Pirsig's motorcycle
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig with a special display featuring his 1966 Honda Super Hawk motorcycle.
Zen and the Open Road also includes Pirsig’s leather riding jacket and motorcycle helmet, the bike’s keys and the worn motorcycle maintenance manual that accompanied the ride. Pirsig’s typewriter, on which he wrote the book, as well as a typed manuscript and a signed first edition of the novel will be on display too.
Pirsig was rejected by 121 publishers but persevered, eventually selling the book to William Morrow and Sons. With the publication’s royalties, Pirsig purchased a 32ft sailboat that inspired his next novel, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals. A first edition of that 1991 book and the Apple II computer that he used to write it will also be showcased.
“When Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was published, it had a revolutionary effect on Americans, both from a philosophical awakening to kick-starting a cultural movement that caused people to rethink and retool their relationships with technology,” said Anthea M. Hartig, the museum’s Elizabeth MacMillan Director. “His fictionalized autobiography explored some of life’s most elemental questions for many of that generation and since.”
Transportation Curator Paul F. Johnston added: "This is the most famous forgotten motorcycle in American history. Pirsig was a trailblazer in motorcycle touring, including completing the month-long, 5,700 mile trip with his son from Minnesota to California and back as well as his perseverance in documenting its celebration of freedom and the open road.”
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has sold more than five million copies and has been translated into 27 languages. The motorcycle and related objects were a gift to the museum from Pirsig’s widow, Wendy K. Pirsig. Devoted riders, readers and writers continue to recreate Pirsig’s open-road journey.
In conducting research for the exhibit, Johnston uncovered a previously unknown educational graphic novel by Pirsig. Doctor Schnabel is a story about the deadly bubonic plague pandemic that swept across Europe in the 14th century.
Zen and the Open Road is part of the larger America on the Move 26,000-square-foot exhibition that uses transportation as the vehicle to tell the history of America from the mid-1800s to the near present.
