59 pages • 1 hour read
Robert M. PirsigZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part I
Chapter 1 Summary
The chapter begins with a group of friends traveling through the Central Plains toward the Dakotas on motorcycle. Though the narrator is usually accompanied by his wife on these trips, he is traveling with his 11-year-old son, Chris, along with the narrator’s friends, John Sutherland and his wife, Sylvia. They have been on so many rides together in the past that the couple and the narrator communicate with and understand each other through body language alone. Though the ride brings back memories for the narrator, he is aware that the others cannot understand the deep-seated emotions he has for the scenery and journey. The narrator also explains how different it is to witness the land from the viewpoint of a motorcycle rather than the boxed-in view of a car. Like watching TV, a person is simply a passing observer in a car. On a motorcycle, “you’re in the scene (5),” not watching it.
Though traveling to Montana, the group’s plans are indefinite. They travel by smaller roads as opposed to busy, impersonal ones, placing emphasis more on “enjoying good times” rather than simply “making good time.” People along the small roads seem to be more courteous and have time to be in the here-and-now, as opposed to those who have moved to the city. The narrator notes that most people go through life in a hurried state, and that because of this monotony, people hardly speak to one another. As he now has the time to think and focus, he wants to give a Chautauqua (a talk), like the ones given in traveling tent shows once upon a time in America. With a Chautauqua, he can discuss important things in depth. Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced forms of communication, which the narrator posits as the reason for the faster-paced stream of national consciousness, and the reason it now runs less deeply.
The narrator’s Chautauqua is inspired by John and Sylvia and the disharmony between them. It is something that neither is to be blamed for, but yet without a solution. Though the narrator does not have a solution, he has a few ideas as to what might be bothering the couple. The ideas begin with his and John’s differing opinions on motorcycle maintenance. The narrator believes in knowing one’s machine and being responsible for its maintenance, whereas John believes in leaving the maintenance to a competent mechanic. Whenever the two broach this subject, all communication breaks down. The narrator is intent on understanding what the root of this communication breakdown is, but the more he probes, the angrier John becomes, which in itself seems to be symptomatic of some deeper issue. The issue seems to be with technology itself. The couple suppresses the need for technology and its overwhelming grasp. Their trips to the country are to get away, and so when the narrator brings up motorcycle maintenance, it reminds them of technology. More importantly, it seems, they are annoyed at what drives technology, the unnamable “it” that technology comes from and is a part of.
The narrator notes that the couple is not alone in its annoyance with technology. Entire movements are dedicated to fighting against it. The narrator disagrees with the couple on their flight from technology. He believes it is self-defeating, as the Buddha is present in all things. To think differently from this is to demean the Buddha, and thus oneself. This, above all, is what the Chautauqua is meant to address.
Chapter 2 Summary
The narrator is happy to be on the road again. He is also happy that Sylvia is traveling with them, as John initially thought the discomfort of the trip might be too much for her, and so planned on having her fly into Billings. The narrator hopes to show Sylvia the beauty of Montana, as he thinks it will ease her city-induced depression.
As the narrator is lost in memory, John pulls the group over. Though the stop annoys the narrator, he is more annoyed to learn from John and Sylvia that he has missed their turn. He drove right past the sign without noticing anything. In the end, they decide to keep going rather than turning back. This oversight, along with the fact that the narrator has forgotten to tell the group about a storm he saw approaching earlier, are unsettling events.
Continuing along, the narrator thinks back to instances when maintaining his own motorcycle did not seem important, an attitude reminiscent of John’s. One such instance caused his motorcycle to malfunction and ruin a trip for him and Chris. On another occasion, the motorcycle kept seizing up. As he did not want to get involved with the nuts and bolts of maintenance, he took the motorcycle to a shop. The shop, however, was different than those he had remembered from earlier days. All the mechanics were young and seemed disinterested in their jobs and duties. They appeared to be simply passing time. They knew nothing about motorcycles and only made matters worse, actually damaging his motorcycle in the process of trying to fix it. This revelation led to the narrator taking full control of his own motorcycle maintenance.
The attitude of the mechanics is another reason for the narrator wanting to give the Chautauqua. He wants to look into why they treated the motorcycle as they did, summing it up to passive observance on their part. They were not running away from technology, like John and Sylvia. They were proponents of it, and yet they were spectators, uninterested. All of these revelations caused the narrator to realize that there is no real manual for motorcycle maintenance, that everything written already, as well as the people either writing it or working with the technology behind it, are all uninvolved spectators.
With this passiveness evident in every fiber of society, the narrator wishes to explore the separation between what man is and what he does. He believes that understanding the reason for the separation might help in understanding the overall plight of the twentieth century.
Chapter 3 Summary
The storm is quickly approaching, and the group has decided to drive as fast as they can, and for as long as they can, until the storm forces them to seek shelter. Though the narrator signals for the group to speed up, he begins having flashbacks as the thunder hits the road and slows down. Chris yells at him to speed up, but he trusts his instinct to slow down and continues at a slow pace. As they drive to meet up with John and Sylvia, the narrator mentions that “he” has been on this road before, in this town, and has seen the same things they are now witnessing. The “he” is not identified, but unnerves the narrator, which the others can sense when they reach town. The narrator cannot remember how or why he recalls the particular hotel or how he knew where to find it.
As the group sits in the hotel courtyard, the narrator’s son, Chris, wants them all to tell ghost stories. No one but Chris remembers any, however. When Chris asks the narrator if he believes in ghosts, the narrator says no, then backtracks when he sees that Chris is disappointed, and finally tries to explain the existence of ghosts from a scientific standpoint. The narrator believes modern man has his own ghosts, such as logic and the laws of physics. These concepts all exist inside the mind, and as such, are just like the medieval or religious understanding of ghosts.
The narrator goes on to discuss Isaac Newton and how the laws of gravity are presumed to have existed before him. But if these laws—these concepts—existed before thought or even before being given a name, what then, does it mean to not exist? Is nonexistence even possible? The narrator comes to the conclusion that the laws did not exist before Newton, which therefore means that laws only exist in the minds of men. He then explains how all of these theories that originate in the mind are passed down and accepted by mankind through mass hypnosis, in institutions such as universities and churches.
As the group gets ready for bed, Chris again asks the narrator if he has ever met a real ghost, not the “idea” ghost he was speaking of earlier with the group. The narrator, wanting only to sleep, finally admits that he knew someone who searched his entire life for a ghost, named Phaedrus, and “thrashed him good” when he found him, then became a ghost himself. Chris eventually goes to sleep and the narrator is left with his thoughts of Phaedrus, how Phaedrus had been on the same route as they are now taking. The narrator comes to the conclusion that Phaedrus’s presence now is a result of him using Phaedrus’s ideas—all the ideas and theories he has been discussing up until this point.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first three chapters paint a picture of the landscape the group is journeying through, both physically and intellectually, paralleling past thoughts and events with intellectual insights from the narrator. A glimpse of each character is given, though no one person is detailed. Even Phaedrus, the shadowy character, is hinted at, though at this point all the reader knows is that he has some significance in the narrator’s past.
The narrator explains his purpose in relating these thoughts. He wants to give a Chautauqua, which is an old manner of speaking about important matters in detail. A motorcycle ride is the perfect environment for a Chautauqua. By using this form of delivery and by highlighting the fear that the Sutherlands have of technology, the narrator paints a picture of a bygone society that once held meaning and balance, but that is now running form some unknowable entity. The worst part, perhaps, is that no one seems to know what they are running from. John’s actions indicate this, but to a larger extent, indicate that he does not want to know what he is running from. With the talk, the narrator hopes to investigate the schism at the heart of all the discontent, in order to better understand technology. This schism, this dualistic rendering of the world, needs to be addressed in detail to understand matters.
At the end of the section, Phaedrus makes an appearance and the reader finds that all of the ideas the narrator has been putting forth are Phaedrus’, and that the narrator has not had an original idea in years. That the narrator is so shaken by Phaedrus’s presence that he does not let on to anyone else about his plight.
