Leo’s answer to “In terms of Ayn Rand's fiction, does it make more sense to start with Anthem or The Fountainhead?” > Likes and Comments
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Clever perspective but I think its important to understand the author a bit more. She was raised in St Petersburg in the midst of the Russian Revolution. and came to the US on a visa and never left. She is the QUEEN OF RUN-ON Sentences and loves nuance. Honestly I think the hero is her Principle of objectivisim.
Ayn Rand wrote that she did not intend for her characters to be realist but rather archetypes. She didn't think the realists (by which she meant a particular school of literature) had anything important to say, perhaps because they were purposely not writing about important people or events.
It's five pages, bub. No need to exaggerate (lie). And do you remember anything in particular about the groom, James Taggart? Anything that may have suggested he might not have been just a poor sweet guy who had his beautiful wedding (to a girl he didn't even love but used as a tapeworm uses its host, as he used pretty much everyone around him) disrupted, may have been a power hungry looter who's actions suggest a character deserving of far worse than a dashing Argentinian chap (WHEN ASKED HIS BLOODY OPINION BY THE OTHER GUESTS) preach the virtue of money? No of course not. You didn't even read the damn thing. If you did, you merely glanced at a few pages or sped-read the sparknotes, having already formed your opinion on hearsay. This is a common thread I've noticed with about 99.9% of Rand's detractors. Their "knowledge" of Atlas Shrugged (all her work but Atlas especially) is so glaringly patchy and misconstrued that the only explanation for it is that they didn't even bother to actually read that which they're commenting on. If you want to hate on Ayn Rand jUst cUz, that's all well but don't go spreading misinformation intentionally. that just makes you as pathetic as Lillian Rearden.
Leo, you missed a key point; The entire book, it's characters and the situations they find themselves in are exaggerated to make a point, the point of Rand's philosophy. She described her writing style as romantic realism which can be understood as in her words "The method of romantic realism is to make life more beautiful and interesting than it actually is, yet give it all the reality, and even a more convincing reality than that of our everyday existence."
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Clever perspective but I think its important to understand the author a bit more. She was raised in St Petersburg in the midst of the Russian Revolution. and came to the US on a visa and never left. She is the QUEEN OF RUN-ON Sentences and loves nuance. Honestly I think the hero is her Principle of objectivisim.
Ayn Rand wrote that she did not intend for her characters to be realist but rather archetypes. She didn't think the realists (by which she meant a particular school of literature) had anything important to say, perhaps because they were purposely not writing about important people or events.
It's five pages, bub. No need to exaggerate (lie). And do you remember anything in particular about the groom, James Taggart? Anything that may have suggested he might not have been just a poor sweet guy who had his beautiful wedding (to a girl he didn't even love but used as a tapeworm uses its host, as he used pretty much everyone around him) disrupted, may have been a power hungry looter who's actions suggest a character deserving of far worse than a dashing Argentinian chap (WHEN ASKED HIS BLOODY OPINION BY THE OTHER GUESTS) preach the virtue of money? No of course not. You didn't even read the damn thing. If you did, you merely glanced at a few pages or sped-read the sparknotes, having already formed your opinion on hearsay. This is a common thread I've noticed with about 99.9% of Rand's detractors. Their "knowledge" of Atlas Shrugged (all her work but Atlas especially) is so glaringly patchy and misconstrued that the only explanation for it is that they didn't even bother to actually read that which they're commenting on. If you want to hate on Ayn Rand jUst cUz, that's all well but don't go spreading misinformation intentionally. that just makes you as pathetic as Lillian Rearden.
Leo, you missed a key point; The entire book, it's characters and the situations they find themselves in are exaggerated to make a point, the point of Rand's philosophy. She described her writing style as romantic realism which can be understood as in her words "The method of romantic realism is to make life more beautiful and interesting than it actually is, yet give it all the reality, and even a more convincing reality than that of our everyday existence."
If you think in terms of them "abandoning" "regular people", or them being "traitors"... you really need to rethink your beliefs. Nobody owes you anything.