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Summary: Everyone should read this book....
Review: I am 33 years old, and have never really heard of Ayn Rand. I received the book as a gift. An excellent book. Every junior-senior high school student should read this book.Achieving is not a sin. Giving on your own terms, and not at the direction of the government or religion, is not a sin. I have seen many negative reviews about this book. To those I say: check your premise.
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Summary: The Best Fictional Novel of the Century
Review: Do you ever feel like there is something wrong with this world, the people in it, or even yourself, but you can't pin point the source? This book ruthlessly and accurately shows what is wrong with this world and then points you in the right direction using a brilliant, epic story line. Even though this is a fictional work, it has everything to do with reality.
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Summary: Meanwhile, back in the real world....
Review: Ayn Rand is very very angry. She's pissed off about the state of the world. Too bad that the state of affairs which angers her so bears no resemblance whatsoever to reality. In Rand-vision, for example, the most oppressed people in the world are the super-wealthy. Forget the philosophy and politics for a moment, and ask yourself whether the people you think have gotten really screwed by life resemble Warren Buffet.
Considering this as a novel, it's blessed awful. Droning prose (that goes on for FAR too long in MANY passages), and a plot that reads like a self-indulgent persecution fantasy. Not only do Rand's protagonists get to whine about how unfair they've been treated, they get to take over the world, form their own private club that owns everything, and crow - among other absurdities - about how much better they are in the sack than the idiots who disagree with them. Please.
From a political standpoiunt, if you want a novel that tears a new one for communism, read Orwell's "Animal Farm". It's much better written, and is much more in tune with the real world, even though it features talking animals... which says a lot about how out there Rand is.
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Summary: Do you get it?
Review: ATLAS SHRUGGED is one of the most inspiring, influential, yet altogether misunderstood novel of the twentieth century. I have found that most people who criticize it did not "get it." I've heard arguments that to be completely selfish is rediculous and irresponsible. What these people don't understand is that they already follow this very principle themselves. They just don't know it. One hallmark of a great novel it that you learn something about yourself. This book wasn't meant to teach Objectivist Epistimology. It was meant to illustrate it. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone. (I've read it three times!) Required reading for the student objectivist...
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Summary: Don't Waste Your Time!
Review: BE ADVISED: Reading Atlas(or almost any other novel) is infinitly easier and more pleasurable than attempting to wade through the confusing muck of most of these "reviews" while at the same time trying to assess the moral/intellectual nature of the writers who may or may not have even read this seminal work. Anyway forewarned is forearmed. And I'm not just writing this in responce to the minority negative reviews; the "positive" ones contain thier share of nonsence too -unfortunatly. There is 400+ reviews/comments here. Please don't add yours unless you've first gone through all of them, as I have painstakingly done. Thank-you!
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Summary: The Lady was a Prophet
Review: For an athiest, Ayn Rand was quite the prophet. She nailed human behavior of the future. 'missed the mark on cigarettes though---in her book, the whole world is still smoking in the future.
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Summary: Spencer's right; it's whack
Review: Her philosophy is indeed "whack." Let's see why. "The basic premise of Objectivism is that you are your highest value, you care about yourself foremost. You care for and love other people when they add to your life, (i.e. you buy your kids presents for Christmas because it makes YOU happy to see them happy, you are doing it for yourself)." Yep, that's pretty whack. To understand what's wrong with it, consider a simple example. I want to eat a piece of cake. Eating a piece of cake will make me happy. Does that mean what I really want is happiness? Hardly. "Happiness" isn't some hard little nugget of something-or-other that can be pursued in various ways -- as though I get out of bed in the morning, notice that I have a taste for "happiness," and fetch around for something that will give it to me. The "happiness" in question here is specifically the happiness _of_ eating a piece of cake; what I "want" is not "happiness" but just to eat the cake. A straightforward enough confusion, and one pointed out long ago by T.H. Green against the "utilitarians" of his time. But consider the same criticism applied to the present case. We care about other people because they make us happy, we are told. So when I pursue your well-being, what I'm really pursuing is my own happiness. Getting whacker by the minute. In pursuing your well-being, what I "want" is not "happiness," but _your well-being_. Do I care about your well-being because it makes me happy -- or does your well-being make me happy because I care about it for some other reason? You decide. But this whackness is a perfect example of Rand's attempt to reduce other-regard to a matter of sheer prudence. Her "philosophy" leaves us no way to care _directly_ about the well-being of someone else -- surely an odd feature in a "philosophy" that was supposed to provide the true foundation of both rights and benevolence. (And David Kelley's _Unrugged Individualism_ doesn't solve the problem either, though this review isn't the place to say why.) "To say 'I love you,' one must first learn to say the 'I'," wrote Rand. Fine as far as it goes. But one must also learn to go on and say the "you."
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Summary: wake me when it's over
Review: I'm sorry, but this book is boring the pants off me. I don't really care about any of the characters (including the super-powerful, productive "heroes")or their actions. Reading this book gives me the creepy feeling that it's some kind of Scientology-like cult manifesto. Is it just me?
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Summary: Brilliant
Review: By far the best book I have ever read. Totally inspirational. To answer Spencer's complaint below about Objectivism being "whack", because it promotes people from being uncaring, I have to say that is false. The basic premise of Objectivism is that you are your highest value, you care about yourself foremost. You care for and love other people when they add to your life, (i.e. you buy your kids presents for Christmas because it makes YOU happy to see them happy, you are doing it for yourself). That may or may not clear up that issue, I am far from a good writer. After reading this book I reccommend reading other Objectivist works such as The Selfish Manifesto, or one of Peikoff's many books explaining basic facets of the philosophy.
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Summary: On Reviews and Controversy
Review: One thing you notice immediately when you browse through the impressive volume of reviews for this books, is that very few of the obviously very different people who review here give this book an *average grade*. Rand, as someone remarked, touches something very fixed in you; she creates a light so strong that once you see it, you can't just turn away. It is a sad and true fact that with the publication of this book, many revered socialists committed suicide. Ayn Rand annoys, she teases, she breaks down so many well-known, so comfortable pedestals, she drives away so many monsters we were made used to from birth; and as such, you cannot read her without either hating her for making you, virtually MAKING you think--or adore her for her greatness of thought, her independence, her courage to stand up to a world so opposed to her. And That's why the reviews here look so different that in any other part of amazon.com: because this book, and its author, is of the most unique you will have to pleasure--or displeasure--to have read.
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