Thanks so much. What a find, both the book and the interview. The book was recommended to me at about my junior year as a Psych major at George Mason University in the US by my English major best friend, Timothy, and I've hung on to it to this day. One can read it over and over and never grow tired of it, I find. I love Zen and I love the book. Thanks, Robert Pirsig. Was very sad about what I learned happened to his son who is featured in the book and the narrator's struggle with mental illness towards the end was also very touching. One of my favorite books, ever! 🙏🌄💖🌺🎊
The book means so much to me. It's one of the only books I can place myself reading certain chapters for the first time, though that was decades ago. Robert's passing makes me realize how important it is to pass this book on to my own children.
Work is an art form and is not some drudgery to put up with just to get a check. This book matched my feelings about human values growing out of our experience with what we are engaged with, how we need to pause and reflect, like a painter standing back from her painting before engaging with her brush again.
Even beyond his enlightenment on subject/object quabbling and the nature of Quality, he wrote a damned great US road trip novel. Follow up also always stuck with me. Thanks RMP, thanks Chris and family, thanks Lila.
Quality is a Turtles back. Resting on that are four elephants holding up the World! Analogy to another great late author Terry Pratchett? I have read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for over 40 years, always a vital book. Quality is seemingly at the front of the Motorcycle as it travels forward.
Why David Foster Wallace and Barry Lopez? Are their writings similar to Roberts or is it because of other reasons? Which books from Wallace and Lopez would you recommend to me? :D
Wonderful writer. One of the best in history. Terrible public speaker and interviewee. We always want our heroes to be perfect and not human and fallible.
Back in the late 70's I hitched Seattle -SF back and forth many times, then lots of travels by bus & rail in Mexico. In my backpack I always carried Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and a copy of On The Road. Oddly, I never read either book. Perhaps I was living the books rather than reading them. Hikers of the Appalachian Trail say "Hike your own hike." Makes sense. After reading about Robert's life lived, I got his book out of storage and am now reading it...
I have read ZMM a dozen or so times over the years. It is one of my all-time favorites. That being said its brilliance pales in comparison to "Lila" in my opinion.
Oddly enough, Pirsig and I have very similar experiences, interests, talents, and ideologies, yet our understandings as regards the process in writing are almost entirely contradictory. We both found the same truth though.
To be fair this book has rulled part of my life's philosophy. I have a nice bike and consider the quiet past time of its maintenance as my zen. But I have never grasped his quality debate. To me its simple as of Quality . Its more that the dictionary gave Quality a point of beginning that is a mistake. If I see an add for a builder as "Quality Builder " I ask myself does he mean . Good quality, poor Quality or medium quality.
What does studying 2 years of studio oriental philosophy have to do with anything...if I want to study Aristotle or Plato I should go to Greece...what..?
John Arnold How about the experience that is fuller? If he wanted to experience it and then decide if it was important, than it was his to decide. Same for everybody.
Bobs cult-book is not only about motorycling or even quality, but describes the life of an exceptional personality - going through the process of "the dark night of the soul". Like the desperate ZEN-Adept with an i n s o l v a b l e KOAN. Coming slowly but surely to the point of utterly desperation and insanity - and being completely r e b o r n again . . . . e n l i g h t e n e d ? Maybe . . . . . 😉
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Thanks so much. What a find, both the book and the interview. The book was recommended to me at about my junior year as a Psych major at George Mason University in the US by my English major best friend, Timothy, and I've hung on to it to this day. One can read it over and over and never grow tired of it, I find. I love Zen and I love the book. Thanks, Robert Pirsig. Was very sad about what I learned happened to his son who is featured in the book and the narrator's struggle with mental illness towards the end was also very touching. One of my favorite books, ever! 🙏🌄💖🌺🎊
The book means so much to me. It's one of the only books I can place myself reading certain chapters for the first time, though that was decades ago. Robert's passing makes me realize how important it is to pass this book on to my own children.
Christian F ❤️
Not the book so much but what the book is
What a great interview. Thanks for sharing.
Great interviewer that really brings out the personality of Robert!
hearing this man just make me smile
It’s very easy to love this guy’s books. I’ve read them several times over....
Work is an art form and is not some drudgery to put up with just to get a check. This book matched my feelings about human values growing out of our experience with what we are engaged with, how we need to pause and reflect, like a painter standing back from her painting before engaging with her brush again.
RIP Robert. Your book had an influence on my life.
Even beyond his enlightenment on subject/object quabbling and the nature of Quality, he wrote a damned great US road trip novel. Follow up also always stuck with me. Thanks RMP, thanks Chris and family, thanks Lila.
❤️
ZAMM is truly a classic. It ranks up there with any classic. I have read this book almost every year for the last 10 years. So many gems.
R.I.P. Robert, thank you for everything you gave us and the nothing you guided us to.
Thank you for preserving this wonderful interview.
so many key points about thinking, writing, and living
Quality is a Turtles back. Resting on that are four elephants holding up the World! Analogy to another great late author Terry Pratchett? I have read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for over 40 years, always a vital book. Quality is seemingly at the front of the Motorcycle as it travels forward.
Robert Pirsig, David Foster Wallace, Barry Lopez -- three demigods in my literary pantheon.
Why David Foster Wallace and Barry Lopez? Are their writings similar to Roberts or is it because of other reasons? Which books from Wallace and Lopez would you recommend to me? :D
R I P your thoughtful life is over......you helped me to find wisdom.
Thank you for this.
Wonderful writer. One of the best in history. Terrible public speaker and interviewee. We always want our heroes to be perfect and not human and fallible.
Back in the late 70's I hitched Seattle -SF back and forth many times, then lots of travels by bus & rail in Mexico. In my backpack I always carried Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and a copy of On The Road. Oddly, I never read either book. Perhaps I was living the books rather than reading them. Hikers of the Appalachian Trail say "Hike your own hike." Makes sense.
After reading about Robert's life lived, I got his book out of storage and am now reading it...
This is where my father got my name last April 24, 1975
now i remember the connection to my joke - 'qualis? - talis!' ...
Genius
I have read ZMM a dozen or so times over the years. It is one of my all-time favorites. That being said its brilliance pales in comparison to "Lila" in my opinion.
13:00 - plants, 19:20 shines like gold in the gravel of a river
I can totally understand why he needed to get away from it all in order to write his stuff......
Oddly enough, Pirsig and I have very similar experiences, interests, talents, and ideologies, yet our understandings as regards the process in writing are almost entirely contradictory. We both found the same truth though.
I read this book and I ride a motorcycle as well.
To be fair this book has rulled part of my life's philosophy. I have a nice bike and consider the quiet past time of its maintenance as my zen. But I have never grasped his quality debate. To me its simple as of Quality . Its more that the dictionary gave Quality a point of beginning that is a mistake. If I see an add for a builder as "Quality Builder " I ask myself does he mean . Good quality, poor Quality or medium quality.
What does studying 2 years of studio oriental philosophy have to do with anything...if I want to study Aristotle or Plato I should go to Greece...what..?
John Arnold How about the experience that is fuller? If he wanted to experience it and then decide if it was important, than it was his to decide. Same for everybody.
Bobs cult-book is not only about motorycling or even quality, but describes the life of an exceptional personality - going through the process of "the dark night of the soul".
Like the desperate ZEN-Adept with an i n s o l v a b l e KOAN.
Coming slowly but surely to the point of utterly desperation and insanity - and being completely r e b o r n again . . . .
e n l i g h t e n e d ? Maybe . . . . . 😉
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