The Journey, Not The Destination

If anyone had asked me whether I'd read Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance up to a couple of weeks ago I would have confidently answered in the affirmative. After all this was the cult book of my years at university, having been published when I was about eighteen, and everybody read it. Except they didn't, as it turns out. Most student book shelves held a copy - except, for reasons of which I am unsure, mine. I now realise that I've never actually read the book, in the true cover-to-cover, getting involved in the actual story, sense. Certainly I've dipped into it, in a big way, and I know, speaking broadly, what takes place in its pages. (Oddly I don't actually know how I know this, I just do, sort of.) I realised I'd not read the book in anything approaching a satisfactory manner when I started to read it a few days ago. Which raises the question: at what point can we say we've read something (in a complete sense)? Is finishing a book enough to make the claim? Can we say we've read something when we haven't but somehow know enough about it to convince ourselves we have?

What I'm enjoying so far about the book is the journey, the motorcycles, the road. The philosophy is okay, I guess, but I'll need to get back to it more systematically to get hold of it in any reasonable kind of way and I'm not sure I'm bothered enough to be genuinely intending to make the effort.