Mon 14 Apr 2008
I feel like I can divvy up the people I’ve met into two groups: people who are angry that they bothered reading all the way through Atlas Shrugged (or Fountainhead), and Objectivists. Ayn Rand gets a lot of guff, but she’s got her fans, and literary disgruntledness aside I’ve met some perfectly nice and reasonable fans of Objectivism.
So, what’s the deal? What makes sense and what doesn’t? If you’re for, if you’re against: why, and how did you get there?
Would everybody be happier if the John Galt speech was a quarter as long but substantially the same?
Posted by Josh Millard3 answers so far!
Good question. I was definitely in that camp of people who wanted to burn my copy when finished. I think it was the MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME (everyone else be damned) is justified tone that peeved me. If I’m mistaken totally, it was like 8 years ago so can’t recall exactly.
One of the days, I should reread it.
Yeah, the Galt speach? I completely skipped. I didn’t even skim it. What I did read of it, the first five pages or so, was just a repetition of every theme she was already talking about in the book. I felt it was like: Just In Case You Didn’t Get The Point Of The Book, Let Me Spell It Out To You In Excruciating Detail One More Time. And then I stabbed myself in the eye.
What an interesting coincidence that you post this question, and a few hours later, I come upon this.
I personally struggled through most of Atlas Shrugged one summer, with my parents prouldy encouraging me. I kept going “wtf? Are they really advocating me to adopt a philosophy that encourages being this selfish?” I didn’t finish, and didn’t engage my parents in any discussion of the books themes. Even in high school, I knew I viewed the world as a very different place than they did.