Atlas Shrugged

Rating:
Summary: Worth a read, but ultimately not the way the world is
Review: You can either read the book to get Rand's philosophy or you can read this to get her philosophy: thinking is an act of choice, choose to think and all will be well, choose not to think, and all will not be well. Since the book was ultimately written as a conduit to express her philosophy, you can now skip reading it.

Rand divides the world into the heroes that think and act for themselves (the good guys) and all the rest, who are parasites and thugs (the bad guys). The good guys have cool names (John Galt, Dagny Taggart, etc.), while the bad have names like Mooch. Rand implies (not too subtly) that the bad guys don't even deserve to live. Rand wants to negate the role of emotion in human existence and portrays an ideal human as having a Spock-like commitment to the logical.

Rand's real life bore no resemblance to the characters that she idealized in her big novels (Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead). She was neurotic, vindictive and deeply dependent upon the opinion and acceptance of others. This is well chronicled in various biographies about her life. Her philosophy of Objectivism developed an almost cult-like following and she seemed to revel in the role of cult leader (quite contradictory to her philosophy of valuing autonomy and free will).

I agree with a previous reviewer's statement that this book could have been much shorter w/o losing much. She is very redundant with her philosophy. It's an admirable philosophy and many people have been inspired by it (especially at the high school and college levels, myself included), but it is more of a vision than something that can ever become a reality for anyone not stranded on a desert island. The simple truth is that people are dependent on one another, that every one has his/her neuroses, blind spots, etc.

Read the book, maybe it'll motivate you to become more self-sufficient. Don't be disappointed, though, when you discover that reality (defined as your interpersonal dealings) will never come anywhere close to matching the ideal that Rand presents.

Rating:
Summary: Objectivist Bible
Review: Atlas Shrugged is the Objectivist Bible and, like its Christian counterpart, is long, repetitive, presumptuous, allegorical, and contrived towards making its point. Also like its Christian counterpart, it strongly reaffirms the faithful and violently enrages the heretics.

On one side there are the individualists, who believe that society is just another tool for survival, and that each and every human is in charge of his or her own destiny, independent from the needs and wants of any other person. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and charity always has a hidden cost. These readers will find Atlas Shrugged to contain a number of parables and morality plays designed to illustrate the logic behind those concepts, and will help them to collect their thoughts into a cohesive philosophy.

On the other side are the socialists, who believe that civilization as a whole is greater than any one life. Individuals may come and go, but society is eternal. Any attempt by an individual to rise above the role established for him or her by society is a detriment to the future of that society. These readers, if they can make it through Atlas Shrugged, will (hopefully) find a logical, intelligent opposition to their views, and in the light of that discovery, may understand their own viewpoints better.

When that day comes, I'll welcome them to my own private Galt's Gulch.

Rating:
Summary: Good book, but don't try this at home.
Review: Atlas Shrugged is a good book, definitely entertaining and thought-provoking. With over 500 reviews here, there's not much I need to add to that. Although I don't like this book nearly so much as I did when I was 18, I still think everyone should read it.

My criticism of the book and of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism(the two are nearly inseparable) is that the psychology and the relationships are entirely divorced from reality.

If you're inclined to use Rand's characters as models for your own behavior -- something that's at least as bad as modeling your manners on those of sitcom characters -- then check out "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand: A Personal Statement" by Nathaniel Branden. This essay is posted on the web.

Like a lot of people, I read Atlas Shrugged -- and all Rand's other fiction and non-fiction -- while young and so was provided with an outlet for my teen angst and with fuel for those all-night bull sessions in college. (Kids without jobs, and philosophy professors with jobs, can debate for hours whether or not the world exists.) Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead also gave me a lot of silly ideas about dating that I fortunately outgrew. And when I got to the business world, I learned just how unreal Rand's world is.

A lot of people who read Atlas then decide that they also are misunderstood geniuses and act accordingly. Like Rand's characters, they imagine themselves to be absolutely right and the rest of the world to be absolutely wrong. I witnessed one Objectivist applying this to his job. He was smart and competent and young -- and convinced his way was the only way. He refused to listen to his coworkers, his bosses or his employees. He treated them all the way Rearden would treat any "looter" foisted on him in his own company. And, although his manager tried for a long time to teach him to deal with the real world, he ultimately found himself shown the door. He was still convinced that he had been absolutely right. For how could he possibly have anything to learn from other people? What was the point of listening to all these dimwits with their stupid ideas? Like John Galt, he was a law unto himself.

A few reviewers have mentioned how disgusted they were by the "rape scenes" in the novels. Most of these scenes are just consensual rough sex, except for the Dominique/Roark scene from The Fountainhead. Here again is an example of how Rand's characters fail to translate to real life. In the novel, the sex was NOT rape. Roark did a bit of quick mind-reading and untangled some complicated psychological problems in order to free Dominique's warped love and sexuality. (In Rand's novels, "no" really does mean "yes.") Like I said, this does not apply to real life.

Most of Rand's sex scenes are adolescent and laughable. I'm sure the editors of Cosmo would love to know Dagny's secret to (can I say this on Amazon?) never-fail simultaneous orgasm. Then again, those often produced post-coital philosophical speech-making by the men so maybe it's better left undiscovered.

"Love" in Rand's novels is equivalent to hero worship. This is fine if you take the novels as allegory, but not if you take them as realism. Rand intended her characters to be the latter. Dagny is in love with a man before she's ever met him, because he's the most brilliant mind to exist this century, if ever. Never mind such things as personality or compatibility. He's the greatest man in the world and she's the greatest woman, therefore their response to each other must be love. (This, incidentally, is how Rand justified her adulterous affair with Nathaniel Branden.) Instead of finding their own loves, at least other three men are left to pine for Dagny for the rest of their lives. She represents their highest value; how could they love another? (Branden moved on.)

In short, you'll be missing a lot by NOT reading this book. But you'll miss even more if you decide to mold yourself into a Rand character.

Rating:
Summary: Just know what you're getting into before you try it.
Review: REASONS FOR READING THIS BOOK: First, it's a great story. Whatever differences you may have with Rand's philosophy, you'll probably be impressed with the way she presents it to you. The book gets a lot of flack for trying to be half-philosophical treatise and half-fiction, and not getting enough of either. And while I don't necessarily disagree, I will say this -- people who call the book pseudo-philosophy should be thankful she wasn't trying to rewrite the Critique of Pure Reason (Lord, I shudder at the thought), and the people who call it psuedo-fiction should be thankful she wasn't trying to rewrite War and Peace. Second, the book will make you think. As you might have noticed from the other 500 reviews, it's not a story that you will be neutral on; you will either rigorously agree or violently disagree. Third, some of the ideas themselves DO have substance to them, despite some of these scathing reviews, and it IS possible to have your life made better by reading this book.

REASONS FOR NOT READING THIS BOOK: First, it's reeeeally long. The book easily could have been 400 pages shorter, but Rand likes to drive home her point by creating characters whose sole functions are to repeat things that other characters have said. Second, Rand is not nearly as original and she claims to be. She says at the end of the book that her only philosophical debt is to Aristotle, which is not only false but extremely arrogant, if that sort of thing sets you off. Third, many of her ideas just don't work. They look attractive on paper but don't translate well in real life (this, I suspect, partly explains why 90% of her fans consist of high school students who (a) have never read anything as "intellectually weighty" prior to this book and are therefore irresistably seduced by it, and (b) haven't experienced enough of the real world to realize that the human population can't be neatly broken down into the extremely intelligent and the extremely incompetent... there's a lot of middle ground that both Rand and her cult just don't take into account).

As I read what I just wrote, I see that the reasons for not reading the book look a little stronger than the reasons for reading it. But I should say that I DID enjoy this book, and I do think you should read it... if for no other reason then to see what all the hubub is about.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Wonderful
Review: I would recommend this book very highly. I found it to be a refreshing and wonderful view on the human spirit.

Rating:
Summary: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Review: I rate this book as 10 stars! The most profoundly prophetic insight to our day and the demise of America to the 'political machine' now in place.

If you want to know what is wrong with America and our world you must READ THIS BOOK! The story is a novel but the concepts, ideas and information are REAL.

If you want to save America read "Atlas Shrugged". If you want to save yourself read "Atlas Shrugged". If you want to save your sanity read "Atlas Shrugged".

Rating:
Summary: A book that teaches and entertains
Review: The task of writing a novel that explains an entire philosophy while being entertaining is so daunting I can't believe anyone tried it. That Ayn Rand did it, and so well, is breathtaking in and of itself. True, the book is not flawless. It's not great literature, the characters may be a little stiff. Bear in mind, this is a philosophy book, not a beach novel, nor something so steeped in symbolism that school kids grow up hating it. It is here to demonstrate, to explain, and to predict. It is straightforward and plain. That it entertains and has an interesting story is the author's great glory. The philosophy is sound and well presented. Read it, and see yourself for the heroic figure you are. Read it, and contemplate. Don't take Rand's word for it, don't take mine. Explore the ideas in this book, look at what you're told and what you believe. Examine your premises. Really try to dig out what you believe and why. It's a lot of work, but it's quite rewarding. You will probably find that you've swallowed a lot of poison in your life. Working the poison back out of your life takes effort. I hope you'll be up to the task. I'm glad I was. Plato, Kant, Hegel, and the modern foolosophers can bite me. I may not be John Galt, but I think he'd take the time to find me.

Rating:
Summary: Who is John Galt?
Review: Well, kids, John Galt was a character in a silly old book, written by a woman who was a notorious crackpot. Few take her seriously today but a few benighted reactionaries and a lot of high-school students who have never read another book but believe themselves to be misunderstood geniuses. (Oh, and Alan Greenspan.) No kids, pay John Galt no mind. Seriously though, I've read Atlas Shrugged, and it depresses me to hear praise showered upon it. That people consider it literature, with its wooden prose and cardboard characters, shows that they know nothing of literature. That people consider its pernicious ideas sound shows that they are anything but "objective." The world simply does not work the way Ms. Rand's cultists believe it does. If you like big books, read Gravity's Rainbow.

Rating:
Summary: Inspirational but not flawless
Review: The message of this book would be more effectively brought across if it were condensed a little. I also wish Ayn Rand would develop her heroes a bit more thoroughly, as they come off sounding exactly alike (Roark of The Fountainhead included). These are the main flaws I can see. For those critics who have asserted that the plot is unbelievable, the development of the plot and the rationality of the steps taken is a great part about this book. Ayn Rand's heroes are truly inspirational and the essenece of Ms. Rand's philosophy is made crystal clear - reason, purpose, and self-esteem, as man's values. This is a message that our society desperately needs to hear.

Rating:
Summary: One of the BEST books I've ever read
Review: Just reading this book is a life changing experience! For anyone who is searching for something in their lives - for meaning, for inspiration, this is a MUST read. I won't go into the why's and how's, read it yourself, find out and nod...yes!