ZAMM Philosophy

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Literally, philosophy means love of wisdom.  A noble goal, to be sure.  I’ve always said that when my life is being celebrated (at least I hope someone will celebrate my life) I would like to be remembered as wise. The dictionary definition of philosophy is different. It is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline. And let me tell you, from my immersion into philosophy this week, there’s nothing at all simple about it. 

I recently pulled off my bookshelf a copy of a book called Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM) by Robert Pirsig.  Written in 1974, I remember the book as being a sensation back in my early college years.  It had quite a following among pseudo-intellectual college students I knew.  I had no interest at all.  But I’m older, more mature, more interested in a whole lot of things I was never interested in before.  When I saw a copy of the book, subtitled An inquiry Into Values (which now intrigues me) for $1.50 in the used bookstore a few months ago, I snatched it.  It’s been sitting, patiently, on my bookshelf, waiting for a time that felt right to tackle it. 

Reviews of the book (on the cover) say…

Well, hell, it sounds like a terribly important book that I should read.  So, I did.

Boy, what a struggle.  I understood the parts about motorcycle maintenance just fine, but, regardless of how intelligent I THINK I am, very little of the rest of the book made sense to me.  Apparently, the author was trying to figure out what QUALITY means.  In an existential sense, I guess.  And it drove him to an insane asylum for a while.  

The whole (painful) experience of (plodding through to finish) reading the book got me to thinking though. 

Why do people feel compelled to delve so deeply into the meaning of things that, often to the exclusion of all else (what is apparently what drove the author into an insane asylum), seem to have no practical purpose in their everyday lives.  At one point I thought maybe the author was hinting that THAT was the actual point of the book…why bother thinking so deeply about these things?  But then he went off to another tangent and I’m not sure.  It seems he was trying to make all that pondering relevant by relating it to motorcycle maintenance.  I understood the motorcycle parts, but I sure didn’t get the Zen of it at all. 

To try to understand the book’s point and its popularity, I went to Amazon and looked at the comments of some of the 12,771 ratings.   (If a book is the most widely read philosophy book, ever, was written 50 years ago, and has less than 13,000 reviews on Amazon, you have to wonder, don’t you?  That doesn’t exactly scream viral in today’s terms, does it?)  

There were a couple of themes in the reviews.  First, many people who gave it 5 stars said they read the book more than once.  Of those, most of them admitted that they didn’t understand it the first time around.  Apparently, I’m in good company.  Rest assured, I won’t read the book again to see if I understand it the next time.  I just don’t care about any point the author was trying to make. Second, people who gave it 3 stars had basically the same impression I did…the parts about the road trip and motorcycle maintenance were interesting, but the rest was gobbledygook. And third, the people who gave it 1 star thought it was (in current popular vernacular) word salad.   Yup…that pretty much says it all.

After Amazon, I checked what Wikipedia had to say to see if that would help me understand.  Wikipedia said this:

I now regret that I lack the expertise in philosophy to put Mr. Pirsig’s ideas to a proper test, for this book may very well be a profoundly important one—a great one even—full of insights into our most perplexing contemporary dilemmas. I just don’t know. But whatever its true philosophical worth, it is intellectual entertainment of the highest order.
Since then, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has become the best-selling philosophy book of all time.

Christopher lehmann-Haupt, The New york times, in a review at the time of publication

Sounds like Mr Lehmann-Haupt summed up the thoughts of the 121editors and publishing houses that rejected the manuscript before one lone editor (according to the book’s Afterword), gave Pirsig a $3,000 advance because “the book forced him to decide what he was in publishing for.”  Except the part about being intellectual entertainment of the highest order.  I don’t get that at all.  Reading the dang thing was mostly pure drudgery.

It’s been 50 years, and I still don’t get it.  And, I’m incredulous that it had (also from the book’s Afterword) “astonishing reviews, best-seller status, magazine interviews, radio and TV interviews, movie offers, foreign publication, endless offers to speak and fan mail—week after week, month after month.”  (Buy hey, it was the 70s.)  The movie never got made. There are still interviews with the author, from 1974, on YouTube.  I’m not linking them here because I haven’t yet watched them (and maybe never will) so I can’t comment on them. 

As with so many things in life, I can say I did it, even though I didn’t like it very much.  It’s kind of like eating oysters, in my opinion.  I did that a year or two ago and won’t ever do that again either. 

I’m not giving up on the love of wisdom though.  Even if, someday, I’m going to have to slog through another book on philosophy.

P.S.  I usually read 2 books at once, 1 that’s important and informational (not enjoyable) and 1 for enjoyment.  Last week I read Estrogen Matters, recommended by my medical oncologist, and ZAMM.  Which means I missed out on all the reading enjoyment.  This week I plan to read 5 “beach read” novels for pure pleasure to make up for it.  Any recommendations?