The Robert Pirsig interview

It was 1974 and I had not been long out of college when I was introduced to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Fooch. (I don't even know where he is now.) Was it the book I had been looking for? Maybe it was the book a lot of people were looking for at that time. It blew my mind away. The author was writing from so close to the edge - the verge of insanity - it was freaky. I loved it. (The only other time I have felt that was listening to Kurt Corbain for the first time). It was a new age book, long before the term New Age became fashionable and spawned a whole spew of wannabes. (Please don't even mention Deepak Chopra.)

According to The Guardian, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the biggest-selling philosophy book ever. He was rejected 121 times (the most, according to the Guinness Book of Records) before he was published and has sold 5,000,000 copies.

Robert Pirsig, 78, who had an IQ of 170 when he was nine years old picked up Buddhism as a young GI in Korea. He was a 'radical, manic teacher in Montana making his freshmen sweat over a definition of 'quality'.' 'No two classes were the same. He made his students crazy by refusing to grade them, then he had them grade each other …'

Diagnosed as catatonic schizophrenia by a psychiatrist, Pirsig was treated at a mental institution. He had 'no job and no future in philosophy; his wife was mad at him, they had two small kids, he was 34 and in tears all day.'

When he was released, he got worse. He got crazier; pointed a gun at someone, he was committed by a court and underwent comprehensive shock treatment - they zapped his brain like they did the Jack Nicholson character in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Zen came out in 1974, edited down from its original 800,000 words. George Steiner in the New Yorker likened it to Moby Dick. Robert Redford tried to buy the film rights but Pirsig refused.

Full story: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1951397,00.html