Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Ron Di Santo, Tom Steele

From the Publisher

When Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was first published in 1974, it caused a literary sensation. An entire generation was profoundly affected by the story of the narrator, his son, Chris, and their month-long motorcycle odyssey from Minnesota to California. A combination of philosophical speculation and psychological tension, the book is a complex story of relationships, values, madness, and, eventually, enlightenment.

Ronald DiSanto and Thomas Steele have spent years investigating the background and underlying symbolism of Pirsig's work. Together, and with the approval of Robert Pirsig, they have written a fascinating reference/companion to the original

Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance serves as a metaphorical backpack of supplies for the reader's journey through the original work. With the background material, insights, and perspectives the authors provide, Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is destined to become required reading for new fans of the book as well as those who have returned to it over the years.

Publishers Weekly

The authors of this gloss on Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance assert that the popular 1974 novel/travelogue/autobiography ``offers the beginnings of a new metaphysical synthesis'' fusing East and West, intuition and reason, aesthetic and technical approaches to life. As they track Pirsig's narrator and his 11-year-old son, Chris, on their road odyssey from Minnesota to San Francisco, DiSanto and Steele (who teach at Regis College in Denver) unload the narrator's philosophical backpack of Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Hindu and Western ideas. Frequent use of the second person singular (``How do you learn to let go?'') lightens their academic discourse, which serves as a thoroughgoing introduction to Pirsig's bestseller. This primer includes reviews of the work and an entire chapter, cut from Pirsig's original manuscript, which puts the relationship between the narrator and his troubled son in a more positive light. (Oct.)

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