On the Trail of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Zen and Now is the story of a story that will appeal to the 5 million readers of the original and serve as an initiation to a whole new generation. Since its original publication in 1968, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values has touched whole generations of readers with its serious attempt to define “quality” in a world that seems indifferent to the responsibilities that quality brings. Mark Richardson expands that journey with an investigation of his own – to find the enigmatic author of Zen and the Art, ask him a few questions, and place his classic book in context. The result manages to be a biography of Pirsig himself – in the discovery of an unknown life of madness, murder and eventual resolution – and a splendid meditation on creativity and problem-solving, sanity and insanity.

本書は、不朽の名著『禅とオートバイ修理技術』の深淵へと分け入る、極めて思索的な巡礼の書です。単なる旅の追体験に留まらず、著者パーシグが抱えた狂気と救済、そして彼が追求した「クオリティ」の本質を、旅という肉体的な営みを通じて鮮烈に解き明かしていきます。伝説の影に隠された生身の苦悩を浮き彫りにし、読者に真の生き方を問い直す情熱的な力作です。 この作品の核心は、創造性と正気の境界線を見つめる冷徹かつ深遠な眼差しにあります。過去の文学的な遺産を現代の視点で再構築し、単なる解説の域を超えて、私たち自身の内なる問題解決への指針を示す稀有な対話が展開されます。名作の背景にある「物語の物語」を紐解くことで、あなたの知的な興奮は最高潮に達するはずです。