Rating: 
Summary: Why Ayn Rand was the greatest author (& artist) ever
Review: We'll start with what this book is not. It is NOT a serious, in-depth, study of the field of aesthetics. (A field that has been studied extensively despite Ms. Rand's claims to the contrary.) What this book is, is an attempt to define Art (or more specifically, literature) in a narrow fashion that excludes most writers but, not surprisingly, includes Ms. Rand as the premier example. (The final chapter is titled "The Goal of My Writing.")To do this, Ms. Rand creates a standard-volition-that can be used to divide Art into two great classifications: Romantic and Naturalist. Volition is defined as man's ability to choose and thereby create his morals and direct his own actions. To my reading, however, this standard is rather a large and clumsy tool. While it allows her to divide Art in the way she likes, it is worthless in actually analyzing the "relative" aesthetic merits of a given piece. (She, in fact, concedes this-see p. 54-but claims that such a discussion is outside the scope of her book.) Essentially, all she is concerned with is whether a piece is good or bad, but not how good or bad it is. Any book that fails to meet the definition of good (most of literature) must therefore be bad. Ms. Rand seems to want to encourage people to think only in either-or dichotomies, which is a dangerous idea. (And one she only partially follows herself, if her comments about Dostoevsky can be taken seriously.) As a standard this could allow a person (or government!) to eliminate all literature which only partially gets at the truth or has a few good points. (We'll note that this was precisely what the Soviet Union & Nazi Germany did to control art. Ms. Rand merely substitutes what she thinks is a rational reason to do this for their political ones.) What is missing, of course, is a sense of perspective regarding the relative merits of different pieces of literature. She gives you no idea how to do this so the value of her philosophy to any given reader seems exceedingly limited. At best, it provides an idea what one should look out for in literature if one wants to find her definition of art (as an uplifting experience, I guess). Mind you, you'll have no idea what to look out for in any other art form. To establish her standard of volition, Ms. Rand must completely rewrite the history of 19th century Romanticism. No longer where the great Romantics interested in rebelling against the arid rationality of the 18th century which defined man as an individual machine. No, in fact, the Romantics were at the forefront of a rational appraisal of man's volition. Where they failed was in getting carried away with the emotional freedom. (Somehow their egos got in the way of their rationality letting their egos go free? Seems just a little dubious to me. It begs the question-if none of the 19th century Romantics actually reached Ms. Rand's standard of the proper recognition of the importance of volition (and she concedes that no one created a truly convincing hero), then how useful is volition in defining the 19th century Romanticism she seems to adore? I'd say "not very.") Particularly appalling, however, is another flaw of this book-the lack of examples. Midway through the book, Rand compares a passage from Spillane with one from Thomas Wolff. She derides the Wolff for expecting the reader "to accept emotions divorced from facts, and to accept them second hand." This book, however, falls prey to that very technique. Rand provides no in-depth analysis of any Romantic or Naturalist literature. We're not even treated to excerpts from these works. So we must accept her opinions second-hand and divorced from the facts. (And no, saying "read her novels" is no excuse. Her reference to her own works is dubious at best in making her case convincing for the whole of literature let alone art. She ought to be able to cite and explain specific instances from other works of literature. That isn't too much to ask of someone proposing a philosophy of literature, not simply a philosophy of her literature.) In fact, it seems that Ms. Rand has read very little. Her classification of books as Naturalist appears to be a straw man since she names only a few novels and cites no one who claims the things she says they claim. This would require scholarship, which she is apparently not interested in. Ironically, several times in the book she berated these "Naturalist" critics for being nasty in their criticism of Romanticism. Her own nastiness in criticizing them (whomever they are) is OK though. (As a sidelight, her comments on the "correct" use of humor are amusing, given that she apparently had no sense of humor whatsoever. Basically, humor is allowed to savage the enemies of reason-ie. her enemies-but must never be used to belittle heroes-guess who we're talking about here.) In sum, the title and subtitle of this book are completely accurate. It is a manifesto designed to exalt her type of fiction. It is also a "Philosophy of Literature"-using philosophy in the popular sense. What it isn't, is a particularly compelling or logical philosophy as it narrows the art of literature to a field that seemingly will only include larger-than-life heroes in melodramatic battles. Sort of like a comic book. I enjoy comic books, but I wouldn't want them to be my sole or primary window on the human experience and understanding. PS If nothing else, you'll love one "nugget" of Ms. Rand's "wisdom" you'll find here-the argument that Ian Fleming (of James Bond fame) is the best author modern fiction has to offer!
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