Atlas Shrugged

Rating:
Summary: Love it or hate it
Review: This is a book you'll probably either love or hate, depending upon your own personal beliefs. Academicians will no doubt hate it because the writing is awkward in parts and too preachy. Overall, I found Atlas Shrugged to be stimulating. Even though I don't agree with all the points made in the book, it made me reflect on my own life.

Critics here who've cited Enron and WorldCom as examples of the dangers of under-regulated capitalism are missing the point. I don't believe Ayn Rand was saying that all business executives should be trusted or viewed as heroes. Those who've read the book know that Dagny Taggart's cowardly brother is a prime example of the incompetent businessman who takes credit for other people's achievements.

There is no denying the influence this book has had. Modern Library put together a list of the 100 best novels. Ulysses finished first in the poll of board members, but Atlas Shrugged was number one among readers surveyed.

Anyone looking for an insider perspective of the author should read Barbara Branden's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand." Branden was a disciple who later left Rand's inner circle. She made these comments in the introduction to her Rand biography:

"Those who worship Ayn Rand and those who damn her do her the same disservice: they make her unreal and they deny her humanity... She was a human being. She lived, she loved, she fought her battles, and she knew triumph and defeat. The scale was epic; the principle is inherent in human existence."

Rating:
Summary: The World Needs A Few Dagny Taggarts
Review: Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," though some may criticize it as long or a bit on the fantastic side, underscores the very real consequences and costs of tinkering with markets and individual liberties. Her characters Hank Reardon and Dagny Taggart demonstrate many of the characteristics of people who are driven by sheer will and determination, and also serve to show the reader exactly how lesser men seem to be motivated only to mar those who work and succeed.

My only criticism is that Rand's portrayal of the book's many socialistic/liberal characters tends to oversimplify their motivations and philosophy. Socialistic policy, while dreadful, is derived from much more complex ideas than those allowed by Rand. Still, the novel does a fantastic job of demonstrating the follies of a managed economy, union activities and the welfare estate.

Rating:
Summary: A disturbingly correct view of life
Review: This book struck somthing inside me. I see the disturbing reality Rand described every day in my work (health care.) The intense efforts by government and quasi-government regulators to control everything we do and then consider us as blooodsuckers for making a profit (or even breaking even) comes right out the book.
This is a MUST read for any educated adult. It made what is happening in the world so much more clear to me.
The only drawback is the wooden, repetitive writing. Many of the characters are overdrawn charactitures. The main characters are quite good however. At 1000+ pages the book is quite a struggle especially with the long speeches the characters have (don't skip them- they are the meat of the book). Well worth the effort. Would have been 5 stars but for the excessive length. With better writing this could have been 400 pages.

Rating:
Summary: More in depth look at objectivism
Review: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is a more complete literary description of her objectivist philosophy. As with The Fountainhead, the book is a good read and philosophically challenging, though occasionally overly repetitive.

The novel follows several characters as they seek to survive in a world that is slowly self-destructing under the weight and incompetence of the "parasites" of the world. Dagny Taggart, Francisco D'Anconia and Hank Rearden represent Rand's heroes--egotistical, brilliant, creative, hard-working geniuses who struggle to keep their industrial empires alive as the rest of the world collapses around them. Rand follows these characters as they seek to discover how and why their world is being destroyed. To their surprise and to the surprise of the reader, there is a grand purpose behind this destruction--a grand purpose that ultimately seeks to destroy the world and rid it of the "parasites" so it can be rebuilt anew by people such as Taggart, D'Anconia and Rearden (saying any more risks ruining the surprise).

On the literary level, this book is a pretty enjoyable read and Rand does a good job holding the reader's interest. Her characters are well developed and the plot is intriguing and surprising. The length is daunting and probably could have been shorter in places--there is an infamous 56 page rant that takes the cake as the longest soliloquy in literary history.

At the deeper level, Atlas Shrugged is a more complete description of Rand's objectivist philosophy--a philosophy first spelled out in The Fountainhead. Objectivism exalts the supremacy of man and holds egoism, capitalism and objective reality as its virtues. Unfortunately, in places, the novel beats the reader over the head with the philosophy (e.g. in the aforementioned 56 page soliloquy). The philosophical presentation is more complete than in The Fountainhead but occasionally at the expense of the book's literary presentation.

Opinions on Rand's works are clouded by vehement philosophical and political beliefs. Ultimately, Atlas Shrugged is a good book regardless of whether you abhor or adore the objectivist philosophy. I highly recommend reading the shorter and subtler The Fountainhead first--readers that enjoy The Fountainhead will enjoy Atlas Shrugged while those who have had their fill with The Fountainhead will probably find Atlas Shrugged repetitive and unpleasant. In the end, reading Rand's work is always engaging and intellectually challenging.

Rating:
Summary: Is aynbody home..in this random world..??
Review: the book is ok..but really could have been better if rand had had an editor..with a supersized pair of scissors...too long..too,needlessly redundant.further her characters border on the cartoonish side...but,the genuis in the book is the philosophy of self-determination...quite healthy...in a more pervasive bleeding heart world...rand grasped the concept earlier than most that communists were just bullies...posers..and that people really wont aspire to bigger ideals if they end up with none to keep for themselves..that there are leeches in society that can and do make arguments that we should foremost, live for others.which sounds nice..looks good on paper..but in the end is rather naive...rand,through her characters tries to make the point that a certain healthy selfishness is whats really best for society...that men need their own goals and rewards in order to advance society..there is no utopia in this life...and the socialist notions are perpetrated by those too helpless to help themselves..that mans inherent nature is not rooted in unrewarded altruism...but in advancing his own needs...ego...aspirations...and if you find the bone...you doggone ought to get to keep it...otherwise why bother looking for the bone..its that simple...read and enjoy..and your reward in this life...is the journey and the spoils...like patton said...you dont win the war by dying for your country..but by making the other... die for his.

Rating:
Summary: Woman creates fiction to prove truth, fails
Review: Ayn Rand's excruciatingly long diatribe on how the vast majority of the world is mooching off a few talented people (called the prime movers). She creates these god like beings who, despite the books insistence on them being perfectly rational, go about doing and thinking absurd things.

The climax of absurdity is when we discover the secret utopian valley of these prime movers. These men are so hard working and brilliant that they are able to do the work of hundreds of men in a six hour work day. Ayn Rand's theory of art is said to be that of "romantic realism", she tends more towards romance then realism.

Second only to this in absurdity is where the heroine, Dagny, shoots a man for being indecisive. Given that Rand goes on about the need for a rational basis for morality this struck me as more then hypocritical.

Other interesting aspects: Insistence on a gold standard, desire for the complete abolition of taxes , and the world wide domination of communism. The "proof" of all these things was reported, by Dagny, to be in John Galts 5000 page(at least that's how long it seemed) speech. I dare anyone to find anything resembling a proof proving Ayn Rand's philosophy.

Atlas Shrugged will appeal only to those as deluded and narcissistic as Ayn Rand..

Rating:
Summary: The way ahead.
Review: In comparison to the Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged is a considerably better written book. The dialogue is very smooth; the more colourful prose (for most of the time) blends in with the overall prose style, instead of sticking out like a sore thumb; and the background information is integrated with the characters as the book progresses in an almost Point-of-View delivery.

At thirty percent longer than the Fountainhead this is long read - about 40 hours to keep up with the necessary detail - but is consistent with the quality of the structural elements of the story, and not overblown as others have suggested. Doubtless it could have been edited down to significantly less, but it didn't really seem necessary, since it all read smoothly, without any distracting slow sections. Some achievement, when most others can't mange this in books at a third of the length.

The book's general tone allied to somewhat supercharged and improbably articulate main characters detracts from the book's literary merits. But with Atlas Shrugged as a title, instead of The Strike - as Ayn Rand had originally intended - it's pretty well in keeping. (Ayn Rand didn't figure on titles being too important provided they were consistent with the theme, but The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are more interesting than Mainspring or The Strike). I would have liked to have seen some attention to the naming of products, devices and legislation. Rearden Metal?... The Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Bill?.... The Ferris Persuader?.... etc.

At 55 pages the John Galt speech was long, but not as daunting to get through as I'd expected it to be, which, like the rest of the book, would have needed drastic surgery to make any significant inroads without having to leave anything out. Even so, I'm pretty sure that it could have been reduced - with care - to about two thirds of its length.

Because the speech is so long and intense it's like a conclusion to the book, but not, leaving the remaining 100 pages rather anticlimactic for a goodly proportion. This quality was amplified by some very weak writing with respect to the characters of Mr Thomson, and his cohorts, who came across too feebly; the attempt by Dr Stadler to take over Project X; and the rescuing of John Galt from the Institute of Science was so poorly and schematically executed, it was laughable, made more so by Dagny shooting a guard dead because his refusal to back down was the behaviour of less than an unthinking animal ( spot of elitism there, I thought). The post-speech section also, just about, cleared up a logical niggle about John Galt and Dagny Taggart:

After discovering the motor at the Starnes' Twentieth Century Motor Company, Dagny engages experts to find out how it might have worked. But getting nowhere fast, she approaches Dr Stadler to seek his help. Stadler refuses and cites his reasons and mentions his disappointment over three brilliant students he once taught. Dagny doesn't ask who these three were, and so doesn't discover that they were John Galt, Francisco d' Anconia, and Ragnar Danneskjold. She finds this out, much later, from Hugh Akston. So the point is... she could have made more rapid progress with the motor, and someone outside the chosen few knew who John Galt was. A problem such as this occurred in The Fountainhead where Dominique didn't wonder why and question Howard Roark about why he knew so much about marble, when he was working on her damaged fireplace, and saved herself a lot of wonderment.

It's as if Ayn Rand is selective about the logic she cares to attend to. This is also an issue regarding the philosophy of her books, which I agree with, but her philosophy is backed up by a tightly controlled paradigm. Any xyz-ism can be defended by the specifics chosen and how they are articulated. But that's another can of worms.

Anyway... I grasped the book in my hands. I opened it. I read it - and I liked it!

(And, by the way, there were no rape scenes in The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged).

Rating:
Summary: Second book I ever read more than once.
Review: In my life, I have read quite a few books, but very few have I read twice. The first book I read twice was Snot Stew (I was 8, had the flu, grabbed something from the bookshelf, stumbled back to bed, and didn't have the energy for a second trip). This was the second book I have read twice, and a third and fourth time since. This book has redefined life, liberty and the pursuit of my happiness.

The book is not perfect - an editor with a little more will might have helped (though I am not sure anyone would have been able to stand up to Rand). Also, perhaps due to her absolute rejection of communism, I feel that Rand placed too much emphasis on money and power as the source of self-fulfilment, at least in this work. That, however, is a discussion for someplace other than a book review.

In any case, this is a book that should make anyone stop, think and perhaps approach life a little more intentionally. I highly recommend that anyone with even a modicum of intelligence read, contemplate and react.

Rating:
Summary: UP LIFTING
Review: i luv this book cuz i got a EXALTED SENSE OF LIFE do u?

Rating:
Summary: Clarifying some of the comments
Review: I did not give the book 5 stars because it is way too long. I read it slowly - a hundred pages, then I would put it down for a week and digest what I had read.

Most of the criticisms written in these reviews miss the mark on two fronts. Some find the ideas in it reprehensible - although the book does a pretty good job of elucidating the motives of those who despise it. The second most common criticism is that the characters are too shallow.

I believe the book, as a vehicle for a worldview, is quite an accomplishment and is EXTREMELY foresighted - not regarding technology but regarding the nature of public discourse. It is a "Games people play" for the independent mind. It is like reading the playbook for those who would reach their hand into your pocket and call you evil for pushing it away. I felt like I was reading the editorial page of the NYT when James Taggart was speaking.

Rand wrote the book in the spirit of the middle-age Everyman play. The characters are archetypes, and not intended to be realistic. They are tools she uses to show the points she is trying to make.

I think the philosophical objections people have to the book rest on a very shallow and childish interpretation of what Rand advocates. The book is probably too disturbing for someone who has never had to support themself, or has lived predominantly in academia. In sum, the book says do unto others as you would have done to you. The looters in the book fall victim because the movers begin giving back what they have always gotten.