Atlas Shrugged

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Product Details

Author : Ayn Rand
Binding : Mass Market Paperback
EAN : 9780451191144
Edition : 35 Anv
Number of Pages : 1088
Product Group : Book
Publication Date : 2007-05-01
Publisher : Signet (MM)

ASIN : 0451191145

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Customer Reviews

The collapse of civilization is hardly going to be pleasant (2008-09-06)

With more than a thousand reviews already online, it may not accomplish much to add one more, but I will try. (SPOILER ALERT)I have read through all the one-star reviews, and I see three broad themes.1) Rand's ideas are morally objectionable, false, and anyway not original to her.2) The novel is too long, too abstractly intellectual, and its characters are not realistic or believable.3) The tone of the writing is angry, belligerent, and filled with hate.I want to address this third point, which I think is the most damaging and contentious. Greg Nyquist says the book exhibits 'furious, unbridled hatred towards those who do not agree' and that Rand 'desired some kind of awful punishment to be visited' on them. Others say similar things.Leaving aside for the moment whether this charge is true, even partially, of Atlas Shrugged, it is not true of any of Rand's other novels. No one reading Anthem or The Fountainhead or We The Living comes away thinking that Rand hates her readers, or even just those readers who disagree with her. It is not an essential part of Rand's fiction-writing style to project angry hatred of those who disagree.There are long stretches in Atlas Shrugged that resemble Rand's earlier work in that she is just describing the action -- Dagny's childhood, or the development of Rearden Metal, or the various political crises and how Taggart Transcontinental must cope with them. For a reader to feel hated when reading these passages means identifying in a personal way with the villains. Some people do manage to do this. Whitaker Chambers, a hardline Communist who later got religion, famously wrote that "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard commanding, from painful necessity: 'To a gas chamber, go!'" He obviously felt very threatened. But most of us do not have personal histories that closely parallel Rand villains.I think there is a point in the novel where it is possible for the disbelieving reader to feel angrily confronted by Rand, even hated. It is in the final chapters, as events reach a climax, and particularly when John Galt gives his radio speech.The problem is that the strikers, the men of the mind, are deliberately letting civilization collapse. They know it will mean mass deaths. They also know that those they are leaving behind are not all equally guilty. Many plainly do not understand the issue. Galt's speech is the first opportunity for most of the general public to know what is at stake, why their society is breaking down.There is just no way for this speech not to project hostility. Galt is meant to be a perfect man, and the speech he gives is like God condemning sinners. He is telling millions of people that they have failed morally and intellectually, that they have let their world be poisoned by bad ideas, and that many of them are going to die as a consequence. He is saying that he could save them, but he won't. If you the reader are in any doubt about the need for the strike, this is a very unpleasant resolution of the plot. Even if you're in agreement with the strikers, it is uncomfortable reading. The tragic fate of Eddie Willers, a highly sympathetic character, has haunted even Rand's admirers.Now here is the tricky bit, which many of Rand's critics and even some of her admirers just don't seem to get. The book is FICTION. Rand did not actually advocate letting civilization collapse, much less doing it just to punish people she disagreed with. Many of the things John Galt says are meant to carry over into real life, as part of Rand's philosophy. Condemning millions to starvation and death to 'teach them a lesson' is not one of them.This brings us back to that other complaint about Rand, that her characters are one-dimensional, that her villains are nothing but bad and the heroes are nothing but good, and that her writing is much too ponderous, spelling out every implication over and over. This fails to take into account the very risky and difficult premise of the novel. Critics condemn Rand for understanding her own project. The story is going to end in the deliberate destruction and rebirth of civilization. The villains have to be intensely, vividly, massively bad for the story to make any sense at all. It has to be clear that there is no alternative, that the society the heroes are living in cannot be fixed any other way. Rand worked very hard at making her villains awful and their world irredeemable. But she did grasp the distinction between the world she invented and the world we all live in.Rand was capable of writing nuanced, realistic, complex characters, such as Kira's family in We The Living. She was capable of writing about characters who grew and changed, like Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged. Rearden's inner struggle is meant to relieve some of the starkness of the struggle in AS. The reader can identify with him, more than with the other heroes. But it would be a literary atrocity to have a collection of nothing but nuanced, ambiguous heroes and nuanced, ambiguous villains, struggling to discover the meaning of life for 1,000 pages, and then for the heroes to destroy civilization to get rid of the villains.In other words, if the reader senses an angry, stark, dogmatic 'vibe' in Atlas Shrugged, there are well-founded reasons for it. The literary integrity of the work requires it. It may not be to everyone's taste, but it is also not quite the gratuitous, involuntary expression of intellectual incompetence and/or mental illness that Rand's critics want to make it out to be.

Life Reaffirming (2008-07-01)

My favourite book of all time. Was very life reaffirming for me and has been life changing for many.

Vastly Overrated (2007-12-10)

My intention here is not to address the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Instead, I'm going to be quite critical of her delivery. Regardless of the validity of objectivism and the political beliefs put forth in "Atlas Shrugged," this book fails to make a compelling argument. Consider the following:- The "looters" all have nothing but the most horrific intentions.- Every character who is simply out to make money is of perfect moral fiber. Not a single money-motivated industrialist lies or twists facts throughout the novel.- All of the characters are pure goodness or pure evil. There is no uncertainty, there are only absolutes.While the last point is one Rand holds dear - "A is A" - life is not full of absolutes. There are grey areas. There are immoral industrialists. There are well-intentioned liberals who actually care about the common good. These characters do not exist in Rand's world.Some would say that I've missed the point. Trust me: after 1100 pages of lengthy speeches, one-dimensional characters, and high melodrama, I get the point. I simply think that Rand has made it all far too simple, and in failing to show us the grey, she has failed to say anything compelling or interesting.

clap to yourself for objectivism. (2007-06-26)

this book is so well written, it's boggling. the immense planning of plot, character development, thematic and personal moral conveyances that went into all of her works displays her dedication to her beliefs as both an author and philosopher. it is a plot driven, intellectual novel that deserves its length. it looms on a pedestal above lesser works of fiction such as We the Living, Anthem, and the script The Night of January 16th, only to be on a par with The Fountainhead. i also suggest a read of her nonfiction, especially The Romantic Manifesto.

Loved it (2007-06-10)

This novel is not for the faint of heart. Not because the content is graphic, which is isn't. Not because the story is unappealing, because it isn't. And not because concepts in the book don't apply to us in the world today, because they do. No. This book is not for the faint of heart because it is just over 1,000 pages. Having said that, it is a very rewarding 1,000+ pages.Without giving too much away, the novel focuses on one man, and his desire to stop the motor of the world. When I first read this description, I interpreted this literally. As in the man wanted to stop the physical rotation of the earth, which would be physically impossible as far as I'm concerned. But alas what the novel refers to is the stopping of the economic motor of the world. Which, when you think about it, makes much more sense.The way this occurs is a fascinating read. Ms. Rand takes her time is describing the whole economic setup, and goes to great pains to explore the reasons how and why things occur in the world like they do. When this novel is read in the context of everything that is going on in the world today, it is kind of eerie how fiction is, at times, imitating art. I liked this book. The characters were believable, the story realistic, and plot and sub-plots all extremely well constructed. Out of all the books I've read, this is perhaps the only one to have generated so many comments from strangers. Whether I was on a plane, in a restaurant, on public transit, or just carrying the book with me, people would comment on it. All of them had positive things to say about the novel. What I found interesting was that they all read the book under different circumstances. Some read the book as part of their high school curriculum. Others read it out of interest. Others still read it because it had affected the life of someone else and they felt compelled to pass the book along. Whatever the case, all agreed that the book was a good read. And I concur.

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