The study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. Working on a motorcycle , working well , caring , is to become part of a process , to achieve an inner peace of mind. The motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon.
A cult book , it became immensely popular when it was first released in the 70s. The novel begins with the author and his son touring the countryside on their motorcycle with some friends . And slowly the author begins to talk about things - things which seem important to him. Why are we in such a desparate hurry all the time ? Why are people running away from technology , feeling nostalgic about the good old days ? Most importantly , why have we stopped caring about our work , about what we do - like the way a careless mechanic manhandles a motorcycle ? What is Quality , he wondered ? These are the questions that bothered a man called Phaedrus who was a very intelligent person extremely well versed with reason and logic. He spent the greater part of his life trying to answer these questions , trying to get to the root of the problem , in pursuit of , as the author puts it , the ghost of rationality itself. He became so involved with this that he was expelled from the University at the age of 17 for falling grades. He spent the next few years drifting from one job to another , one place to another , passing through Korea and even spending a few years in India. Disillusioned , he returned home and gave up his search to lead a normal life.
Later for some reason he shifted to Bozeman , Montana as a English teacher. And one day , a chance encounter with a colleague who remarked - I hope you are teaching Quality this quarter - started off the search again. This is one of the most interesting parts of the book - the interactions with the students , his experiments of withholding grades for a full year , his exercises to the students to write a full length essay about the back of their thumbs - to resolve the problem of stuckness and so on.
It is not an easy book to go through but you will get a good introduction to Western philosophical thought , to the questions that plague everyone at some point of time . It is not a book that provides any kind of answers but it provokes you to think more deeply about the questions. The reason this book became such a cult book is the way it uses the mechanics behind a motorcycle and its maintenance - something which everyone can relate to - to talk about deeper issues of life itself. Phaedrus switches back and forth between motorcycle maintenance and philosophy to express his ideas. And it works beautifully.
I think the best way to sum up the book would be to quote these lines at the end between the author and his son :
Can I have a motorcycle when I get old enough ?
If you take care of it .
What do you have to do ?
Lots of things. You’ve been watching me.
Will you show me all of them ?
Sure.
Is it hard ?
Not if you have the right attitudes . It’s having the right attitudes that is hard.
Oh.
Dad ?
What ?
Will I have the right attitudes ?
I think so. I don’t think that will be any problem at all.
Yes , in a way , that is right. Everything will be alright if more people start having the right attitudes. And what is the right attitude ? Now that is a difficult question .
Maybe you should read the book.
And what is good , Phaedrus , and what is not good . Need we ask anyone to tell us these things ? ---Socrates.