[donquichotte]

I had a similar experience.

Reading secondary literature gave me some context about Pirsig's own mental illness and his struggles overcoming his son's death, but in the end I was still disappointed.

Edit: Also, it's not about motorcycles at all. If you are interested in motorcycle travel, read Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels instead.

[randcraw]

I really wanted to like JT. But Simon is a poor writer who wanders as much on the page as he did on his bike. An an author he's no comparison with Pirsig who had much more to say than merely, "I went somewhere and saw something."

Better books on motorcycling are "Long Way Round" by McGregor and Boorman or anything by Peter Egan.

Pirsig's ZatAoMM is my all-time favorite book, though I didn't finish it at first reading. The trick before reading it is not to put the book into a cubbyhole of personal preexisting expectations. It's not a travel book. It's a personal journey of discovery that just happens to be on a motorcycle. Essentially, Pirsig's bike trip is a metaphor to revisit his fragmented past and forgotten identity through the lens of a curious mind. It's a personal quest to know who he is (and was) and what in life has value that lasts.

For me, the book was transcendent.

[nicbou]

I read Jupiter's Travels right after. It's indeed a much better book about motorcycle travel. It's a very accurate depiction of what it's like to travel on a motorcycle. It still blows my mind that someone achieved this before ATMs, hotel booking sites and fuel injection.