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Message from Dean - May 8th 2007
I am currently testing out a new version of the APF Bridge Component - If you notice any errors within this demo store please drop me a line.
Amazon.ca's Price: CDN$ 8.99 Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.30492092
EAN: 9780060589462
Edition: Reprint
ISBN: 0060589469
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Number Of Pages: 560
Publication Date: April 06, 2006
Publisher: Harper
Studio: Harper
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Editorial Review:
From Amazon.com:
Arguably one of the most profoundly important essays ever written on the nature and significance of "quality" and definitely a necessary anodyne to the consequences of a modern world pathologically obsessed with quantity. Although set as a story of a cross-country trip on a motorcycle by a father and son, it is more nearly a journey through 2,000 years of Western philosophy. For some people, this has been a truly life-changing book.
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
This book is for the philosophically inclined, and somehow I never quite got into it. I found myself enjoying the events in the book (especially the traveling), rather than the abstractions and ponderings of the author. However, it's probably a classic for the latter items rather than the former. I can see why people like it so much, and it is very well written and timeless, but it's not my cup of tea. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.
Rating:  -
Great book. Not what you're thinking it's about. Love it. If I were to draw a timeline of philosophy with two markers, one marker would be the works of Plato and Aristotle, which placed Truth at the top of the heap (a proposition which forms the basis of western scientific thinking); the other marker would be Pirsig's work, which places Good at the top and Truth second. Pirsig had an insight into the Quality Relationship. Just as an eye cannot see itself, the Quality Relationship is very difficult to see because it is the means by which seeing (in the intellectual sense) takes place. Even the purest scientific truth passes into the mind of its discoverer on a rail established by the Quality Relationship. The implication is that all truth is personal and subjective, even widely accepted scientific truths. That acceptance exists in the minds of many individuals, each of whom is motivated to receive the information and judge it against scientific criteria. The motivation rests on the Quality ... Read More
Rating: -
It's taken me more than twenty years to get around to reading this gem of a book. It was always something I'd plan to read but never got around to doing it. Pirsig offers us insights into why we exist and how we can share that existence with others. The story involves Pirsig doing a cross-country motorcycle trek through the western USA with his son, Chris. While this might come across as just another desperate attempt of a parent to bond with a child before he becomes a teen, the journey is much more. Acting as a philosopher-traveler, Pirsig uses a lot of life's little circumstances to draw his son's attention to the bigger purpose in life: knowing why you exist through making sense of and resolving problems. This quest is as much about feeling liberated to ask the questions as it is to be at peace in knowing that there are no simple answers but just a lot more questions. The mountains of Montana is a great setting for Pirsig to work some of the major issues of life. Take the opportunity to ... Read More
Rating:  -
Ugh. This book can't decide what it wants to be. Every time you get interested in a topic (and this book does contain some interesting topics from the travel narrative to some of the ideas expressed) it switches over to another topic before resolving anything. This is incredibly frustrating from the point of view of entertainment. Does this book want to be a novel and flow like one, or a middle-brow discussion of contemporary worldviews, or a amateur philosophy thesis? It suceeds only in being a very long and slow 400+ pages of several seperate books thrown together with minimal integration.
Rating:  -
I have never taken a philosophy course, so I will admit that having taken one might have better prepared me for this journey. It starts out very intriguing--both the physical motorcycle journey, and the narrarator's discussion of technology and art. Then, when we get up into "high country," I found myself completely lost. I have a bachelor's degree in English, so I think of myself as fairly intelligent. But perhaps it is like his analogy to reading Walden: you have to pause after every sentence and let it set in. It's just that if I did that, it would take me years to get through this book. Some wonderful ideas, but this book is definitely not light reading.
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