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The Ayn Rand Clue Bat Of Subtlety
Aug. 27th, 2005 10:22 pmFinished reading Atlas Shrugged. I found the plot interesting enough to finish the book, which is worth something. Having previously read The Fountainhead, though, it was very obvious in the first ten pages which of the main characters were Good People and which ones were Bad People. There seemed to be a very natural ending point about a third of the way through (in which the Good People Complete An Accomplishment) but then more plot happened.
With only a couple of exceptions, the book is very black-and-white. Rand comes out and says she thinks morality is black-and-white; either something is in your enlightened self-interest, or it isn't. But then, what of the Good People Lacking Technical Skills? There are a couple, and I wasn't sure what to make of them. Can you be a Good Person without being a Hero? If you're not either tall, muscular, and handsome or simultaneously beautiful and severe? Is there a role of government if something happens -- say, a drought -- that has really nasty social-level impacts, affects private business, and really isn't anyone's fault?
Oh yes, the infamous radio address. It's towards the end of the book, it's only 50 pages long out of a thousand, but everything said three or four times in it has been said a dozen or so times again in the course of the book. I skimmed half of it or so, but it's not so terrible to skip reading the book for.
Is this worth reading? Probably reading an Ayn Rand book for the philosophy is an interesting exercise, so it's a question of whether you like trains or architecture more. The same themes get covered in both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead with approximately equal bluntness. I think I liked Atlas Shrugged better ("I'm not going to let society's interference get in the way of my trains" vs. "are you done screwing with me, society? I have a building to build").
With only a couple of exceptions, the book is very black-and-white. Rand comes out and says she thinks morality is black-and-white; either something is in your enlightened self-interest, or it isn't. But then, what of the Good People Lacking Technical Skills? There are a couple, and I wasn't sure what to make of them. Can you be a Good Person without being a Hero? If you're not either tall, muscular, and handsome or simultaneously beautiful and severe? Is there a role of government if something happens -- say, a drought -- that has really nasty social-level impacts, affects private business, and really isn't anyone's fault?
Oh yes, the infamous radio address. It's towards the end of the book, it's only 50 pages long out of a thousand, but everything said three or four times in it has been said a dozen or so times again in the course of the book. I skimmed half of it or so, but it's not so terrible to skip reading the book for.
Is this worth reading? Probably reading an Ayn Rand book for the philosophy is an interesting exercise, so it's a question of whether you like trains or architecture more. The same themes get covered in both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead with approximately equal bluntness. I think I liked Atlas Shrugged better ("I'm not going to let society's interference get in the way of my trains" vs. "are you done screwing with me, society? I have a building to build").
