It made a lot of sense to me as an undergrad philosophy student, reading it shortly after I graduated. IMHO the book is somewhat better if understood as a criticism of the Socratic pursuit of universal Truth if you are familiar with the context. But unfortunately this book is recommended to a general audience, for which I think it is a poor novel.

Pirsig did have at least some formal academic knowledge of philosophy though.

From Wikipedia [0]:

> Pirsig earned a bachelor's degree in 1950 from the University of Minnesota.[8] He then attended Banaras Hindu University in India, to study Eastern philosophy and culture. At the University of Chicago, he performed graduate-level work in philosophy in the Committee on the Analysis of Ideas and Study of Methods but he did not obtain a degree there. In 1958 he earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig#Early_life

>To me, the protagonist is trying to show how smart he is after reading some intro to philosophy book.

I'd accept that accusation from people who have read many philosophy books and delved much deeper, and regularly read heavy discourses into the subtleties of the topics examined in ZatAoMM.

Else, it sounds to me like "I'm a plain Joe, I work hard, watch TV, and drink Budweiser, who's this guy writing all fancy about philosophy, when they don't even have a philosophy degree? I don't read no philosophy, but if I ever did, I'd check a professional, not some writer guy. Just gimme a page turner airport-thriller writer-boy".