Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The picture is me in 1973, two years before I found the book, I was on one of my two trips out west on a Yamaha 250, which like the author, Robert Pirsig, I insisted doing all my own maintenance. Just a coincidence?

I'm not going to call this a book review, because it was such a strange experience reading this book. It was like somebody had written the book that I should have written, then planted the book where I would find it. I also found it incredible that anyone but me would ever want to read it. I did not know at the time it was already a bestseller, or that 20 years later my children would come to read it as part of their high school literature program. And that 40 years later (today) people are retracing his route on their motorcycles in a kind of religious pilgrimage.

The author admits that he knows little about Zen or about motorcycles. But more importantly, to me, he took a motorcycle trip out west through Bozeman Montana. Just like I had, the previous summer of 1974. And I had already come to the same conclusion that I was going to do all the maintenance on my own bike by myself. It gave me the same feeling of freedom as it gave him.

Like him, I was a teacher. But I had assumed (incorrectly) that anyone interested in motorcycles would not read this book because of all the philosophical content. And vice versa for the philosophy crowd. Remember back in 1974 there was general hostility to motorcycle culture, and it was shockingly controversial to feature a biker on a TV show like “Happy Days”.

The coincidences with my life were more than enough to get me to read it even if the entire book had been garbage, but it wasn't. In relation to the motorcycle I understood perfectly what Robert Pirsig was putting into words.

When I first picked up this book in 1975, I had never even heard of it before. I was looking through a rack of paperbacks in a variety store in Northern Quebec, so I was surprised to find a book in English, let alone about motorcycle maintenance. I bought it immediately and couldn't wait to start reading.

I will confess to skipping heavier sections on philosophy the first time through. Later, I came back to read it again, determined to understand all of it if possible.

I would like to do an analysis, not of the content of the book, but of Pirsig's motivation in writing it. I doubt that he started with the desire to write a philosophy book sugar coated with a motorcycle narrative. It seems to me the motorcycle was what inspired Pirsig to write this book. Zen and the inquiry into quality came later and is there to support the motorcycle narrative. Although in his real life, he may have been interested in philosophy before he discovered the fun of motorcycling.

It was the joy and freedom of being able to do his own maintenance that inspire Pirsig to begin writing the book. After all, a previous trip by motorcycle had ended badly for Robert Pirsig because he lacked the experience to diagnose a dead engine. Then he bought a newer, bigger bike, which in turn developed what seemed to be a terminal problem. At the point where he was almost ready to give up on motorcycling, which he enjoyed immensely (and I can relate to that), he discovered that he could get the bike working all by himself. Pirsig's epiphany came watching a mechanic botch up a valve job on his bike for the umpteenth time. After that, he took the bike home determined that he would figure out how to do it properly himself and succeeded. A very similar experience happened to me and I know the feeling of repairing the bike is even more overwhelming than merely riding. That's why I see motorcycle maintenance as the key to Pirsig's state of mind in writing this book. The scattered philosophical discussions of quality and Zen all grew from the moment when he declared his independence from relying on others to do the work for him. And he discovered he could do better quality work because he cared about it.

Another similarity between Pirsig and me is that both of us think about things a little too much. So instead of just putting the wrenches away after doing a valve job, Pirsig keeps on thinking about it until he has to write a book to get all those ideas out. Well I didn't write a book (not yet) but I have written a lot of stuff on my website.

Here is a link if you want to take a look.