Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - An Inquiry Into Values

Robert M. Pirsig

Harper Perennial Modern Classics

2005

464 páginas

15h 28m

ISBN-10: 0060839872

A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions on how to live. The narrator's relationship with his son leads to a powerful self-reckoning; the craft of motorcycle maintenance leads to an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism. Resonant with the confusions of existence, this classic is a touching and transcendent book of life.

Resenhas (1)

5 (Perfeito)

Great philosophic novel

In spite of the title, this book is not really about Zen Buddhism or motorcycle maintenance, it is a novel about a trip across the US, a dramatic personal experience and philosophy of values.

The story is about a man who travels across the US, riding a motorcycle, with his son and a couple of friends. As he travels, he develops ideas about technology and general attitudes towards life. He remembers facts about his own life and a mistery appears. The mistery is gradually clarified, as he develops his reflections and visits places related to his previous life.

Pirsig writes about great philosophical issues with extraordinary clarity and avoiding technical words. He does not use tiresome quotations and references, but lets us know the origin of the ideas and concepts he presents.

It is a brilliant book, that catches our attention because of the story, the mistery, the descriptios of the travel, the important ideas he explains. I have read it thoroughly various times, both in the Portuguese translations and in the English original, always with pleasure and finding new stimulus to think.