The negative reviews of this work are unjustified as they normally pick on one thing they don't like and judge the whole by it - exactly the kind of narrow mindedness the author was trying to get away from.
The claims that he is arrogant and superior do not hold up either. We all treat others badly at times and well at other times, and the so called arrogance people accuse Pirsig of is nothing of the sort. He is simply honest enough not to pretend he is always a good person. More honesty like this from the holier than thou critics would be welcome, instead of displaying even more arrogant dismissal than they accuse Pirsig of.
Forget the details of the journey itself. It's not about that. This is one man's story about how he tried desperately to understand what led him to lose his mind in the first place, all those years ago, reasoning that if he cannot work out how he lost his mind he cannot prevent it happening again. I cannot find any fault with that since it is only by understanding past mistakes that we can fix them, or not make them again.
This process is hampered by the lasting effects of the disgusting shock treatment he was forced to undergo, which has left gaps in his memory, damaged his mind and personality and now, thankfully, has been outlawed as the barbaric butchery it really is.
It's also about his attempts to rediscover his relationship with his son and his fears for his future, since he has missed his son growing up due to his incarceration in a mental institution, where he was faced with people who would rather burn out his brain than be of any real help to him.
For anyone, including myself, who has not been through this reprehensible process, they are not really in a position to criticise his thinking. The negative reviews seem to forget that he went through this terrible treatment, which they have not been through, and fail to take into account that the fact he can think at all after such a horror is an achievement, let alone to the depth in this book, and treat his views as if they came from an able bodied person with a sound mind.
If I, or anyone else, had ever been through such an ordeal I doubt if they would always be good to others either. His criticisms of his friends come from the realisation that details matter, and failing to pay attention to them can lead you to make mistakes, something he does not want others to do as he knows how painful the consequences of doing so can be. At no time does he come across as all knowing or smug in his opinions, and where he treats others badly he is honest enough to say so - as a warning to others, not as an attempt to say he is better than them. If he did not care about his friends he would not care about the mistakes they are making, but he does care. Deeply.
Far from being arrogant and superior, what really comes through is Pirsig's genuine fear of losing his mind again, the terror of a second bout of insanity. It's a palpable fear that anyone who has never had doubts about themselves simply cannot comprehend, and it is heartbreaking to read the story of someone that the system has not only failed but actively tried to silence in his hour of need. The mind is the most precious possession we have. If we lose that, we lose everything, none of our other possessions or achievements mean a thing. Not one damn thing.
Far from being pompous, it comes across as a desperate attempt to keep his sanity by someone who is absolutely terrified of the alternative. Does a man who lives in permanent fear of losing his mind again really come across as arrogant and superior? Would they be so desperate to avoid previous pitfalls as he is? Really? Think about that for a moment. Wouldn't someone who genuinely thought themselves to be superior think their mind was just fine? People like that never think they are wrong, yet Pirsig questions himself every step of the way. Pride comes before a fall, and that's the message here. Whether you agree with my conclusions or not don't make the same mistakes I did, that is what he is saying. Enthusiasm for a subject and the desire to study it is a good thing, but not when it leads to obsession and mental illness.
As for those who have criticised it for not being about Zen or Motorcycle Maintenance - oh dear - he explicitly says it isn't at the start of the book, so criticising something for being what it explicitly says it is not is just stupid. It's like criticising Football because it's not about Tennis. It's just a title. Lots of books have titles which have little to do with their content, or have only the most tenuous connection to it, so why pick on this one? It's exactly the kind of lazy thinking the book tries to discourage, clearly lost on such "critics", whose lazy putting down of this book would not pass muster as a grade school philosophy essay.
Similarly, those who criticise him for being wrong about Plato, Buddhism or anything else are missing the point. Philosophy by its nature is qualitative and subjective, so it's all about opinion and discussion of different ideas, even those one does not agree with, as opposed to merely rejecting out of hand anything you don't like the sound of. It's about consideration of the things we take for granted, which everyone could benefit from doing more of. Most of the criticisms I have ever seen are from people quibbling over semantics, without any real substance to them. For me, if he makes any mistakes at all, it is by trying to quantify what is by its very nature qualitative. It's like trying to get a definitive definition of "what is art". It will always be different things to different people, that's the point. Yet somewhere in all of that we all have our own ideas about what quality is, and this is what he investigates.
So he thrashes out a system for thinking that works for him. It may not work for you or me, and that's fine too. It's what philosophy is about, not criticising any particular idea, but using it to develop ideas of your own.
It's not about whether you agree with him or not. It's not about whether his personal philosophy agrees with yours or not. It's a testament to the fact that someone who has been treated so shabbily by the so called mental health authorities has anything left to think with, after what they did to him. Pirsig comes up with a way of reconciling his past with his present and his future, and shares that with the rest of us. If it helps others, great. If it doesn't, ok. Nobody is forced to read it and even if they are, they are not forced to accept it. They are merely asked to understand it.
Open your mind when you read this and accept that it is not compulsory for the rest of the world to share his opinion, or yours. This is a story of how one man struggled to get over himself and his obsessions. A lesson his critics, and indeed many of us, have yet to learn.
Recommended to anyone who does not treat their own thoughts as any kind of ultimate truth.
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I read this book a long time ago and it still has as much meaning today. How to paint a perfect picture he asks? - become a perfect person, he then says. Well he has written a pretty perfect book!
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