually any good or is it just pop philosophy drivel?

[Anonymous No.16332810]

>>16332763
the latter

[Anonymous No.16332828]

>>16332763
Pop philosophy, but it's aright as an introduction to some eastern philosophy concepts

[Anonymous No.16332881]

>>16332763
didnt even realize this was an actual book, Focault's Pendulum makes a joke about people who read this

[Anonymous No.16332893]

>>16332763
I was forced to read this in middle school. I sped read it and it was okay.

[Anonymous No.16332908]

>>16332763
So is any other kind of mantainance not zen? Is car matanance just incompatible with Zen?

[Anonymous No.16332927]

>>16332810
this. it's pop philosophy of the worst kind: horribly pretentious and flat out wrong. appeals to middle and upper class boomers who want to feel smart and enlightened and are mostly former hippies. truly putrid.

Pirsig was apparently really insecure and tried to constantly convince people he was of a superior IQ, despite not having any real hard proof to back it up.


P.S. his entire "philosophy" is blown apart by Kaczynski in 20-25 pages.

[Anonymous No.16332945]

>>16332763
it's essentially one giant cope for people who are disturbed by modern technology and modern life.

[Anonymous No.16332951]

>>16332763
Did you seriously need an answer to that question lmao

[Anonymous No.16332964]

>>16332763
Recently just read it. It's very much pop philosophy. It was born from a time when white america was just discovering eastern philosophy and religion and a bunch of authors cashed in by regurgitating eastern philosophy for easy money.

[Anonymous No.16333017]

It's not even really pop philosophy, its just some dumb cunt going on about how he is smarter than everyone else

[Anonymous No.16333020]

Its cope.

[Anonymous No.16333084]

It's cringe honestly.

[Anonymous No.16333194]

>>16332763
Both, tbqh family. It's kind of a warmed over half-hearted defense of the presocratics, but without actually getting deep into their philosophy. But the road trip parts with Pirsig's son are top-tier comfy and just because the 'intellectual' parts of the book are really just pop-fluff doesn't mean that we should ignore the accomplishments of the structure and the non-chautauqua-level-narrative.

Besides that, three main thoughts: (1) the portrayal of Richard McKeon is funny, (2) Pirsig coming to grips with his identity the identity of a son while they're riding around on a motorcycle is nice, and (3) incredibly sad how he son was stabbed to death by black thugs a little while after the story. Also, (4) "Lila" (the 'sequel') is a bit better on the philosophy side and worse on the narrative side. YMMV.

[Anonymous No.16333271]

>>16332908
No, its how the principles of Zen may be applied to motorcycle maintenance. I have never read the book, btw.

[Anonymous No.16333328]

>>16333194
This is seriously the best conclusion and analysis of the book. Anyone else posting in this thread is a bunch of pseudo-intellectual shit posters.

[Anonymous No.16333370]

>>16332763
He mentioned stopping in my tiny hometown and grabbing coffee during the road trip, was weird af to read.

[Anonymous No.16334160]

this book was about Pirsig's endless search for truth, looking for some explanation as to how there could be an infinite amount of hypothesis for any premise, so even if you proved one of them, it still didn't mean much compared to the infinite others. he drove himself insane off of this issue, along with his own furstrations with his academic career.

eventually he gave up and lived on a boat and a nigger shot his son

only good part was his attitudes towards the Greeks and the comfy parallels he gives to existence, much like fixing his bike

[Anonymous No.16334203]

>>16332763
I was really into Gateless gate, other zen books, and Tao Te Ching so I thought it would be great.
He only touched the surface.

[Anonymous No.16335293]

Tldr kids need gumption.

[Anonymous No.16335889]

>>16332763
It's ok read as schizo fiction
Lila sucks ass

[Anonymous No.16336496]

>>16332881
sauce on this ?

[Anonymous No.16336525]

>>16334160
>eventually he gave up and lived on a boat and a nigger shot his son
wtf

[Anonymous No.16336530]

Quality is a cool concept. Highly derivative, but cool.

[Anonymous No.16336535]

>>16334203
is zen literature the ultimate guide to smugposting?

[Anonymous No.16336564]

I wish I could say this book was comfy but it becomes a slog about halfway through. I liked the part near the end where he was in college though, that was top tier comfy and it is tragic that we don't live in a time where academia was actually dedicated to the truth instead of justifying idpol and ideologies.

[Anonymous No.16336570]

>>16336525
Different order of operations. Pirisig had a kid, had the mental breakdown that anon described, got 'cured' (but not really) by electroshock therapy, went on his roadtrip with his son and came to peace with things, wrote his book, and became wealthy after it got published and became a bestseller (after it was rejected by around 100 other publishers). A few years after that (2 or 3?), his son was stabbed to death by two black thugs outside of some Zen center in San Francisco. Sent Pirsig back into depression and rootlessness, and he went around living in an RV on indian reservations for a while before buying a smallish boat and living on that while sailing around (semi-fictionalized description of boat life in "Lila"). Remarried and had a daughter, seemed to generally manage to pull himself together again, though he was always somewhat upset that academia never took him seriously.

[Anonymous No.16336578]

>>16336570

[Anonymous No.16336589]

>>16336570
Sorry, got my boat order a bit mixed up. He was already on the boat when his son was murdered.

[Anonymous No.16336610]

>finally achieves mental and spiritual peace
>only son gets stabbed by feral nogs

that's zen baby

[Anonymous No.16337975]

>>16336578
>I go on living, more from force of habit than anything else

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