Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
|
List Price: Our Price: $9.66 You Save: $15.34 (61%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $7.49 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Atlas Shrugged
Book Review: Self-serving propaganda falls short of The Fountainhead's high water mark.
Summary: 2 Stars
I was bored to tears wading my way through the liquid concrete of Ayn Rand's self-praising philosophical treatise poorly disguised as a novel. I actually agree wholeheartedly with many aspects of her philosophy as presented in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Its the method of presentation in Atlas Shrugged that sabotages itself. Unlike the powerful prose of The Fountainhead, that of Atlas Shrugged is lazy and repetitive. Unlike the believable, vivid characters presented in The Fountainhead, those of Atlas Shrugged are mere merrionettes. Here are just a couple of the things about this book that made it pure misery to read:
1. Where in The Fountainhead Ayn Rand's prose was a tad melodramatic, yet tolerable for its moments of powerful beauty and awe; that of Rand in Atlas Shrugged goes off the deep end into the realm of self-stroking pretentious drivel. Wading through this morass of what was often times simply poor writing, was frequently painful. She beats home the same points over...and over...and over again. It's almost as if between the time she wrote Fountainhead and Atlas, she became so in love with her own philosophy that she forgot that fiction is written to stimulate and entertain an audience. Instead of reading fiction, the reader is continuously hammered over the head with "Socialists bad! Capitalists GOOD!" Ok, Ayn, WE GET IT! You could have stopped repeating yourself about 600 pages earlier and had yourself a better novel. But instead, out of respect for The Fountainhead and the hope that it would somehow get better and redeem the first 600 or so pages, I had to force myself to keep plodding forward through the muck.
2. Unlike the believable, human characters in The Fountainhead (both protagonist and antagonist), the characters Ayn created for Atlas Shrugged are cartoonishly simple caricatures of human beings. Those who live by any rules other than those of her personal philosophy, Objectivism, are portrayed as borderline-retarded, drooling, ugly, miserable, and stupid to the point of absurdity. Read, "Socialism BAD!" By contrast, those who live by her principles are portrayed in a glowing light of supernatural beauty. They are physically flawless, at least in Rand's eyes, with a repetitive, overused description of being tall, thin, having a lean face with angular lines, and graceful. Almost every protagonist in Atlas Shrugged is described in exactly this way. I started to notice this after the introduction of the first handful of protagonists.
Aside from the cookie-cutter repetitive characterizations that show a genuine simple-minded, lazy approach by Rand, neither the protagonists or antagonists are truly believable as human beings. The protagonists are made up of nothing but intrinsically bad qualities(i.e. no work ethic, lazy, drooling, physically weak, oftentimes obese, eyes out of focus and moist, pale skin, etc.), while the only subjectively bad qualities displayed by the protagonists are an intense, repressed proclivity towards sexual deviance. It's one thing to have a good work ethic and sound judgment. It's entirely another to be one of the robotic superhuman supermodel heroes with perfect hair that Ayn obviously portrays as the right type of human existence. Casting these two polar opposites as your protagonists/antagonists makes for a very dull, predictable series of pseudo-conflicts whose resolution is never in doubt. I found myself, by page 600 or so, just skimming forward to see if this repetitive pattern ever changed. Even with the revelation of the secret society, which itself was given away more or less several times (including in the very first chapter of the novel, believe it or not) before it was actually revealed, there were not any really climactic moments worth reading for.
In Rand's defense, I will say that she initially makes a good case against the evils of Socialistic governmental policies. I myself have questioned many of the things I was brought up to believe as a result of reading some of her written work. But reading Atlas Shrugged, apart from the philosophy and simply as a fiction novel, was painful and mostly not entertaining. There was an overabundance of bad prose, and it was too preachy.
Book Review: "Not a novel to be tossed aside lightly...."
Summary: 1 Stars
"...it should be thrown with great force." That is, if it didn't weigh a 1100 pounds.
Other reviewers have pointed out the terrible characterization, the rote repetition, the need for an editor, the condescending, arrogant, hateful sanctimony of the book (for someone who "figured out life" Ayn Rand did not seem to be a happy, or even nice, person; hmmmmmm...), the absurd 60-page hokum speech, the irrational claims of originality (I am only indebted to Aristotle, and but a little; never mind plagiarizing Nietzsche), dear me, I'll stop now, don't want to go writing 1100 pages of the same thing already said, now do I?
But I am thankful that Rand was an Objectivist for one reason; she never had any children. And where are the children in her novels? How does Dagny sleep with men (is it possible 'Ayn Rand' was merely the pen name for L. Ron Hubbards harlequin romances?)at every turn of the page and yet never becomes impregnated? What if she became with child? Would she have any responsibility for another life she created out of her actions? What are the moral implications of Objectivism for a baby, an infant, a toddler, a child, an adolescent, a teenager, a person? Not all that is going to be rational, or congruent with self-interests; in fact it would seem quite the opposite. And quite convenient Rand didn't address what could have been a compelling drama and storyline (and very real) in her novel. Instead of repeating herself ad infinitum maybe she should have taken at least one risk like that.
Why do people like this book, though, and why is it still relevant? I've heard some dubious remarks concerning the influence and merit of this novel. The most trumpeted is that it is the most "influential" book behind the Bible, or the best English-language novel of the 20th century (according to ballot-stuffing propagandists). My, my, the most influential book behind the Bible? A quick look at Amazons website for the UK and France shows that there have been 58 and 4 reviews (as opposed to 1700 in the States) for Atlas. The simple fact is that the book isn't that heralded, read or even known about outside our little microcosm of the universe, the U.S.
What about those astute social-commentators that see parallels between Rands "prophetic" book and the financial straits of contemporary society (Stephen Moore, you stilted hack, I'm looking at you)? Rand was right all along, her book is coming true! Thus the renewed interest in the novel. However it would seem the titan-of-industry hucksters, the one's who flee society and responsibility with millions to some utopia like France (i.e. where Rand isn't read), have more to do with Rands ideas and her mouthpieces (infallible characters) than the other way around. Yes, government is doing, I think, too much stimulating and bailing out. But that's just food-for-thought, just like thinking about John Galt out there toiling in the soil, cooking his food, unclogging his toilet, building his house, paving roads, curing his diseases; oh, wait, I forgot, he invented a magical machine that ran on air and generated energy and wiped his bottom and sucked his thumb and purified his water and breathed for him while everyone in elitist Objectivist community takes the same side on everything yet don't stagnate with their ideas, give up the women they love because passion and wanting to love someone else is unbecoming a true, rational Objectivist...I need to stop ranting, my eye has begun to twitch.
I remember reading this book when I was 18. I thought, Wow, that was pretty good. You see, at 18 I knew everything. But as I've gotten older (no thanks to you, Socrates!) I've begun losing my knowledge. For instance, I wasn't yet 20 when I went through the trouble of bringing 'Atlas Shrugged' on an annual camping trip, chucking it into the bonfire, waking up the next morning and urinating on the ashes. How uncouth!
I guess I should try and put something encouraging about the book, so I note that it's been a perennial best-seller and sold millions of copies; Rand would appreciate my differentiating between quantity and quality.
Book Review: overly long and vastly inferior to the Fountainhead (spoilers)
Summary: 2 Stars
As much as The Fountainhead was a stunning, original piece of literature, Atlas Shrugged falls flat in comparison. It is overly long and extremely repetitive in hammering home the same basic concepts without adding anything substantial in the process. Let's not even get into the preposterousness of the basic plot of the book itself: an attempt at secession by the world's greatest minds to recreate their own perfect society from scratch. Never mind the fact that with what we now know about Mendelian genetics, a couple like John Galt and Dagny Taggart could have kids and... have them turn out to be a couple of Wesley Mouchs and Jim Taggarts.
Also, Rand's writing style in this book hasn't aged well. It could be seen as quiant and dated, or in many cases, simply corny and outdated.
If Ayn Rand would have you know her perfect world, Galt's Gulch would be populated by nothing but chain-smoking, tall, thin, angular, beautiful Aryan egotists. So which topflight secessionist doctor would take care of all their eventual cases of lung cancer? Anecdotally, many of the smartest people I've met have often been short, pudgy and unattractive... while some of the tall, beautiful people Rand seemed to worship turned out to be real boneheads. There aren't many of them, but the true intellectual elite come in all kinds shapes, sizes and colors.
Also, I find it interesting that the protagonist Dagny Taggart beds ALL the leading men in ascending order of importance... and they all work it out happily in the end. I find it completely implausible that these three great men (D'Ancona, Reardon, and Galt) would all fall madly in love with a woman who thinks and acts... just like a man. If history has taught us anything, it's that the world's great statesmen and industrialists usually marry women for their beauty and fertility, not necessarily their minds.
As an unabashed stand-in for Rand's own view of herself, Dagny Taggart's actions and the endless romantic mind games that she goes through with the three men only reflect the fact that Rand herself was in an open marriage... an open marriage that she basically imposed upon her cuckolded, resentful husband... and sought to rationalize and legitimize it by including it clumsily in her work.
None of the concepts of Rand's pseudo-philosophical "objectivism" are furthered in this book. You could read the Fountainhead and get all that you will ever get out of Rand out of that book. What Atlas Shrugged has done is spawn almost an entire generation of egomaniacs who pretended to understand her works and identify themselves with her superhuman protagonists, only to find that people are human and have weaknesses. They sought to live up to Rand's Superhuman ideal, only to find themselves fallible, but still with the massive ego. In fact, the sheer MASS of overinflated egotism in this book made it painful to read at times.
We all know now that you can't have a society with all Chiefs and no Indians. We also now know that though Ayn Rand/Dagny Taggart may find nothing more beautiful than a smokestack billowing greenhouse gases, the Earth's environment is indeed finite and limited and not just another resource to be exploited by man in the name of the almighty $$. Rand tried to elevate her worship of Capitalism-- and thus her concept of "Objectivism"-- to a form of philosophy or religion, but seemed to not grasp the fundamental limitations of it to as merely for only human political and socialogical ends. I found particularly specious and laughable her attempt to somehow attribute Capitalistic motivations behind Richard Halley's classical musical compositions... as if every superior human endeavour, including artistic ones, could be attributed to Capitalism.
Just read The Fountainhead. It's so superior to this book in every way, and it is written so much more succinctly. Rand seemed to be able to identify with superhuman men, she should've hired one to edit this book.
Book Review: Socialists And The Impatient Need Not Apply
Summary: 5 Stars
While I prefer "The Fountainhead" to "Atlas Shrugged" overall, this is the most pure embodiment of Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism ever penned, and it is perhaps the best anti-socialism novel ever written; it's certainly the best I've ever read. The book concerns itself with the travails of three great thinkers and industrialists, Dagny Taggart (railroad tycoon,) Hank Rearden (uber-metallurgist,) and Francisco d'Anconia (copper magnate, and general industrialist-at-large.) Ultimately they are united with other great thinkers by the mysterious John Galt, who typifies independent thinking capitalism. The overall philosophy here is very libertarian: keep government small and designed strictly for essentials, dramatically limit the welfare state, and allow free markets to be really free. Any type of government intervention (socialism, communism, fascism) is demonized in the objectivist manifesto.
The actual world that the characters find themselves in is very bleak. Socialism has taken over the rest of the world, and is eating away progressively at America. The protagonists in the book are so principle-driven as to be almost unbelievable; nevertheless they are very compelling. The most likeable character is Dagny, and she presents a very well defined character study. Pages 193-206 shed more light on her character than any others, although her exhortation on page 815 to her sister-in-law, "first, above all, don't be afraid," is perhaps the best single-line distillation of her ethos.
The book does have some detractions. Much of the science in the book, while at the time was very futuristic, has not weathered the ages well and now comes across as amazingly bogus. This wouldn't be such an issue, but the book is very long (1069 pages) and a large portion of it is devoted to descriptions of technicalities. Additionally, the party line of objectivism is to embrace atheism, a philosophy that, interestingly, most conservatives and free market thinkers in America don't embrace now, and certainly didn't when the book was written.
On a more structural note, in the third section of the book, John Galt gives an extremely long radio monologue (it lasts from page 923 to page 979 nonstop) about the dangers of going down the road to socialism. I actually agree with the bulk of his speech, but it is extremely long-winded and repetitive (I especially dislike Galt's repetitive use of the term "blank-out" in the speech,) and it could have been substantially shorter. Although it is the true essence of Rand's (Galt's) philosophy, it could have been distilled to a much less tedious passage. Having said that, the speech makes numerous wonderful points, my favorite of which is on page 926 when he says "To think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call 'human nature,' the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness." The concept that man is free to think and decide the course of his life on his own is the key to this book, and I think this single sentence encapsulates the essence of the enormity of the book.
The book has a very good synopsis of Ayn Rand and her philosophy in the "About the Author" section starting on page 1070, which will help her new readers better understand her viewpoints; likewise the introduction by Leonard Peikoff also includes many revealing insights about Rand, although it gives away several plot developments, so it's best to read last if you have never read the book before.
There are certainly things I would change about this book; the length is excessive for one, much is repetitive, a feature that reinforces major points, but anyone intelligent enough to enjoy this book doesn't need that much reinforcement to understand her points. Overall, though, this is a great novel, an important book, and one that every free-thinker should read.
Book Review: A conceptual masterpiece conveyed through imperfect language is no less tainted
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a 'good' book. I call it such because its concerns are chiefly achieved, and its points are poignant. That is not to say, however, that there are some serious detractors contained in the 1200-page monstrosity.
To those who criticize her economic/political structure: it's a tad irrelevant. Ayn Rand was not proposing capitalism v socialism v communism, etc... instead, she used some fundamental aspects of economical/political structure to highlight things which were 'good' and those which were 'bad'. Please do not be distracted by the political/economic structure, they serve only as vehicles to a different point. I will agree, however, that her stance on 'objective values' is difficult to wholly swallow, as the world she constructs is a hyper-focused hypothetical one. Little is done to discuss the nature of these values; unfortunate, considering she had 1200 pages to do so.
To those who believe her ideas are 'pernicious' or 'destructive'... unfortunately she makes this misinterpretation far too easy to realize. She is not proposing that if you are good at your job, you should quit and work in obscurity. Her message is two-fold: to those who find themselves king of the 'able' hill, be wary of the cost you incur on yourself and the evil which you may inadvertently assist; to those who are everything else, understand that there is a purpose to your life - live it fully, productively, and use reason as your absolute. It is the latter of these ideas I think is a tad out of reach for society, but on the shelf of philosophy it sure looks pretty.
To those who say her writing sucks: I can't wholly disagree. She says 'as if', 'some', and 'as if some' far too frequently. "Dagny shuddered, as if some evil countenance were before her". It got frustrating for me, as Rand had clearly intended for the reader to bypass these words of ambiguity. Regardless, it's on nearly every page. She uses the same literary structure and devices in an almost frighteningly unaltering manner. Start the chapter with a metaphor of the weather and surrounding sights, introduce a character by deifying or uglifying their manner and physicality, write as if she's barely containing a veiled secret just out of reach for the reader (which it is not), then ground and pound with Objectivism. For a methodical person such as myself, I both enjoyed and disliked this method. Were the novel only shorter, I would have simply enjoyed the strict methodology. You'll notice even her descriptions of people make them a walking algorithm. The story, containing 1200 pages, is longer than the Mahabharata, which is considered one of - if not the longest - epic ever written. Considering all the things that happen in the Mahabharata, the story of "Atlas Shrugged" is an extended ramble in comparison. The story is insufficient to enrapture the reader, and the Objectivist content is repeated ad nauseum; for this reason, I find the length unjustified.
The end of the book, I believe, leaves the reader with a feeling of impetus, and of hope. The parting blow of Rand's ending set the stage for us to begin. Francisco, Dagny, Midas, Galt... they all represented a part of us. As they set out to begin anew in the world, so too are we to move forth in our own way. We're not supposed to quit our jobs in angst of incompetence; we simply are meant to pick the battles worth fighting, realizing at last that happiness is the moral purpose of our lives, with productive achievement as our noblest pursuit, and reason as our only absolute.
If you manage to escape the frustrating elements of this book, you will find a gem of an idea that just might alter your passage through life - for the better.