Experiential Connection

          The narrator of this story has so far created two parallel plot lines, one describing his experiences as his former personality (before being psychologically cured), and the other following his cross-country motorcycle trip through the northern states. While I don't have much personal experience with schizophrenic alter egos, I can relate with the narrator's enjoyment of nature and love of exploring, which is a central theme of his journey.
          As his ride takes him into the mountains of Montana, the narrator expresses a positive shift in mood and tone. The group has gotten through the uninteresting Dakota flat-lands and is making their way into the beauty of the Yellowstone region. The narrator describes a change is atmosphere as they progress, saying he knew they were near the mountains not be seeing them, but by a quality of the air. "There's mountain air in the room," he says, "It's cool and moist and almost fragrant." He can sense the closeness of pure nature by the way it makes him feel, and his anticipation to be surrounded by it overwhelms him. It seems as though his spirits increase with the elevation.
          I found this expression of aesthetic appreciation relatable to my own experiences. When I go on hiking trips (mainly in the White Mountains of New Hampshire), I also find myself noticing an atmospheric and mental shift as I approach the destination. Realistically, this may be a result of improved air quality in this less urbanized area, but I believe this is also a product of relieved stress from, and personal enjoyment of nature and it's pureness. In this sense I found agreement with the authors feelings in the story.

Rhetoric of Dialogue

          When discussing his philosophical ideas, the narrator often uses basic logic to explain his complex views. At one point, as the group (the narrator, his son Chris, and their friends John and Sylvia) are sitting around a camp fire telling ghost stories. Chris asks the narrator if he believes in ghosts and he thinks about it and finally agrees that ghosts do exist. He then uses a sequence of rational thoughts to prove their existence. The conversation goes as follows:

          "It's completely natural," I say, "to think of Europeans who believed in ghosts or Indians who believed in ghosts as ignorant. The scientific point of view has wiped out every other view to a point where they all seem primitive, so that if a person today talks about ghosts or spirits he is considered ignorant or maybe nutty. It's just all but completely impossible to imagine a world where ghosts can actually exist."

          John nods affirmatively and I continue.

          "My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn't that superior. IQs aren't that much different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within the context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real at atoms, particles, photons, and quants are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know."

          "What?"

          "Oh, the laws of physics and of logic...the number system...the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real."

          "They seem real to me," John says.

          "I don't get it," says Chris.

          So I go on. "For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity."

          "Of course."

          "So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"

          John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at.

          " What I am driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and that stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."

          "Sure."

          "Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere - this law of gravity still existed?"

          Now John seems not so sure.

          "If that law of gravity existed," I say, " I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me the law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannon think of a single attribute of nonexistence that the law of gravity didnt have. Or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. And yet it is still 'common sense' to believe that it existed."

          John says, " I guess I'd have to think about it."

          "Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.

          "And what they means," I say before he can interrupt, "and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It's a ghost! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other people's ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own."

          The narrator's primary technique of persuasion is the use of logic to make a connection and prove and idea. Throughout the book so far, a reoccurring topic of emphasis for the author has been rational thought and its context in the human mind. In this passage, the narrator deliberately uses pure logic and rationality to come to an irrational conclusion. He does this to show the fault in rational human thought and how easily it can misguide an individual. 

Rhetoric of Zen

          Throughout Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig uses rhetoric to convey his philosophical ideas to the reader in a comprehensive and accessible way. His primary techniques are the use of metaphor and figurative language to simplify certain things. In part one, he frequently elaborates on topics such as technology, science, and even human consciousness. He calls these moments of reflection "Chautauquas", the name given to traveling tent-shows that sought to educate and entertain american audiences throughout the early 20th century. One such monologue, in which he attempts to explain the different ways people view the world, is especially packed with metaphor and figurative language. Pirsig writes,

          "The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something that everybody does. All the time we are aware of millions of things around us - these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road - aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful and sand the world."

         Pirsig uses figurative language and imagery to present his idea about human consciousness, using the overarching example of his motorcycle trip for specific references. After further explaining his thought, he goes on to summarize what he is saying with a metaphor. He likens a person's potential for awareness to an "endless landscape" and compares their personal consciousness to a handful of sand that they chose to pick up. In this way the author is able to convey a heavy topic in a way that the reader can easily understand, allowing the reader to indulge in the author's thought process on a simpler level.

Part 1 Summary

          Before summarizing what I have read so far in this book it is first important to understand the nature of the story in general. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, author Robert Pirsig transcends the labels of genre and creates a unique voice of his own. Although published as a novel, Zen is truly a semi-autobiography that focuses heavily on personal philosophical thought. It creates a thin, sometimes indistinguishable line between the fiction and non-fiction within. This is clearly the intention of Pirsig and it makes for a particular tone that is very interesting and enjoyable to read.
          The story begins with, and revolves around a motorcycle trip taken by the unnamed narrator and his 11-year-old son, Chris. They are accompanied by two longtime friends, John and Sylvia Sutherland. They begin their trip in Minneapolis, Minnesota and ride across the northern United States, through the Dakotas and into Montana. The narration of the trip is often discoursed with soliloquies of personal reflection on philosophy of values. According to the narrator, some of his views of the world differ dramatically from those of the Sutherlands. He uses the idea of motorcycle maintenance as a simplified analogy of ways to view the world. The narrator himself himself rides an old beat up bike and takes meticulous care of the machine, teaching himself how to maintain and repair it. John and Sylvia on the other hand had recently bought a newer, more expensive motorcycle and go to great lengths to avoid fixing it themselves, only trusting such a machine to trained professionals. The narrator likens this difference in opinion to world views on a grand scale. While the Sutherlands only appreciate surface value of an object or idea, the narrator appreciates the analytical value; they see what something is, he sees what something means.
          The narrator continues to discuss his philosophical beliefs and goes on to produce some surprisingly deep thoughts which he later admits are not his own, but belong to an individual by the name of Phaedrus. Phaedrus is introduced as an obscure man who no longer exists. As we read on, it is revealed by the narrator that Phaedrus and himself were two personalities who wore the same body. The narrators recalls waking up in a psychiatric hospital and being informed that he "has a new personality". Although he has never met Phaedrus, as they had existed at different times, the narrator does possess many memories and ideas from his former self. As they group rides through one specific town in Montana, the narrator has a strange recognition of the place, though he does not recall ever being there. He knows that he has in fact not been there, but that Phaedrus has. The narrator is especially bothered by the fact that the body he now possesses was the former home of another personality and because of this fact, he knows he can never escape Phaedrus.
          This book so far has been one of the more compelling books I have ever read. Although the plot is deliberately foggy and much of the content is overwhelmingly profound, I find myself anxious to continue reading as I know I will uncover an incredible story. It is especially interesting to attempt to decipher the truth that lay within. I have found much of the events that the author describes to be factually based. Just as Phaedrus is described as intellectually advanced, Pirsig himself was especially smart from a young age, with an IQ of 170. Furthermore, Pirsig was diagnosed with schizophrenia and cured through electroconvulsion, much like the treatment the narrator underwent to rid himself of his alter ego.

An Inquiry into the Author

When selecting my book for this independent reading project, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  was not my first choice. I originally wanted to read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer because I had read his other books and appreciate his writing. Fortunately for me though, my good friend Ben Parsons selected that book before me I was able to settle on Zen, which in hindsight, I prefer. Although the book itself is one of the more lengthy reading options, weighing it at 430 pages, and although the plot seems to be a little obscure on the surface, I believe I am going to enjoy this story thoroughly. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is held as a classic by it's many readers and is even my father's favorite book. I have read and heard only positive things about it and am excited to continue reading it.
The author of this book, Robert Pirsig, is a very interesting man in his own right. From an early age it was evident that he would go on to do great things. With an elevated IQ of 170, Pirsig graduated high school at age 15 in 1943. After failing out of college due to "philosophical differences" with his professors, he served in the army for two years, stationed in south Korea. He would return to finish his degree in eastern philosophy at the University of Montana. In 1961, while teaching a writing course, Pirsig suffered a mental breakdown and was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and treated with elextroconvulsive therapy. He spent a minority of the next two years in a psychiatric hospital. After writing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 1974, Pirsig became reclusive and solitary. However, he seemed as though he could not stay in one place. Since 1980, he has taken up residence in numerous European countries including Norway, Belgium, and England.