59 pages • 1 hour read
Robert M. PirsigA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The group’s spirits are lighter now that they have arrived in Montana. After bathing, the group walks around the streets together feeling like a happy family. When the others go about their day, the narrator begins tuning his bike. The engine has picked up a strange sound and he wants to find the source of the problem.
He thinks about how rational tuning a motorcycle is, and how most people do not realize this aspect of motorcycle maintenance. The narrator says that “a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself (117).” The classic/romantic barrier is brought up again, where a motorcycle as a whole can be viewed romantically, and yet its parts, its underlying form as a mechanic would see it, all fall on the classic side. Even the tools used for repair might have a romantic look to them, but their purpose is a classical one, to change the underlying form.
A motorcycle is not maintained based on any romantic or perfectionist reason. The machines need to be maintained because one small mistake in the parts can result in a total breakdown of the whole.