Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Pass me a 3-eighths socket wrench, willya?
This book should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles either.
—Flyleaf disclaimer

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (full title, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values) is a novel by Robert Pirsig, about a guy riding a motorcycle from Minnesota to California accompanied by his young son, Chris, and a married couple. That narrative is intertwined with his internal philosophical wrangling about trying to see the world from both a subjective and objective perspective, plus an account of his rather unpleasant descent into insanity and subsequent institutionalization that had occurred a few years earlier.

The book was published in 1974 and became a global bestseller, selling over five million copies.[1] A slightly woo-ish narrative was added as a foreword to later editions of the book, in which Pirsig relates how his son, Chris, the model for the book's character of that name, was murdered in San Francisco in 1979. Shortly thereafter, Pirsig's wife became pregnant with his daughter, Nell; their first instinct was to get an abortion, but as they discussed it Pirsig had a dissociative episode, which he interpreted as a sign that Nell was the re-incarnation of Chris, and they decided to keep the child.[2]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. The interview: Robert Pirsig, The Guardian 19 Nov 2006
  2. Pirsig, Robert. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Special Anniversary Edition, pp.1-6. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1984.
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