This is, I believe, the fourth time I have read Pirsig's famous work. This, in and of itself, is a bit of an admission. For some reason, the association ZAMM has with a sort-of soft-headed way of thinking about the world (which a find entirely undeserved), compounded with its ubiquity, makes any reference to it within certain circles guaranteed to emit groans and eye-rolls. With that in mind I often feel the need to defend the work more than is probably warranted. Thus I will stick to this: having read it numerous times, I can comfortably say that each time I recognize some new aspect that I had heretofore glossed over. Each new discovery deepens the experience of the work and perhaps this is the highest compliment literature can receive.When I re-read ZAMM it is usually with a specific purpose in mind. This time I was in the throes of writing an extended paper on the relationship between science, society and the non-human world and specifically wanted to get an infusion of a certain type of rhetoric. What I had, apparently, forgotten, is that the entire work is specifically a treatise of and concerning rhetoric. What jumped out at me more clearly this time were notions of the rhetoritician as someone equipped to deal with the world and even him or herself. When Pirsig describes piece of mind, or that idea that, in the end the cycle you are working on is called yourself, he is talking about the ability to nurture points of view and thus ways of living.
Though the work was ostensibly born out of a the dissatisfaction of spirit with a certain time, it has lost none of its immediacy and relevance. Perhaps because the ideas put forward rest at the intersection between the good life of an individual and society it may never lose this immediacy: by situating his concerns in a depth of history Pirsig ensures that we can see the connections of our life and his.
If nothing else the book always stirs reflection, and, for those so inclined, this reflection pierces quite deeply into aspects seen as central to how we live our lives. Unquestionably Pirsig's work has, and continues to, motivate and stir me. Its re-reading has given it the added feeling of an old friend, one that is of a decidedly impeccable quality.
