Atlas Shrugged

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.