Atlas Shrugged

She certainly had some things to get off her chest.

This is my second reading and somehow I was even more engulfed by the book than the first time.
The only bone I had to pick with Rand is why the hell Eddie was left overboard? Yes, he didn't make the last step, but they didn't give him a chance. This made me very angry. His character deserved to make this final leap and find Atlantis. I resent that it didn't happen.
Apart from that, the book was a total thrill. Again. I don't know what I'm Rand's writing makes me feel the characters' emotions so vividly, but it does. There is some part of me that resonates with her books (Atlas and Fountainhead) at some level that I myself can't explain.

Easily one of my favorite books ever. It took me years before I found time to read such a long book, and once I started it took 6 months to finish it, but I was enthralled the whole time. It brings a lot of clarity to a more right-wing way of viewing the world/politics. I never got into objectivism from the pamphlets Ayn Rand wrote (I was like gosh this seems so cold-hearted, a reaction that's well-addressed in this novel). I'm still not fully onboard with all the ideas, but this book was still profound.

I saw another review saying that the characters were too molded to be symbols of the philosophy and that reduced their humanity/verisimilitude. Ok sure I don't think this is the book for you if you're looking for “amazing character development”. I found it a well-written novel, but I'm not really into fiction so probably it is not up to par.

Also, I was told by other readers that the whole book can just be summarized into the huge speeches given by the protagonists. I have to whole-heartedly disagree with that. The point of reading the book is to see the demonstration of what happens to a society that veers too-far-left too-fast and doesn't protect individual liberties properly. Maybe some of the ideals of objectivism were clearly stated in the speeches, but if you just want a description of the philosophy I recommend wikipedia as a better alternative.

The sci-fi aspects of the book were not necessary to get the point across and seemed out of place to me. There were several other aspects of the book that make it not the most amazing piece of “fine literature”. That's fine by me; it made me think in various new directions and that's what I really want from a book anyway.

I guess the next move is to read The Fountainhead. But that's also intimidatingly long, so I'm not really rushing over to it.

I wanted to read this book to know what everybody is talking about. Now I know. It's not a bad book. The story is interesting, I like Dagny and Francisco, and I like the joy of achievement, ideas, goals, dreams and aspirations. I like people who are better than everyone else. I like a strong female lead. (Now, that that was kind of spoiled by the fact that she was practically the only woman to be mentioned, and her lovers treated her pretty awfully.)
I was actually positively surprised by this book. But the ideology part of it, the propaganda part is so obvious, so crude, so exaggerated... so obviously a caricature and... what's the word... so beyond reality it is hard to understand how anyone could take this seriously. Someone said it's “truly prophetic”. Seriously. There are people out there who believe to be intelligent, rational, realistic people who think Ayn Rand makes sense. 8-{ Ridiculous.

So... this is a story of Dagny Taggart who wants to be a railway tycoon and is.
She falls in love with three different guys, each better looking and more stoic than the other, until she finally falls in love with the third, most good looking, most stoic of everyone in the existence of universe. Like a Greek God with golden, auburn or something hair. Ayn doesn't seem to be able to decide. Let's say gold, it sounds so rich. You know, Superman was Man of Steel, Doc Savage Man of Bronze, so John Galt was Man of Gold.
Ayn sets her story in a future USA (like now - 2005-2015), though it was written 1957, and reads like a pulp fiction magazine written in the 30s. I keep seeing Dagny in 30s evening gowns as I read this, and art deco environment and film noir atmosphere. It's a socialist humanist paradise, even though it's clearly a description of how Ayn Rand experienced Soviet Russia back in 1917-1920, because it's not a socialist humanist paradise, it's a caricature of it, a capitalist hell.

It was impossible to me to read this book without thinking about Objectivism and the... er... people who idolize Ayn Rand. I can say I don't have high regard on any of these people. I can understand the lure of Ayn Rand's heroes and heroines, but I think people should be able to actually understand how political systems, politics, society and ideologies actually work, and Ayn Rand doesn't show any sign of that she does. I get the feeling I get when I read Richard Dawkins's God Delusion and listen to all his fans babbling mindlessly and blindly about things they don't know anything about except what Richard Dawkins said, and he didn't know much he either. I get the feeling like when looking at those inane stories about a Christian student who puts a stupid science teacher in place. Ayn Rand's villains are sock puppets who do exactly what Ayn wants them to do, are exactly as stupid, say exactly what she wants them to say, react exactly as she needs them to react. I don't think there are any real people who would actually behave like that, but - who cares about REAL people? They don't fit the agenda of these people. And - whereas this is OK in a book (not good, but OK because it's just a story), it's incredibly stupid to believe real live human beings are like that.

What irritated me a lot was the constant secrecy. “You aren't ready yet”.
The mind-reading. Everybody, especially the heroes, knew exactly what everyone else was thinking, and they communicated with glances.

“Dagny noticed that they looked at each other as if their glance were the handshake of a bond too firm to require any statement. Rearden saw her watching them— and the faintest contraction of his eyes was like a smile of sanction, as if his glance were repeating to her the message he had sent her from the valley. “

Whether you agree with the objectivism philosophy or not, to create a work that delivers on a firm idea and gives you a different lens by which to judge your own view of the world is why we enjoy reading, is it not?

A monolithic text on libertarian-ism written as a dystopian novel set in the 1950s. It's written from an idealist perspective where the author sets up her characters to be able to live by these ideals in a very black and white way. Personally, I think life is far more grey-scale than this and she fails to explain how such a society cares for those who cannot care for themselves. On the positive side she does raise some interesting points and does succeed in describing how corruption and social welfare idealism can be counter productive. I think the book would have been significantly more meaningful if it was less long winded.

I tried to read this book like four times. I almost finished it (77 page masturbatory speech totally killed it). At the time, I wanted to like it, but came to realize how poorly written and how flimsy its ideology and characters truly are.

Most convincing argument for republicans to date. It's an easy story to follow and every once in a while Rand throws some fire ideology through dialogue. Definitely one of the most interesting books I've ever read (granted I my collection of finished books likely wouldn't break 50)

Quit at one fifth. Rand can write, but the story is a caricature and the actors are boring. I don't believe in industrialists as heroes because At Least They Act.

There are two types of people in this world. Those who can appreciate this work and those who cannot entertain its value.

Originally posted at: http://sandymaguire.me/blog/atlas-shrugged
See my list of favorite quotes from the book here: http://sandymaguire.me/books/ayn-rand-atlas-shrugged.html

60 long days ago, at the suggestion of my good friend Ariel Weingarten, I started reading Atlas Shrugged. I didn't really know anything about it going in, except that it was the Objectivist manifesto, the Objectivists were pretty similar to the Libertarians, and that nobody seemed capable of reading it without having strong feelings on it. Everyone who made it through either seemed to absolutely love it, or completely hate it coming out. As far as I could tell, there was no middle ground.

I wasn't sure how I felt about Atlas Shrugged during the course of my reading it, so I asked around. Literally everyone I met, whose opinion I thought might be illuminating was asked “have you ever read Atlas Shrugged? What did you think about it?” Reactions were mixed, even between people with relatively similar backgrounds. My mother hated it; her childhood friend, my (paternal) aunt, couldn't say enough good things about it.

Me, I think I'm in the “liked it” camp. I don't think I liked it enough to read any other Rand, and I don't think I liked it enough to read it again, but I'm pretty sure I firmly liked it. But enough about me. Let's talk about the book. I'm not going to intentionally spoil the book, but I will include any details necessary for the plot. Reader beware.

There are so many things I want to address in this novel, and so in lieu of a better ordering, I will start from the beginning. I read an e-book copy of Atlas Shrugged, and I'm glad it did, because otherwise I might not have started it. Atlas Shrugged is a heaving 1200 page monolith, a fact I was blissfully unaware of until a month in. Physically lugging that thing around would have been lame, and an eternal reminder of how much more Atlas Shrugged I had to read.

What first struck me, as I waded through the initial chapters, was the prose. Rand has a very particular brand of writing; I get the impression that not only would I be able to identify unattributed excerpts to her based on the writing style alone, I would also be able to distinguish it from those attempting to write in her style. Rand unashamedly jumps for both similes that express more the emotional attitude of the situation than anything which might actually describe what is going on, and for similes that aren't similes but actually just tell you more about what is going on. It's jarring. Compare:

It was a sense of freedom, as if he stood alone in the midst of an endless sweep of clean air, with only the memory of some weight that had been torn off his shoulders. It was the feeling of an immense deliverance. It was the knowledge that it did not matter to him what Lillian felt, what she suffered or what became of her, and more: not only that it did not matter, but the shining, guiltless knowledge that it did not have to matter.

and

He talked earnestly, but in a casual manner, as if they both understood that this was not the main subject of their interview; yet, oddly, he spoke not in the tone of a foreword, but in the tone of a postscript, as if the main subject had been settled long ago.

As such, I found myself indexing quotes much more frequently than I do for most literature. I would highlight quotes for their sense of poetry, or because they expressed thoughts that I knew I could never experience, or because they were inspiring. My list of quotes for this book is thusly surprisingly long for the actual content that I got out of it.

Let me elaborate on that point. Rand's skill as a writer is in her world building, and certainly not in her storytelling. The plot can be summarized without fear of spoilers as this:

some assholes do bad things to our main characters
our main characters overcome it
nothing has changed
rinse and repeat
There's no sense of rising stakes, or of dramatic tension, or anything really. The novel is more about the eventual collapse of the system, really due to nobody's actions but the zeitgeist at large. Interesting world building, certainly, but not much in the way of a story. But then again, it might not be a fair complaint, as the novel doesn't try very hard to pretend to be anything other than a framework to hang Rand's philosophy on top of.

In that way, I'd compare it unfavorably to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is also unashamedly little but a clothesline for Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality. I say “unfavorably”, because, despite this, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has one of the greatest climaxes of any novel I have ever read. Despite being mostly a interesting-if-wrong treatise into weird philosophy, it still manages to be entertaining as a work of fiction.

I'm not sure I can say that about Atlas Shrugged. I read Atlas Shrugged more as a warning about the future, and a entertaining character study in stoicism. A warning about the future because I think Rand's forecasting is pretty good, and a entertaining study in that I found myself wanting to be more and more like the protagonists in my everyday life, as they struggle against indifferent oppression.

To that end, I was reminded immensely of H. P. Lovecraft's work as I made my way through Atlas Shrugged. I would be very surprised to learn if Rand hadn't been a literary fan of Lovecraft at some point during her life. The reason I say this is that there is no clear overarching antagonist in the novel. There are some agents ostensibly pulling the strings, but they're ultimately incompetent and really not very good at slowing down the protagonists. What is, however, is this cold, clammy sense of doom that pervades the work, that nothing the protagonists do can possibly change anything; that some blind idiot god, much too big for anyone to even comprehend, let alone stop, is ultimately influencing the world for the worse. As a matter of fact, the end of the novel is more the protagonists winning a war of attrition against society and the powers-that-be than it is about them actually winning. It's kinda frustrating, honestly.

I liked Atlas Shrugged, I think, because it gave me some clearer means of expressing a lot of the philosophy already in my head. I suspect this is why other people like it, as well. What Atlas Shrugged does not strike me as, is being good at changing people's philosophy. If you are not already Objectivist/Libertarian-leaning coming into it, I would imagine Atlas Shrugged would push you away in horror. The reason behind this, I expect, is that none of the antagonists (who are ultimately agents of other philosophies) are likable in the least. Let me explain.

If you want to turn people to your side, you need them to identify with you, and then very slowly and very gently show them how your point of view succeeds in places that theirs fails. Atlas Shrugged's biggest failing point is that there are no sympathetic non-Objectivists. Everyone who is not an Objectivist is painted as undeniably evil, completely incompetent, and has no redeeming features whatsoever. Unfortunately, I didn't save any quotes along these lines, but every antagonist spouts out lines like “It's not my fault! It couldn't be helped! There's nothing I could have done!” almost as frequently as they get a chance to speak. The bad guys are all straw-men, and so it's no wonder that so many people can't stand this book.

If you tell your readers that they are evil and that their entire world-views are wrong, don't expect them to thank or forgive you.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a book that gets this overwhelmingly right. In Methods of Rationality, you know Quirrell is Voldemort within the first ten chapters, but that doesn't stop you from spending most of the book thinking “wow, he has a point there.” Yudkowsky has written about how he tried to make all of his bad guys convincing, and I think this is a much stronger way of bringing people into the fold. Find a point of view that your readers can relate to, and slowly subvert it until it's the viewpoint you want them to take away. Don't immediate vilify anybody, because that's just asking to piss people off.

Along those lines, I think Atlas Shrugged would be a better novel if it were written by somebody else. Dagny Taggart is to Ayn Rand as Wesley Crusher is to Gene Rodenberry. That's not to say that I'm immune to this in my writing, but I will say have significantly more self-control than Rand does. Throughout the course of the novel, no fewer than five major, important characters fall in love with Dagny, including the world's top three leading industrialist men, and a married, heterosexual woman. It gets particularly icky during some of the sex scenes, which are thankfully not graphic, but certainly consentually uneasy. Dagny is continually being “taken” by “men who know that she is theirs”. This quote is taken out of context, but it is exceptionally similar to ones which are not:

Ownership—she thought, glancing back at him—weren't there those who knew nothing of its nature and doubted its reality? No, it was not made of papers, seals, grants and permissions. There it was—in his eyes.

Dagny's body keeps being “owned” by those willing to take it, which, you know, is cool and all if it's what she's into. But also I kept being reminded that Dagny Taggart is actually just Ayn Rand, and I was reading all about the sexual fantastics of the author without wanting to. Prudish? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself. Furthermore, this is kind of a weird position for the book to take, whose underlying philosophy is that things belong to those willing to work for them. It's consistent, yeah, if you squint, but remember that Dagny is the primary protagonist and it is not her who is working for these things. It distracts from Rand's point, but I don't know, maybe she's just old fashioned.

Actually, speaking of which, I was shocked to learn that this novel was published in 1999. It struck me as a very '50s kind of thing. But then again, never mind. In doing my research for this paragraph actually it was first published in '57, so there you go.

Along those lines though, the novel is very good about not dating itself. I picked up only on the '50s thing based on the writing style and general attitudes of the characters. I mean, it doesn't mention computers or cellphones, but it also barely mentions television. It reads a little like a grimy noir, thus my era guess. The reason I bring this up, is that, like a lot of culture from before my time, I don't know how to put it into context. When I watched Sunset Boulevard, I wasn't sure if Norma Desmond was weird as shit, or if that was just a cultural thing of the era. It's hard to separate fiction from lost culture.

Atlas Shrugged held me in such a state for most of the way through. The philosophical arguments the characters fight against are never named, just described, and their descriptions don't exactly match any viewpoints I've ever encountered. There's a vague sense of disliking postmodernism, and a huge sense of hating communism, but the two feel entangled and mistaken for one another. Again, I'm not too sure what to take away from this, maybe like Plato, it's a critique of philosophies that don't exist anymore. Maybe I'm ignorant of something. Or, maybe Rand just didn't know what she was talking about.

I'm not sure which, but one of the three seems very likely. Your guess is as good as mine.

So that's the majority of my review. I just have a few nits to pick because I can't help myself. It's probably a good thing that Rand focuses Atlas Shrugged as a philosophical narrative more than, say, a sci-fi. I say this, because it too easily could have been science fiction, and it would have been really poor science fiction. One of the protagonists creates an engine that can pull energy literally out of thin air, and goes on to use it to light his house and, later, power a small village. Yawn. A few chapters later, some guys make a giant sound gun that is capable of destroying anything it shoots. Guess what they use it for? Absolutely nothing interesting. It's a really cool idea both technically and sociologically, and Rand falls flat on her face in both regards. Maybe I've been spoiled by the likes of Worm which manages the impressive feat of using magic to its full potential, but it's really frustrating watching all of the in-universe genius characters fail to do anything interesting with an infinite energy source.

While I'm complaining about small things, the twists in this book are... not very good twists. With the exception of one minor one, I saw every one coming at least 300 pages in advance. Where all the capable industrialists were going, what it was called, who invented the infinite energy machine, stuff like that. Maybe it's through cultural osmosis, but I doubt it.

Before I end this review, I want to discuss some of the reception that I've seen to it. Among my friends who didn't like it, I've heard the words “disgusting”, “ruthless” and “dystopian” used. I don't get it. I would describe the hapless antagonists with those words, but not the novel. My mother described it along the lines of “it makes the case that everything is just about money,” which I don't think is the point. To me, the idea is more that everything is about accomplishment, and in fact, this strikes me as being the central theme of the book.

A friend and I were recently discussing Elon Musk, and she was of the opinion that maybe investing in Mars wasn't the best way for him to spend his money. This struck me as a very strange argument: I think what Atlas Shrugged has given me is the opinion that really, it's his money, and he can spend it however he pleases. Anyone who has a differing idea on what to do with a few billion dollars is welcome to make their own, and then spend it in that way. What I'm trying to say is that this novel has given me a better appreciation for people who put their money where their mouthes are. It's one thing to be confident about what someone else should do with their fortunes, and a very different beast to have to put your own money on the line. To my friend's benefit, she took a moment to consider this, and agreed that maybe she should be working towards a few billion, which is a marvelous attitude.

To me, what Atlas Shrugged is saying is not that we should never help anybody, but we should never help those who will never provide us any benefit in return. Any other strategy has an attractive Nash Equilibrium where everybody seeks to receive without returning. The novel is not coy about this point: there's a sixty page diatribe on the point. Rand understands economics: people respond to incentives. She also seems to understand evolutionary game theory: behaviors that can be systematically selected against will be. To me, Atlas Shrugged is a loud warning that communism isn't self-reinforcing, that it can't possibly survive in the long term because it incentivizes communists against communism. And she called it, communism did break down in exactly the ways she predicted. Socialists can hem and haw until the cows come home that maybe communism just wasn't implemented properly, and that might be true, but Rand has history on her side, and the socialists have squat.

As a consolation prize, Rand also makes the argument that maybe this hyper-capitalist behavior is not as exploitative as it sounds on its surface:

The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the ‘competition' between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of ‘exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.

It's harsh, yes, but I really appreciate the sentiment behind this quote: “bugger off, stay out of my way, and there will be enough spoils for us both to enjoy.” That pretty much sums up my attitude. There's more greatness in this world than we humans can ever hope to exhaust, and in the absence of any god, humanity is all that we have, and human values are all that matter. Rand's argument, and one that I tend to agree with, is that the values we should cherish most are those that bring us collectively as much greatness as possible. She is saying that we must never share our greatness with others, but only that we ask them to share theirs with us in return.

Where: Mui Ne, Dalat

Rand's crowning work is little more than a modern morality play. The good guys (and they're almost all guys) are tall, handsome, strong, charismatic, and intelligent. The bad guys (also almost all guys) are bloated, sniveling, conniving, slothful, and perverse. The conclusion of the novel, both in terms of its plot and its philosophy, is inevitable within its own constructed reality. If Rand's purpose in writing Atlas Shrugged was, as she stated, to convince her readers of her “objectivist” philosophy, her methods were poorly chosen. Unless you come to this book already sharing Rand's view of the world, you will likely find yourself (as I did) revolted by her rejection of compassion, disturbed by her unabashed racism, and incredulous at her overly simplistic characters and their apparent motivations.

That said, I found the book enjoyable enough and certainly worth reading, given its significance for modern American political thought. The plot is compelling enough to have kept me wanting to read on and through a thousand pages of diatribe, Rand forces each reader to come to terms with her political philosophy. For me, personally, this has forced me to reluctantly adjust the way I think about the role and purpose of government, even if I'm a long way from accepting Rand's views. Her impassioned defense of personal agency hit home with me as well, but her static, predestined characters send a mixed message that undermines her intended effect.

Three stars.

When I was a young man, I found Rand's philosophy to be quite compelling. Now that I am an old man and have been exposed to a lot more of how people actually act and think, it no longer appeals to me. In fact, her thinking is IMO quite flawed. People aren't always rational and they always find ways to game the system. The following quote puts it well:

“I find Objectivism and Libertarianism as compelling as Marxism: all assume predictable, rational, game & rule type following behavior from everyone to work... and fall apart if someone doesn't follow the rules.” – Tobias Buckell

I really don't know how to even begin reviewing this book. On one level, I see it as a demonstraiton of Ayn Rand's idea of Objectivity. It is readly heavily played: the “good” characters preach it, live it, and thrive in it. There is even an extremely long speech toward the end of the book outlining absolutely everything.

On the other hand, I see it as a woman's struggle in a man's profession, dealing with a passion that is considered masculine, and making choices in her life that women weren't considered “able” to make at that point in time.

I highly suggest reading it. It is a book to be experienced. But I do understand why so many people either strongly love or loath this book. Either you can handle being preached to and enjoy the story for what it is capable of doing or you get annoyed with her soapbox.

This is my favorite book of any genre. Hands down it has been the most life changing and influential book I have ever read. If you read only one book in the next ten years, read this masterpiece.

I finally finished it. This was a very good book. Her philosophy, Objectivism, is pretty close to what I believe. The story is very intriguing, and even had me a little teary-eyed in some places. Her imagery is wonderful. It is a complete and utter romance with lassez-faire capitalism, with an extremely verbose brain-dump around page 900 that takes quite a while to absorb.

The book is basically a warning to those who wish to be free from the bonds of others. One should be able to live one's life without depending on his betters nor funding his lessers. While the book depicts an extreme failure of the political system, with an extreme economic failure following, it is not too far from what has happened in Russia and many South American countries. Bad investments should not be made on the basis of ‘need,' but rather on the basis of ability and viability, which directly corresponds to credit, which should never be issued to those who are unable to live up to the terms. Businesses should never be run by the government, and economies should never be planned.

Any believer in personal responsibility should read this book.

Rand succeeds despite shitty politics and a sophomoric world-view. The more I explore literature, the more I realize just how flawed a novel can be and still hold up. With Rand there are two types of characters and that's all you get: White Hats and Blacks Hats. The White Hats are the heroes, standing alone against an inferior sea of snivelling underlings, incapable of seeing just how magnificent the White Hats actually are. The Black Hats are any of the aforementioned underlings unfortunate enough to show up in the foreground sufficiently for Rand to take notice. Their job it to try to thwart the noble (and capitalistic) ambitions of the White Hats.

On one level this is so much roman à clé, used to support Rand's philosophic darling, Objectivism. And in her mind, I have no doubt, the staring role of Chief White Hat belonged to Rand herself. The problem with literature as rhetoric is that humanity is invariably more complex and flawed than any such Black and White thinking can represent. In the real world, every White Hat riding in on White Horse probably has a whore tied up in the closet, just waiting for him (or her) to stop saving the world long enough to return and do whatever depravity White Hats do when no one is looking. Without nuance, character remains caricature.

And yet the novel works. There are two overarching skills that come into play for novelists. Writing and storytelling. And while Rand is a bad writer she is a very good, if not great, storyteller. (This same argument could be made about J.K. Rowling, save that she doesn't have a political ax to grind - unless you include muggle discrimination in and amongst the wizard world. Also, literary theory doesn't always carry over well between mainstream/literary books and genre writing.) So while Rand's prose suffers from simplistic characterizations and a mind stuck somewhere in deep adolescence, the book itself is underpinned by an engaging story, a phenomenal sense of world and place, and a real talent for plotting that would be equally at home in, say, a book by Rushdie or Pynchon as one by Stephen King or Dan Brown.

By all means, give it a try. Even with its deep flaws I gave it four stars. And I stand by that. Despite her considerable efforts to ruin it this novel has good bones. The only caveat would be for a young person approaching the book for the first time. Please understand that the politics presented here - those explicit and those implied - are untenable when held against the light. Neoconservatism (also confusedly referred to as Neoliberalism) is ultimately an attempt to justify our baser instincts as not merely acceptable and unavoidable, but noble. (For a more adult perspective, check out Ken Wilber, though his novel Boomeritis is lacking in all the places Rand excels. In short, he's not much in the novel-writing department. Luckily he writes mostly non-fiction. Start there.)

If you can see past the sophism, you might just enjoy Atlas Shrugged. You'll also come to understand why Randall Jarrell referred to a novel as “a long piece of prose with something wrong with it.”