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Comment by criddell | Hacker News Reader

I feel like I missed something with the book. I read it about ten years ago and absolutely loved the travelogue part. His writing on travelling by motorcycle is excellent and I wanted more of it. The back half of the book where he really goes off on the metaphysics of quality didn't resonate at all with me.

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I discarded the most detailed descriptions of the quality philosophy, and rather considered it as a great depiction of the character. The nervous breakdown would not have been as believable without the the depths of this wild goose chase.

In fact, this is what truly makes this book great.

Well said.

I'm right there with you. When he starts writing about Phaedrus, everything goes south in the book. He's talking about quality while needlessly adjusting his tappets every five minutes, then throwing shade at John. Treating every little incidental thing as a deep metaphor comes across as a little too on the nose and self-important for me.

Two attempted reads and I consider ZAMM one of the most overrated books of all time.

Phaedrus went literally insane and had electro-shock-therapy to "cure" the problem.

My take on the insanity is that it was connected to the "needless adjusting", "throwing shade" and "treating every little incidental thing as deep metaphor" among other things.

This was the biggest takeaway for me from this book -- roughly that an obsessive pursuit of quality (or definition of quality even) might take someone over the edge of sanity.

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