Caution:This book is incredibly frustrating from the point of
view of entertainment. But here is a point to be considered, by
entertainment I mean the kind of entertainment you get when you read
SideneySheldon, Ludlum or anyother commercialwriter.
The book is not a fiction and the same time one cannot regard
it is a nonfiction because it is a thriller in its own way.To explain
in my own words and understanding ’’Zen and the art of Motorcycle
Maintenance’’ is a book that combines spirituality and science in one.
Zen signifies spirituality and motorcycle signifies science.
To write a review on this book would be the most difficult task
, about which I have discovered after I have started writing the review
.But I cannot go back now, actually I can but I donot want to. I will try
my best.
To proceed further I thought its better to stop a while and
answer some questions.
Why do we write reviews on Mouthshut.com?
One may say that we write reviews to help people decide about a
product by providing the critical analysis of a product.
Why do we need to read a review before buying a product?
The question may sound silly.But when I am need to buy
something why can’t I just go and buy that thing from the first shop I
comeacross.
Nobody does that because there are somany products which serve
the same purpose and we need to deicde which one to buy.
So essentially we are looking at the quality of the many
products that are avialable.
The book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenace essentially
talks about Quality.
To explain about quality in Pirsig’ words...
’’Quality -- you know what it is, yet you don’t know what it is. But
that’s self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that
is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality
is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There’s
nothing to talk about. But if you can’t say what Quality is, how do you
know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one
knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn’t exist at
all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. What else are
the grades based on? Why else would people pay fortunes for some things
and throw others in the trash pile? Obviously some things are better
than others -- but what’s the ’’betterness’’? -- So round and round you
go, spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get
traction. What the hell is Quality? What is it?’’
The book starts as a narration of a motorcycle trip undertaken
by a father and his son. But as the book progresses Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance becomes a personal and philosophical journey
into fundamental questions of how to live and why to live.The craft of
motorcycle maintenance suddenly becomes an art in the words of Pirsig.
As Pirsig states in the book ’’’’Quality is the continuous
stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in
which we live’’ isn’t it true that Quality is what moves us forward.
Why do we need an option to rate the review at Mouthshut.com?
Why do we write review at Mouthshut.com?
Quality is the answer.Isn’t it?
For anyone with an interest in the questions of life, this is a
good read.
This book is a classic and like all classics it happens that
you generally wont like to read but when somebody talks about it you do
want to be the one who read it. It happens to everybody and happened
even to me. When I read this book for the first time I didn’t
understand the concepts completely.But I am reading the book for the
third time and things are slowly getting into my mind.Its not an easy
read as I cautioned you in the beggining.
But there are certain moments in the book that I have felt a
kind of strange feeling .After reading ceratin lines I stopped for a
while and thought about those things and moved further reading the book
also in my life.
Do read it and understand it.