Bill's Reading List

[billdo1]

8) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, Robert M. Pirsig (1974). I had always wanted to read 1970s classic (though I'm not sure how much of my interest was based on its catchy title, one of most intriguing in recent publishing history), but hadn't picked it up before now. One thing that I had never realized was

Comments

[jadis]

This pretty much sums up how I felt after reading this book as well. Everyone I'd ever heard talk about it raved, so I had high expectations. As it turns out, none of the philosophical concepts touched on in the book were anything new to me...in fact, most of them were familiar to me from the course material for a sort of self-help program that I used to teach at work. Eh. I wasn't impressed, and the whole Phaedrus thing seemed really overwrought to me.

[billdo1]

I haven't had really any formal philosophy training, and his expression concepts seemed just a bit glib to me, perhaps inevitably in the context.

I wonder how much of the self-help program you taught was informed directly or indirectly by Zen.

I also wonder how much of Phaedrus aspects of the "autobiography" is accurate.