The
first thing I learned from Robert Pirsig was that I'm a romantic. A
mildly unsettling discovery as I started reading Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values shortly
after the paperback edition came out in
the
mid-'70s.
I
had assumed romantics were dreamy sappy sorts who loved show tunes
and craved syrup on their stories. Couldn't be me, the cynical Army
vet, digger of Mailer, Jones, the Dead and the Stones. It wasn't
until later, postPirsig, that I read somewhere cynics are
disenchanted romantics, and it resonated.
But
I wasn't there yet when I started Zen
.
My “cynicism” was more unconscious affectation than true, akin to
whistling in the dark with a secret faith in the happy ending. I was
a romantic in disguise from myself.
.
My “cynicism” was more unconscious affectation than true, akin to
whistling in the dark with a secret faith in the happy ending. I was
a romantic in disguise from myself.
Pirsig's
skill at leading me to this reluctant discovery was masterful. It
started with the title. For me, Zen Buddhism was a one-hand-clapping
fad, the kind of esoteria that enabled hipsters to sneer at the Mr.
Joneses for not knowing what was happening. I identified with Mr.
Jones. But paired with something so two-handed as mechanics, and with
the ingenious embellishment of the pragmatic with “art,” the book
felt more than accessible. Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
intrigued me. It didn't hurt that mainstream critics raved about Zen,
lauding
it as, in one review, “profoundly important, disturbing, deeply
moving, full of insights, a wonderful book."
Such
endorsements on top of a sly title sold me the book. Pirsig's voice
did the rest.
