Atlas Shrugged in Classics Without All the Class

Mar 02, 2011 Isha Bali rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classic

Ayn Rand - where do I even start ? I read Ayn Rand books after my 10th board, and I now know that that is the perfect age for Ayn Rand. I read Fountainhed and Atlas Shrugeed non-stop, back-to-back, and followed up with Anthem and We The Living. Absolutely loved her books. Loved her characterisations - Howard Roark, Toohey, Gail Wynand, Peter Keating, Francisco D'Aconia (dashing!), Hank Rearden - they are engraved in my mind. Lent my Atlas shrugged to a friend when I joined college and no jokes, Ayn Rand - where do I even start ? I read Ayn Rand books after my 10th board, and I now know that that is the perfect age for Ayn Rand. I read Fountainhed and Atlas Shrugeed non-stop, back-to-back, and followed up with Anthem and We The Living. Absolutely loved her books. Loved her characterisations - Howard Roark, Toohey, Gail Wynand, Peter Keating, Francisco D'Aconia (dashing!), Hank Rearden - they are engraved in my mind. Lent my Atlas shrugged to a friend when I joined college and no jokes, as she read through it, for almost a month, we discussed the book during our lunch break. I particularly liked these books for their emphasis on hard work, self-dependence and emphasis on good, quality work and doing the best one can - I find similarity with the quality aspects of en and The Art of motorcycle Maintenance. Also agree with her views on committees- any ground-breaking, radical, new work would have a higher chance of being voted out, as a group safer options would be preferred.

Treatment of women and the women characters - agreed, bad especially the sexual assault as seduction, wondered if she had seen too much Bollywood ! Dagny was fine but the Dominique-Howard dynamic was weird. Specially bad as would love youngsters to read these. The idealism of these books, the rebellion and the - I am right, everyone else is wrong, no one understands me - appeals to teens (like The catcher in the Rye).

As I grew up and read more about her books, was shocked and realised there were several negatives. The world would be a bad place with just selfish, individualistic people - I agree with Shriram on the growing old bit However, another scientist friend of mine says it is foolish for us to try to create an equal world, nature is inherently unequal - our brains, sizes, strengths, social backgrounds, familty and country we are born in are all inferior or superios. Though I agree that inequality is inherent in the world, I feel that that is all the more reason un-Randian compassion is required. But how I got around this as a teen was Rand's explanation- when a mother feeds her child, it is also selfishness cos feeding the child gives her happiness, she values at that moment the child's well-being over hers. I could justify all charity by this explanation, charity too is selfish, and that is the true nature of man, we do good deeds only because of some satisfaction we get from that. Ayn Rand in her books was only against selflessness. And I guess nothing people do voluntarily is selfless. The love triangle of Atlas Shrugged was also resolved very satisfactorily by this philosophy - no conflict remained (the sacrificer and the sacrificee would both be unhappy!) and I always judged the sacrificing your love for your friend of bollywood negatively after this.

I loved Atlas Shrugged too, including the looooooong speech. the whole idea of The mind on Strike was mind-blowing. I agree with Sriram, plenty of good bits in these books, and as adults we can ignore the negatives - I would like to make my son read these - only might be impossibly long for my short attention span, too many entertainment options generation, non-reader son.

I enjoyed We the Living and The Anthem too - shaped my thoughts on communism as mush as The Animal Farm - though I suspect they are biased, one-sided and have an evil agenda !

Ayn Rand is considered a bad writer, but I don't agree. Her books may not be literary, may be propoganda-driven, repetitive, too long and wordy - but I found them riveting, plot driven (I knew what was coming, but couldn't wait to see the coming train-wreck) and super character studies. ...more

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