Robert Pirsig, RIP

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Messages 1 - 30 of total 30 in this topic

SteveW

Trad climber

The state of confusion

Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 24, 2017 - 04:22pm PT

Author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A classic read from the '70's. Rest In Peace

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Apr 24, 2017 - 04:46pm PT

Damn, wish he'd written more. If you haven't read Lila, which he wrote thirty years later, then I would very much recommend it...

hobo_dan

Social climber

Minnesota

Apr 24, 2017 - 05:12pm PT

That was about the slowest book I ever read but I liked theidea of the freight train of reality

Craig Fry

Trad climber

So Cal.

Apr 24, 2017 - 05:23pm PT

I'm not a romantic

tradmanclimbs

Ice climber

Pomfert VT

Apr 24, 2017 - 05:45pm PT

tried to read the motorcycle book in my teenage motorcycle days but it was a bit too slow for me...

guido

Trad climber

Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific

Apr 24, 2017 - 06:22pm PT

Didn't he rate funky back road cafes by their calendars?

BrassNuts

Trad climber

Save your a_s, reach for the brass...

Apr 24, 2017 - 06:25pm PT

Great book. I remember reading it in between jaunts on my rice rocket! :-)

NutAgain!

Trad climber

South Pasadena, CA

Apr 24, 2017 - 06:41pm PT

RIP

I read about half of his Zen soon after college, when my life was most subject to suggestions and random fate pushing me in any direction.

The one thing that sticks with me from the book- perhaps something that unintentionally has been an anthem of my life more because of my own nature than because of any conscious pursuit- is the false dichotomy between art and science, between the creative and analytical mind. Being partial to both and not seeing a clear distinction, it has made me feel less in communion with folks who strongly adhere to one camp or the other.

I am curious to go back now and read it again, to see what different points resonate with me at this stage of my life.

yanqui

climber

Balcarce, Argentina

Apr 24, 2017 - 07:37pm PT

Read the "Zen" book in high school and was intrigued. Tried a philosophy class in college and wound up with a great professor (Stephen Scott). He was a living incarnation of Socrates. Ended up majoring in philosphy, taking 90 credits (two full years) of classes from Dr. Scott. In the end I went for a doctorate in pure mathematics because it seemed like the closest thing to philosophy where I might possibly get a job. Climbing and philosophy: the beautiful thing about these activities is you can't jusify them. They don't pretend to be about anything useful (my apologies to Royal Robbins). RIP Robert Pirsig.

Gary

Social climber

Desolation Basin, Calif.

Apr 24, 2017 - 08:05pm PT

but it was a bit too slow for me...

Of course it was, my man, he was riding a Honda 350.

zBrown

Ice climber

Apr 24, 2017 - 08:30pm PT

But what of Mr. Pirsig and, of course, his son?

Hubbard

climber

San Diego

Apr 24, 2017 - 09:24pm PT

Basic thing I took from his Zen book was the perception of quality. What is it that makes one thing better than others. Why is this climb better than that one?

Jaybro

Social climber

Wolf City, Wyoming

Apr 25, 2017 - 06:31am PT

I read both several scrap times. My favorite take away was about riding. In paraphrase; " narrow your focus to the wall, count five bricks from the bottom, thre for on the right. Concentrate on writing about that brick!

RIP and Thanks! I wish there here was a larger body of work to explore! Just what I Asian about the writing of Jim Carroll when he, died..

fear

Ice climber

hartford, ct

Apr 25, 2017 - 06:37am PT

Of course it was, my man, he was riding a Honda 350.

That Honda 350 was a great machine... Had one for a bit in college. Unregistered of course. Fast enough at a time where a CBR900RR would have simply been certain death.

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Apr 25, 2017 - 06:49am PT

Zen was a book of many topics. I was surprised that it was so well received by people. It now seems a book of the times. It touched on many vague issues resonating in popular psyche at that time. The war was still going on, the hippie “revolution” was beginning to wind down, fractioned politics (groups) was beginning to emerge, yuppies would soon to assert their cultural influence, and on and on. Even Zen was becoming a “thing” in the U.S. Pirsig seemed to speak to our anomie.

As a budding academic, the book got me thinking about what I was studying—not the content, but the whole enterprise. He sowed existential doubt in a Kerouac sort of way, but in a new spiritual context.

At this wizened age (ha-ha), I look back on those times and think that so many things offered great promise—and almost every one of them failed, almost miserably.

As my dear mum says: “Oh well.”

kpinwalla2

Social climber

Apr 25, 2017 - 07:29am PT

Read Pirsig in college after strong recommendations from several friends. My take-away was - dude needs to get a life and quit obsessing on stuff that doesn't really matter. Perhaps I need to read it again now that I am slightly more mature to pick up the significance...

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Apr 25, 2017 - 08:14am PT

Loved that book, but I'm not sure why.

Excellent obit in today's LA Times:

...he was hospitalized for an emotional collapse.
"this is described in the psychiatric canon as catatonic schizophrenia. It is cited in the
Buddhist canon as hard enlightenment," he told Britain's Observer newspaper in 2006.

His son was stabbed to death in San Francisco near the Zen center where he lived in 1979.

He only wrote one other book: Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals.

wayne w

Trad climber

the nw

Apr 26, 2017 - 01:58am PT

It was actually a Honda 305 Superhawk that he rode. The 350 came out a bit later.

nah000

climber

no/w/here

Apr 26, 2017 - 03:21am PT

one of a very very few authors that i can positively say changed the way i approached life.

both books opened up significant new ways of perceiving/understanding.

thank you and rip.

Dingus McGee

Social climber

Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace

Apr 26, 2017 - 04:37am PT

The likes of the line I remember most:

The main character in the book says to his academic mentor, "You said, suppose that .... [such and such]

Details ..?

When I work on my semi unique edirtbike I sometimes think of that book with an altered title:

Zen and the Art of Edirtbike Creation:

What to keep of the bike and what needs to be moto like for the ultra edirtbike.

Fine Tuning

For me 18,000 miles of touring the West one summer on a Honda 350 Scrambler.

Dolomite

climber

Anchorage

Apr 26, 2017 - 07:10am PT

Writers take heart in this fact: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 131 times before it found its publisher and audience of millions.

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Apr 26, 2017 - 07:18am PT

Thanks, Reilly. Sad to hear.

Seems like the man and his work was full of contradictions.

Nuglet

Trad climber

Orange Murica!

Apr 26, 2017 - 07:19am PT

'Zen' influenced me as a young person. RIP, hope he found it

Gary

Social climber

Desolation Basin, Calif.

Apr 26, 2017 - 10:25am PT

IIRC, he was a little harsh and unfair to the Sophists.

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Apr 26, 2017 - 10:29am PT

Very funny, Gary, but the Sophists aren't in it for the hugs and kisses.
Or, as J Geils intoned, 'Love Stinks!'

Oplopanax

Mountain climber

The Deep Woods

Apr 26, 2017 - 11:51am PT

Edward Abbey, 197?

When the editors of the late and lamented Mountain Gazette of Denver (probably the best magazine of its kind ever published in America—in fact the only one of its kind) asked me to write a review of Robert Pirsig’s book, I agreed to do it but subcontracted the assignment to Dave Harleyson.

For two reasons: first, I had already written a favorable review of the book for the New York Times—I called it a “splendid psycho-melodrama”—and wasn’t about to praise another writer’s work twice in the same year; second, I thought it appropriate that Pirsig’s much-esteemed and best-selling book be subjected to critical scrutiny by an expert.

My friend Dave is an expert. He’s been a member of the Southern Arizona Road Huns (a motorcycle social club) for fifteen years, makes his living as a dealer, pimp, and freelance mechanic, and has studied the arts of literary composition for two years at the state institution in Florence, Arizona. (Armed robbery, freshman English, aggravated assault.)

I met Dave the first time at the Ranchhouse Bar near Tucson, where he and his fellow Huns often convene on weekday afternoons. Dave is easy to spot: he’s the large red-bearded gentleman at the pool table, a tattoo of a rattlesnake on his left arm, wearing purple shades, a sleeveless shirt, a Levis vest with a dragon embroidered on the back, original blue jeans dark with grease, and black engineer’s boots. You don’t see many of those any more. The fat leather wallet in his hip pocket he keeps chained to his belt.

When I gave him a copy of Zen, etc., to read he seemed at first reluctant—“What’s this sh#t, man?”—but finally consented to take on the job if I kept his name out of the magazine. He was still wanted in Denver at the time. He would write the review, he said, but only for fun, not for money. I had offered him my usual commission: one tenth of 1 percent.

Six months later he produced the review. Good help is hard to find these days. This is what he wrote:

ZAMM

Sorry to have been so f*#king late with this here book report, man, but I been having trouble with my transmission. Can’t get my ass in gear. Haw Haw. This here book Zen and the Art of F*#king Motorcycle Maintenance or I call in ZAMM for short has some interesting things to read about motorcycle maintenance but the trouble is the author don’t give us much technical information about his own machine, just some little hints here and there, so I guess he was riding a Honda “Dream” of before 1970, probly the 250 cc. model, but no motorcycle I ever heard of and I been fooling around with bikes since 1950 needs all the f*#king obsessive, man, obsessive f*#king around with the rear chain and adjusting and oiling that this here Pirsig gives his rear chain. That was a sick bike. Some of his other ideas are funny too, man, like saying a seized-up engine comes from piston expansion caused by too much heat when what he should know is the cause is increased friction due to f*#king lack of oil for chrissake. Too much oil on his chain and not enough in the motor, man. Jesus. There’s lots more theory in ZAMM but not much practical f*#king sense. He uses his bike headlight to light his camp at night to cook his supper and eat, man, but for chrissake with the tiny toy battery on the old Honda that was a dumb f*#king idea, man. Later on this Pirsig writes for ten pages about how to remove a broken screw from the block but not once does he tell you about the simple easy way which is the old Ezi-Out screw remover. In fact as far as I could figure out, man, I don’t think he ever did get that broken f*#king screw out. Also there’s something queer about his trouble-finding method which is he don’t seem to understand that riding his bike from Chicago up into the Rockies in Wyoming and Idaho caused the overrich fuel mixture because of the high altitude which is a beginner’s mistake. He writes a lot about a remedy for engine trouble called Gumption but the only product by that name I ever heard of was something my grandmother bless her holy gash used to clean the kitchen sink with man, back in Perth Amboy, and I wouldn’t tell my worst f*#king enemy, man, to put any of those gunks in his motor. If you take care of your motor you don’t need any f*#king artificial additives for chrissake except gas and oil. Sweet motherf*#king jesus, man. Then he gives up tips on setting up your own home mechanic’s workshop but forgets to tell you that the most important of all which naturally is a f*#king big shade tree in your backyard and a good trained hungry f*#king Doberman attack dog to rip the head off any c*#ks@cking motherf*#ker lays a hand on your tools. The way he uses to judge how tight a bolt is is not very good when he writes that a bolt is either finger-tight or snug or tight. That’s crude, man. Somebody should maybe tell that poor f*#ker about torque wrenches. All in all I’d say though ZAMM has some usefull stuff for you if you are a biker, man, that it is scattered out through too many pages and there’s a lot of fuzzy philosophizing and too much half-assed mystical f*#king ancient history, man, keeps getting in the way of the book as a whole. If you are serious about reading a book about motorcycles you should get a regular service manual for your particular bike and stick to it and if you want a general information book on how to do it with machines, this guy Abbey who hangs around here a lot says a good book is the Velvet Monkey Wrench, and the Guide, man, for the Complete Idiot by John Muir and A Bleak Week at Tinder Creek by Annie Dillard, man, and the Decay of Lying by Oscar Wilde but I ain’t got the time to read any more books myself and don’t recommend any of them.