She did get one thing right though, her description of men like those who populate the incoming trump cabal as looters was dead on. That’s about it though.
Two takeaways from 'Atlas'
-invisible force field generators were invented in the 1950s
-if you need an invisible force field generator, just talk about it and drive around a bit. You'll almost immediately see one through the window of a derelict truck stop.
I read that book in high school having no context for who or what Ayn Rand was. I thought it was a great book about personal commitment and effort and believing in oneself. And I really truly believed that the politicians she described were Reagan and his cronies. It seemed so obvious to me.
I read that book in my early 20s and felt a fair degree of admiration for Howard Ruark. That was before I knew anything about Rand, and the insidious subtexts of her novels.
So, the oligarchs in Atlas took their money and ran off to the gulch to avoid paying taxes... and immediately joined an HOA, with all the associated mandatory fees.
HAHAHAHA!!!
I tried to read The Fountainhead when I was in high school, just so I could say I had. I couldn't get through it at a time when I WORKED IN A LIBRARY and was consuming books like air. Ayn Rand is a "never again" for me. It was the first book I can remember giving up on.
Then you missed the trial at the end where Roark convinces a jury it was OK to blow up a building he designed because the owner and contractor made some changes.
You missed that feel good Perry Mason moment. It's over now. You'll never get it back.
I'm fully okay with that 😂. I should have known everything I needed to know about that book when Robbie shoved it into Baby's hands, telling her some people count and some people don't.
Alarmingly, women are *still* writing things like that and calling it "spicy." But there is spice, and then there is rape. Nothing makes me want to throw a book across a room quite like a lack of consent followed by love. I just cannot understand some writers or their readers, I suppose.
As a woman who read all her books multiple times and sees the inherent fallacies, I have never read a more impactful statement in regards to objectivism. TLDR I agree.
It's crazy how the people who spout love for her bullshit takes actually ARE the "takers" she railed against. Political hacks who suck the oligarchs teats AND dicks while carving out laws for them.
I think it’s interesting to read because it is so twisted. I’ve read it many times and I still can’t wrap my mind around it - dystopia on steroids and ridiculously stark, with her descriptions of “noble men” as gaunt, chiseled, severe.
Please don’t throw any fonts at me butttt I did kinda like Fountainhead when I read it 20+yrs ago. Admittedly, more from an interesting story viewpoint and not a “get something thought-provoking out of it” standpoint. Atlas…I barely got 20% into it before abandonment set in 😂
What a waste of a great title for a story about a working class general strike. But Rand thought business owners singlehandedly run their entire business - no workers necessary - which is why they have to destroy the means of production on their way out - otherwise, nobody would notice their absence
Dagny Taggart spends most of the damn book flying around the country, completely ignoring her company, only occasionally popping in for updates. But Rand's narrative suggests the entire railroad will collapse into dust without her at the helm. A company she inherited like a feudal dynasty at that.
I would recast "Three men in a boat" and stick in Ayn Rand, Russell Kirk and Milton Friedman plus set the boat down in the South Atlantic in the roaring forties. The world would have been a much better place.
In architecture school, Fountainhead was considered the Bible. I read it. Made me look cool explaining “objectivism” and throwing out quotable quotes from the page I was at. It was also relatable because the profs were like the bureaucracy, only favouring the kids they liked.
She was a sociopath, and her philosophy is poison. That's the problem; nut cases have hoarded the planet's wealth and are hellbent on acquiring more. Damn the destruction, full speed ahead. These folks are CABS. (Crazy as Bat Shit.)
I was a total objectivist as a teen- read all her works-until a friend from New Orleans 9th ward pointed out not everyone starts from the same place. I realized it was BS and eventually became a progressive.
Any Rand should appeal to naive 19 year olds for no more than the summer it took them to read Atlas Shrugged. Any longer and you’re still sleeping in your favorite sports team sheets with matching comforter fantasizing that Olivia Newton John is your girlfriend.
It's hard not to feel sympathy for Alissa Rosenbaum, starving, desperate and barely escaping from the hellhole of the formative Soviet.
It's almost impossible to respect her later incarnation's tedious potboilers, crank philosophy and makeover by Margaret Hamilton.
She’s much like David Mamet in that sometimes she was capable of stringing words together in a pleasing form even if those words all led to something as fucking stupid as objectivism
“i got handed an ayn rand sandwich, straight from the can, it tasted so bland.
i asked a lass to pass me a glass, of engel’s condition of the working class”
- they might be giants
The funniest part of that book is when all the mighty capitalists move to their special little law free playground to be mighty together, and Ayn Rand never notices that they've got nobody to build roads, grow food, or pick up the garbage. It's all CEO-types admiring one another....
One thing the Randroids never mention is that the only reason the "titans" can live comfortably in Galt's Gulch is because one of them invented a free, clean source of energy.
That device could solve the energy needs of the entire world if they just shared it, but NO, they keep it for themselves.
I didn't say "give" it, I said share it. They could have marketed it quite effectively, but the reason they didn't is spite.
I don't recall any mention of other sources of energy, but I'm assuming they didn't strike oil or coal there. They may have been able to grow their own food with human labor.
Anyway, when confronted with a real logistical problem for her characters, Rand simply handwaved it away by having her "geniuses" pull a magical solution out of, uh, thin air.
I did... forgive me, it was over 30 years ago and the story wasn't pleasant to experience, like nails scratching across a blackboard. I just recall being amused that the paradise they set up for themselves omitted what they'd need to survive, pointing out the silliness of the whole fantasy
The funny part is Republicans embracing the book as some ode to rugged individualism when the book clearly describes the fall of America because politicians are owned by corporations.
The amazing thing is how she was able to condense a few marginally interesting ideas into a mere 1,168 pages.
The less amazing thing is how she managed to completely mischaracterize and then make heroes of the very types of people who are ruining the world right now.
DEFO I was telling my friend that the entire premise of her shitty book is that if all the Elites went into hiding the companies they Purchased/Stole/cheated people out of would run perfectly fine with the subordinates in charge maybe even better.
What's the difference between Atlas Shrugged and Lord of the Rings? One is a childish fantasy that should be abandoned by adulthood, and the other has hobbits and dragons.
My favorite thing about Rand is that she created a named philosophy called “objectivism”, in which only the objective truth matters, and that’s especially funny because that’s the first rule and it is immediately ignored and forgotten in favor of a *bunch* of nonsensical bullshit.
A friend recommended the book to me, but did say, "You'll reach a point where a character starts to give a speech. It'll go on for 20 pages. You can skip it all."
Thinking you can build a working economy and government based on Ayn Rand’s infantile political science fiction is like trying to create a society using Stranger in a Strange Land as your blueprint
I have a copy of "We the Living" that's been sitting on my bookshelf for years. Haven't ever attempted a full read-through but a friend of mine recommended it to me.
"There are two novels that can change a person's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood. The other, of course, involves orcs"
All that’s left is “Cormac McCarthy stream-of-consciousness”, “The Meditations are Marcus Aurelius’ Post-it Notes” and “I’ve read the Bible twice, that’s why I’m an atheist.”
I read Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead. I found them both sophomoric. They didn't even make any sense even within the scenarios she constructed in the books.
Yeah. But, like. The Fountainhead rocks! Atlas did shrug during what’s-his-nuts speech! Took me three hours to comprehend the speech that took three hours to dictate. Who tf IS John Galt. GTFOH.
after having read to communist manifesto and atlas shrugged I have come to the conclusion that their philosophies are the same. Basically as long as you never have other people around everything will be fine forever.
If all the businessmen and entrepreneurs disappeared. I thought you would have robots doing the work or something? All I see are a bunch of half starved Indian programers and South Korean engineers mining BT
- born poor
- had to beg to get money for a ship ticket to the USA
- slept on her cousins couch until she found a rich husband
- her husband financed her love romances
- lost her inheritance with bad investments
- died without a penny in a shelter
Atlas Shrugged. Is that the one where the guy is testifying and goes on for pages pages pages. Or is it the one where the guy locks himself in a room so he can broadcast his lecture on the radio uninterrupted for pages pages pages...?
I listened to the audiobook and fast forwarded. If am author has to lock a character in a radio booth to get everyone to listen to the lecture, then even the author knows it's bad.
Never read that book and never wanted to, but at one point when answering a questionnaire for which political party I leaned towards based on my opinions it classified me as libertarian…. After that, I made it a point to read and educate myself on how the government works and drifted away from that
Followers and critics alike talk about Ayn Rand like she’s just about capitalism and individualism. They skip over the core of her philosophy: reason, ethical egoism, and rejection of all collectivism, including nationalism and religious moralism. You can’t just cherry-pick Rand and get it right. (:
Knowing that Paul Ryan gave it to his congressional staff to read makes me giggle. As if his staff wasn’t required to read it in middle school. It’s YA fiction, not economic policy.
I just read it again - its premise is diabolical yet there are weird twisted parallels to what is happening now. Some Tea Party dudes were acolytes of hers - they think they are the heroes but they are the looters. Rand is really ranting for 1000s of pages against RUSSIA and communism.
Comments
-invisible force field generators were invented in the 1950s
-if you need an invisible force field generator, just talk about it and drive around a bit. You'll almost immediately see one through the window of a derelict truck stop.
HAHAHAHA!!!
You missed that feel good Perry Mason moment. It's over now. You'll never get it back.
A woman wrote that.
Grapefruit juice, anyone?
ditto
So based
Ayn Rand,
Jerry Springer,
Rush Limbaugh.
I would run away even before you did your little test.
And I don't like her either!
Your intent was clear.
Brutal.
https://youtu.be/04hWV0FVqko
It's almost impossible to respect her later incarnation's tedious potboilers, crank philosophy and makeover by Margaret Hamilton.
i asked a lass to pass me a glass, of engel’s condition of the working class”
- they might be giants
That device could solve the energy needs of the entire world if they just shared it, but NO, they keep it for themselves.
You probably can imagine they could be using other sources of energy.
Also the book talks a lot about WHY they didn't give it to the world.
I don't recall any mention of other sources of energy, but I'm assuming they didn't strike oil or coal there. They may have been able to grow their own food with human labor.
It's just lazy writing.
" Got a Vonnegut punch for your Atlas shrug"
The less amazing thing is how she managed to completely mischaracterize and then make heroes of the very types of people who are ruining the world right now.
🙂
All of her dreck. Because it doesn't withstand adult sensibilities.
This proved exceedingly true.
https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/20170/did-dorothy-parker-really-say-ayn-rands-atlas-shrugged-should-be-thrown-with-gr
I was so upset as a teen when I read "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead".
self-absorbed crap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead_(film)#
- probably not Dorothy Parker
Atlas Mugged,
Atlas Drugged,
Atlas Jugged, and
How To Survive On $1.50 a Day in New York
And that's a much better story.
All that’s left is “Cormac McCarthy stream-of-consciousness”, “The Meditations are Marcus Aurelius’ Post-it Notes” and “I’ve read the Bible twice, that’s why I’m an atheist.”
NONE !
- had to beg to get money for a ship ticket to the USA
- slept on her cousins couch until she found a rich husband
- her husband financed her love romances
- lost her inheritance with bad investments
- died without a penny in a shelter
Rand was the person that neolibs usually despise
I’ve thought the same dam thing - what a waste of paper
girl has no idea she's a spoiled brat.
My response:
“So you read that book at 18 and never read anything else.”
Atlas held up the *heavens*, not the Earth. If he shrugged, the gods would feel an earthquake but humans wouldn't know the difference.
Afaic, a perfect error to embody the ideological confusion of Rand's self-infatuated trash.
No one defined Plato by his personal life.
😎
😎
(I’m not making that up. She actually said that.)