Help me finish Atlas Shrugged
July 9, 2010 1:21 PM   Subscribe

Help me finish Atlas Shrugged

I have read up to ~200 pages (out of 1100 pages) and it has been a real struggle. It's just about some girl trying to run a railroad. Not to mention the characters are some of the worst I have ever read in a book. I am tempted to put the book down but after reading reviews of the book where people say the book changed their life (really?) I don't want to miss out on this book.

Should I keep on going? It get way way better and really soon right? Please help me out with some motivation. If it helps I also read The Fountainhead before this and was able to finish it with some pushing on my part (I found the book a bit too long). But Atlas Shrugged is 1100 pages, I want to know if it is worth it to spend the extra time on it.
posted by abbat to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (75 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 


Should I keep on going?

Don't bother.
posted by Miko at 1:23 PM on July 9, 2010 [4 favorites]


Please stop reading now.
posted by chelseagirl at 1:23 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


after reading reviews of the book where people say the book changed their life (really?)

Also - there are these people, but there's no requirement that you become one of them.
posted by Miko at 1:23 PM on July 9, 2010 [38 favorites]


Use your free time to read something you actually enjoy.
posted by lydhre at 1:24 PM on July 9, 2010 [11 favorites]


Seconding T.D. Strange, and would like to add that if The Fountainhead left you cold, it's pretty unlikely that you'll find Atlas Shrugged to be life-changing literature.
posted by yomimono at 1:24 PM on July 9, 2010


Look, I thought it was a great, if plodding, story. It gets cool, but much later on. I would recommend finishing it. But if you're reading it to have a life-changing experience, stop now and run.

And if you are going for life changing, please please balance Rand out with some Gurdjief.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 1:27 PM on July 9, 2010


Cliffs Notes are available.
posted by artlung at 1:27 PM on July 9, 2010


What?! Why?! No! You've already read The Fountainhead, which, while flawed, is probably the best Ayn Rand book. I'm loathe to ever stop reading a book, especially if I'm already 200 pages in, but if ever there were an exception to prove the rule, that exception would be Atlas Shrugged.
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:27 PM on July 9, 2010 [4 favorites]


It's pretty bad.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:27 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


Those characters that you think are the worst you've ever found in literature? Those are the heroes. And yeah, they leave many of us cold. Finishing the book didn't change my life, but it left me with a deep and abiding distaste for followers of Ayn Rand, or anyone who would think that these characters were role models.
posted by kanewai at 1:30 PM on July 9, 2010 [2 favorites]


Those people who say it changed their life? A lot of us avoid those people until they change back.
posted by history is a weapon at 1:30 PM on July 9, 2010 [69 favorites]


You could read ten more interesting, better written, more profound and entertaining novels in the time it would take you to slog through Rand's rancid prose. And the only people who claim Ayn Rand changed their lives are assholes.
posted by dortmunder at 1:31 PM on July 9, 2010 [3 favorites]


my ex-girlfriend made me read it - sure that i would come around to her crazy-toons way of thinking if i just really saw it. i didn't, i felt my time was wasted, and i just came out of it thinking was even more insane than i did when i started it - so, unless there's fantastic repression sex at the end, just put it down.
posted by nadawi at 1:33 PM on July 9, 2010 [3 favorites]


abbat: Please help me out with some motivation.

Think about this: If you're reading a work extolling the virtues of individualism, and you find yourself crying out for help from the collective, you should take it as a sign to walk away.
posted by mkultra at 1:33 PM on July 9, 2010 [65 favorites]


You know, I'm far, far, far from an objectivist or Rand fan, but I really love Atlas Shrugged. MY NAME IS WROK AND I ENJOY READING ATLAS SHRUGGED.

Seriously, skim the monologues when they drag on over half a page, and it's a good read.
posted by wrok at 1:34 PM on July 9, 2010 [3 favorites]


First off, the people who have been changed by Atlas Shrugged have been changed into intolerable proselytizers at best.

Second: do you know what you are building up to? A 200-page-long political philosophy monologue. Shaky political philosophy. There is no author living or dead who can build up to a 200-page-long monologue and deserve it, let alone deserve 200 pages of philosophy.

Just put it down and pick up the Illuminatus! Trilogy if you want to read something that's changed the life of everyone who has read it.
posted by griphus at 1:41 PM on July 9, 2010 [11 favorites]


I can't stand Ayn Rand, her opinions, or her writing. I think she was a huge jerk. I didn't finish Atlas Shrugged either. And while I don't really want to advise anybody to stop reading a book because I disagree with the author's politics or worldview, (after all, if you're interested in the book, it'd be better for you to give it a fair shake and form your own opinions about it) I suspect that if you don't like the book thus far, you will continue to dislike it and can probably safely stop reading.
posted by magnificent frigatebird at 1:42 PM on July 9, 2010


people say the book changed their life (really?)

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." (via)
posted by zjacreman at 1:44 PM on July 9, 2010 [87 favorites]


The only thing worse than her philosophy is her ethics; the only thing worse than her ethics is her writing.

The people who support the book ("It changed my liff."), were only looking for an excuse (and probably haven't read it all either). If you must read it (I had too), condolences. If you just want to see what all of the hoopla is about, you have done enough to see who they are talking about, and can get the rest from a few far, far better written, and much more thoughtful, discussions of the tripe.
posted by Some1 at 1:44 PM on July 9, 2010 [2 favorites]


It gets worse. Read John Galt's epic monologue (50 pages?) if you want to feel like you've accomplished something, then put the book down and just walk away.
posted by esoterrica at 1:45 PM on July 9, 2010


Yeah, I'm with wrok, standing up to the haters -- if you want to read an interesting novel written 60 years ago which earily predicts our technological society's falling-apart, and gives some opinions as to why that is happening, keep with Atlas Shrugged.
posted by Rash at 1:48 PM on July 9, 2010


Read John Galt's epic monologue (50 pages?) if you want to feel like you've accomplished something

Yeah, I'd skip ahead to that. The whole point of the book is to deliver the characters to that place for that speech.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:48 PM on July 9, 2010


Try Anthem as a first read...

I would suggest We the Living as it really sets the stage for Rand's beliefs (if you're interested in exploring Randian objectivism, that is. And I very much encourage anyone who wants to argue with people who profess to be her followers to read he works, much the same way I encourage any argumentative atheist to read religious texts. The best defense is a lack of ignorance.)
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 1:56 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've known more than a few people who kept a copy of Atlas Shrugged in the bathroom.

"You know, in case of emergencies."

There are so many better books out there. If you feel you need to read books that you weigh rather than count the pages, try the great Russian novelists. Much more entertaining pound by pound.
posted by elendil71 at 2:00 PM on July 9, 2010 [3 favorites]


I read The Fountainhead as a 15 year old and adored it, and recommended it all over the place, and have often said it changed my life. It helped me establish an interesting set of ideals, the deconstruction and real-world implementation of which has brought me to where I am now. However, I didn't finish Atlas Shrugged either. I personally recommend picking up other canonical literature instead. Broad cultural literacy is pretty life-changing.

Lot of people despise Rand. I fully understand why. However, in my opinion, there's no denying that she is a very important historical figure, as a (by many measures) successful, sexual professional woman in mid-century America. you can read her work to appreciate her megalomaniac life's work, or you can read it as pseudophilosophy divorced from the context of the person who created it. In either case, you can skip reading it and just cut to the morals if you want the life-changing part, I figure. Meditate on the maxims of Objectivism and read The Grapes of Wrath and see what you synthesize.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:00 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


Now that I'm done flagging derails, I assume you're an adult and can just stop reading things if they bore you. My Objectivist buddy from my former gaming group also digs on The Mythical Man-Month, Godel, Escher, Bach, and, yes, Illuminatus!-- so if you were looking for "the sorts of things that might provoke a sudden epiphany" and are less of a slog, maybe you could try some of those.

I mean, at least in Illuminatus!, someone gets to have sex with Marilyn Monroe. Maybe.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 2:01 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


As someone who read Atlas Shrugged in one sitting, only stopping to eat and buy more cigarettes, I'd encourage you to stop reading this book and spend your energy on something else. It can be engulfing while you're reading it, but after the fog wears off, I realized I was never getting that weekend back.
posted by Jon-o at 2:06 PM on July 9, 2010 [2 favorites]


That should probably read "other Russian novelists", since Rand was Russian as well. Dostoevsky etc..
posted by elendil71 at 2:06 PM on July 9, 2010


I used to read books I didn't like because I thought I was "supposed to". Now that I'm older I don't do that anymore. I try to do as few things as possible that I dislike, unless I'm getting paid. It was kind of a revelation, actually, when I first realized I was being graded anymore.
posted by Evangeline at 2:07 PM on July 9, 2010 [8 favorites]


that's "wasn't" being graded.
posted by Evangeline at 2:09 PM on July 9, 2010


Read it if you want to, it's a book that casts some light on why some people in the US believe the things that they do. If you genuinely can't bear to read more, just skim the monologue and you'll get the digest of the philosophy.

Wow. Just change "Ayn Rand" to "Howard Zinn" and you'd be banned or at least have your post deleted. Hate speech is hate speech.

Apart from the idiosyncratic definition of hate speech, there is actually an interesting parallel here:

People whose lives are changed by reading Atlas Shrugged typically haven't read very much (if any) political philosophy before, so when exposed to something that seems to lay out a coherent political worldview for the first time they can experience an epiphany.

The same thing with A People's History..., it's not a bad book, but nothing in it is hugely surprising if you read a lot of serious history. Most people don't, so when they read it they get a similar feeling of epiphany.

I'm not comparing the accuracy of the books or the character of their authors, just the way that relatively uneducated people (like high-schoolers or undergraduates) build relationships with the first books that they read that seem to question received wisdom in a particular field.
posted by atrazine at 2:10 PM on July 9, 2010 [6 favorites]


As you have probably figured out, you won't get a lot of support around here encouraging you to finish. (Which is why I like this place.) But anyway, just because a lot of people say something changed their life doesn't mean it has any real value. In fact, it may just mean that they are incapable of thinking for themselves.
posted by MexicanYenta at 2:12 PM on July 9, 2010 [2 favorites]


I got halfway through Atlas Shrugged and threw it out, and I'm in no way a light-weight reader - I'm one of the people that actually enjoys reading every page of all those tomes everyone else has just pretended to read. There is nothing in Atlas Shrugged to make it worth the time or hassle.
posted by frobozz at 2:17 PM on July 9, 2010


Mod note: Bunch of comments removed. This is not the place, go to Metatalk if you need to.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:18 PM on July 9, 2010


And to bring us back on track....

In case, even after all of this train wreck, you still want to really, really want to finish this book let me offer this suggestion, as somebody who has read it and pretty much agrees with the majority opnion about it:

When I was taking writing classes in college, I found workshopping stories of those people who I thought were “less talented” than me sometimes more valuable than those whose work was better than mine – because by looking at those works, you can figure out why they don’t work and ensure you don’t make the same mistakes.

The same goes with philosophy and fiction espousing it and modern day morality plays.

Two-hundred pages in you’ve probably figured out Atlas Shrugged isn’t going to change your life like those who have come before you? Why is that? Do you just hate the writing? Or is the philosophy being espoused a problem for you? If so, why? Does it not click with you? Or do you find it offensive? Why?

What I’m saying is, for better or for worse, this book is really important to a lot of people, and as you can tell based on your question’s responses, it inspires a lot of discussion. So while reading it even more critically won’t speed up the process, if you figure out what you don’t like about it, you’ll be doing something valuable with your time if you insist on reading something you obviously don’t enjoy.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:19 PM on July 9, 2010 [6 favorites]


I read around the first 200 pages and then didn't come back to it for almost a year. It was just so hard to get through. When I came back to it, I started over at page 1. I was able to finish it and thought that it got a lot better after that long initial setup.

All the passive Rand bashing and talking ill of people who have had their life changed by reading the book is absurd. Way to throw everyone under a generalized blanket.

Just like most stories and philosophical books there are good and bad things to take away from the reading.
posted by zephyr_words at 2:26 PM on July 9, 2010


Just listen to Anthem while you're trying to read it - it might help.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:31 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


Why not read more about Objectivism and see what you think of the basic tenets of Objectivism before continuing? Atlas Shrugged is basically a vehicle for Ayn Rand to push her Objectivist philosophy; that's part of the reason why the characters are flat. If you think it's a bad philosophy, well, now you know it won't be life changing for you.

The story does pick up later in the book. I personally found it interesting and absorbing, but it wasn't as entertaining as the Fountainhead. If you struggled to finish the Fountainhead, I doubt it's worth the effort.
posted by millions of peaches at 2:33 PM on July 9, 2010


I wouldn't say that life is too short to read bad novels, but it's definitely short enough to question the need to read bad novels without taking any kind of pleasure from them, which includes the pleasure of their badness.

That said, one can encounter that gut-level "throw it at the wall / in the bin" psychological resistance from good books: I get it from Jane Austen to this day, for which I was gently but seriously told by a very eminent scholar that I must have no sense of humour.

Put it down, come back to it if you feel inclined. It's a novel, not a masochistic initiation rite, even if it can sometimes be portrayed that way. Read some Jane Austen and laugh at me instead.
posted by holgate at 2:34 PM on July 9, 2010


I had a very short intellectual love affair with Ayn Rand, my freshman year of college. I read The Fountainhead in one day, was blown away, and began Atlas Shrugged about a week or so later. I think I was about 2/3 of the way through it when my pace slowed . . . slowed . . . and came to a stop. I just couldn't believe Rand was killing off tons of people for the crime of being . . . mediocre. That's her scenario.

There a lot of things I would critique now about libertarianism now that I am much, much older and a little wiser. But the cruelty is what got me to stop in my tracks.

Anyway, if you stop reading now you'll never be sorry.
posted by bearwife at 2:35 PM on July 9, 2010


I struggled to read it and had about as much success as you did. What I ended up doing is getting it as an abridged audiobook and listened to it over the course of a couple weeks while I exercised. (Even abridged, it's still almost 12 hours long. The unabridged version clocks in at a crushing 63 hours!)
posted by crunchland at 2:40 PM on July 9, 2010


I had to read it because I promised a (now-ex) friend I would. It was her very favorite book and she swore I would love it and it would change my life. We were 23.

I read it. I hated it. Around halfway through, I wanted to give up or pay someone to shoot me. Then I started noticing the "astonishments." Ayn Rand uses and misuses the word "astonishment" more than I could ever think possible. She actually had someone do something with "indifferent astonishment." NO WRONG BAD HATE. Anyway, once I started highlighting all the "astonishment"s (or "astonish," "astonishing," "astonished," etc) and showing them to my roommates, astonished at this weirdness, it became a game and became bearable.
posted by millipede at 2:44 PM on July 9, 2010 [3 favorites]


Wait for the movie. The were filming last night in my building. (not kidding)
posted by zengargoyle at 2:56 PM on July 9, 2010


I read it when i was a teenager and loved it. In fact, I loved it so much I read all the Ayn Rand books. And given that, I suggest you give up. If you aren't enjoying it at any level by now, it's probably not going to get any better for you.

I seem to have some sort of Achilles heel for giant thick books that turn out to be thinly-veiled platforms for political beliefs I detest. See also: Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (which is laughably bad by book four), anything by Tom Clancy, and the Noble House series by James Clavell, although perhaps i'm being unfair on that last one
posted by ukdanae at 3:08 PM on July 9, 2010


My favorite recent comment relating to Atlas Shrugged can be crassly summarized as the individual really isn't as strong as the community. If you find the notion of rational selfishness to be bunk, you won't get much out of the book.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:13 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


Okay, I'm gonna buck the trend here and say that maybe you want to finish it, depending on your motivation.

I mean, I read The Fountainhead when I was a teen, and although I think Rand was crazier than a shithouse bat, I'm glad that I read some of her work. It's helped me to understand a perspective (libertarians and some conservatives) that I would probably otherwise have written off completely. It's helped me win arguments, and helped me understand the other side much better. So, in that sense, I'm glad that I did read the Fountainhead.

Having said that, I've heard that Atlas Shrugged is about as tedious as they come, and that the Fountainhead, although equally wrongheaded, is a slightly better read. Still, if Rand and I had crossed paths later in life, as opposed to the tender age of 15, it's questionable whether I would have bothered to read her at all, let alone finish one of her telephone books.
posted by Afroblanco at 3:15 PM on July 9, 2010


Read a moderate-sized biography of Rand herself first. She was a lot more interesting than her own fiction and more batshit crazy. It might put the book into perspective - instead of a bad romance with long philosophical dialogues, you'll be getting an insight into the mind of a very conflicted woman.
posted by benzenedream at 3:19 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


Save yourself effort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged#Plot_summary
posted by oblio_one at 3:24 PM on July 9, 2010


I read it in high school and loved it; I tried to reread it ten years later and OH MY GOD. My father tried to read it, and after 50 pages, asked me if he had to continue. I gave him permission not to.

I also subscribe to the "I don't like this book now but maybe someday I will" school of thought. Like - Angela's Ashes. I read that when I was 12 or so and hated it. Maybe someday I'll like it. Ditto almost all Russian novels. I'm just not in the right place for it now. I think that forced reading is usually unhappy reading, and if you're reading for pleasure...well, draw your own conclusions.

There are a lot of books out there. Don't waste your time on the ones you don't enjoy.
posted by punchtothehead at 3:28 PM on July 9, 2010


I vote for trying to finish it. Even if you end up disliking the philosophy she puts forth, you'll at least know what that philosophy is, why you dislike it, and maybe develop some emapthy and understanding toward the people who do. Sort of like reading the Bible if you're not Christian, or the Bhagavad Gita if you're not Hindu. And of course there's nothing requiring you to accept or reject her philosophy as a whole. She has lots of opinions, and you can pick out the ones you find persuasive, if any.

Is that worth slogging through 900 more pages of a novel you hate? Might your time be better spent reading a book that even more people find compelling? Yeah, maybe. I guess it's a question of how much free time you have, and how much you've read already.

I would encourage you to disregard the chorus telling you to put the book down now, because I think they're mostly just saying, 'God, I hate Ayn Rand.' That's fine, but I think there can be value even in stuff you end up hating.
posted by molybdenum at 3:45 PM on July 9, 2010


There's little to be gained by making yourself read something you hate, absent sufficient external motivation. For instance, good money or good grades might - might - get me to re-read the fifth Harry Potter book or anything by John Rawls. I say this as someone whose mother had her read Atlas Shrugged in the summer between 4th and 5th grade (she reads it every year.). I did it once, don't need to again.

If you really want to finish it, I think there was a movie adaptation in the 1950s. Seeing it might help. You could also give yourself rewards every time you finish a chapter (that's what I did with Rawls.)
posted by SMPA at 3:50 PM on July 9, 2010


If you just need incentive, go for the scholarship.
It's worth $10,000, and it even gives you a deadline!
posted by SLC Mom at 3:52 PM on July 9, 2010


Don't bother, it's tripe.
posted by justcorbly at 4:15 PM on July 9, 2010


Don't.
posted by chicago2penn at 4:25 PM on July 9, 2010


i suggest you read her "the virtue of selfishness" instead - it's a hell of a lot shorter and to the point and will tell you about her philosophy and ethics, for what that's worth

or just read john galt's long, long speech towards the end of the novel

it's not very good literature and if you find yourself bored by the first 200 pages, you will not be any less bored by the rest of it
posted by pyramid termite at 4:46 PM on July 9, 2010


Each of us only has a finite number of hours left on this Earth. Why spend them forcing yourself to push through the remaining 900 pages of a book you can't stand?
posted by ErikaB at 4:48 PM on July 9, 2010


Seriously, I think it was an entertaining pulp/scifi/mystery. Reading it as anything else is a bit much.
posted by new brand day at 5:44 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've read it, and enjoyed it (don't judge). I did skip the monologue, but other then that I wouldn't say it's the worst book I've read (not even close). I think you should stop, though, because you didn't enjoy The Fountainhead and they're basically the same book, so I don't think you'll get anything out of finishing Atlas Shrugged.
posted by anaelith at 7:50 PM on July 9, 2010 [2 favorites]


I respect the book tremendously - despite its well-documented longueurs. [Rand never says anything once when she can say it three times - or even five.] It reminds me of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will - another powerful, sinister masterwork of propaganda in the service of an eliminationist belief system.

But it's very much of a piece with The Fountainhead - both stylistically and philosophically. Ahead of you is only very much more of the same you've encountered so far.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:52 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


Hmm. On the one hand, I do believe life is too short to read bad books.

But it sounds like there's a part of you that really wants to finish so you can say you did. Or because you want to be able to pull a Roger-Ebertesque "I have a Pulitzer and that means I can say your movie sucks" kind of thing when Randians whine to you that "oh, you just think Ayn Rand sucks becuase you haven't read her work."

I face a similar challenge every year -- I run a playwriting contest, and part of this involves reading the 30-40 semifinalists. ...EVERY PAGE of those 30 to 40 semifinalists.

Sometimes this is painful.

What saves me is: I have a restricted-access part of my blog where I can post snark about them. I have to take notes on the plays as I read, and I started posting direct quotes from my notes there. No one but me and a handful of other people will ever see them, so I let myself be as catty as I want. ....And, that's what gets me to read everything -- I'm in the pursuit of something really outrageous so I can say something snarky about it.

Maybe that. If you really want to finish, try looking for examples of "how NOT to write a book" or "why this book is awful" or "why the ideas are ridiculous". Not just the philosophical ideas, either -- snark about the writing techique is also fair game. Look at it as fodder for a "who's read the worst book" contest at a bar or something.

Godspeed.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:37 PM on July 9, 2010


The unabridged version clocks in at a crushing 63 hours!

I listened to this audiobook a few years back. If you feel you must read it, I would recommend doing it this way because at least you can distract yourself during the often repetitive parts. I'd still vote for you to stop now, though. The story only gets more far fetched and at times (like John Galt's monologue) Rand gives up on storytelling altogether to deliver lectures.
posted by Gary at 9:55 PM on July 9, 2010


This is actually a perfect candidate for DTMFA
posted by clockzero at 10:09 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]


I read Atlas Shrugged probably 15 years ago while I was in college. I honestly can't speak anymore to the quality of the writing or the pacing, and until this thread I had completely forgotten that John Galt has a 50+ page monologue.

What struck me about the book and what still sticks with me today are just a handful of ideas about her philosophy. There's a scene where someone says that Francisco is the product of money and that money is the root of all evil. He responds with a speech about how money is the root of all good. Rand ends it with another thing that really stuck with me, when one of the other people at the party respond that he's wrong and he responds asking her what about it is wrong, and she says she doesn't know, it just feels wrong. As a reader I also initially had a gut reaction that what he said was wrong, but having been challenged to weigh his words I came to think they had a lot of truth to them. Whether or not I'd feel the same way or whether I'd have a better rebuttal to it today I think is kind of irrelevant, to me it was a profound idea, and an introduction to a new way of looking at the world.

I remember having a similar reaction later in the book when one character mentions that another is going to essentially run him out of business just by virtue of being better at it (and that he was ok with this happening). I think anybody in real life would act totally differently, just out of jealous defensiveness. Pipe dream or no, realistic or no, her vision of a kind of capitalist utopia is an important concept to consider, especially since Rand seems to be the only one (or the most popular one) espousing this viewpoint. To me, it's like something like The Communist Manifesto. Even if it's a flawed work, an unworkable idea, it's still important to read it, understand what it's about, and draw your own conclusions about it.
posted by cali59 at 10:32 PM on July 9, 2010


I found Atlas Shrugged vastly superior to The Fountainhead. It was more coherent, the characters were more interesting, and the stakes seemed more believable.

However I found something in it that few people mention, and when I tell fans of the book this, they often get angry, or mutter that I've missed the point:
In Atlas Shrugged, you have several highly intelligent people trying to get things done, surrounded by bumbling idiots. This is comedy gold. Dagne will start a conversation and you just *know* it's going to end horribly badly, and I found the setup and payoff to be great fun. It was very cute how Dagne, 'frisco, and Rearden always feel totally misunderstood - to the extreme. And the following disasters whenever an 'intelligent' character would go on 'strike' were always hilarious.

I am entirely serious: I would have to stop and break because I was laughing so hard. It was comedy at it's best. And I am not degrading the book. However I think it can be enjoyed as a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/comedy novel even if you don't buy all the philosophy.

Also, I do love railroads, and for that reason, the day to day runnings of Taggart Transcontinental were very interesting.

I found it to be a book about following your dreams, and trying to survive at all odds. It does present a harsh reality of success: it is a no shortcuts kind of book. It is the antithesis of what you would get in a self help book. It is argues strongly in favour of engineering and the making of physical, real things - consider it an argument against modern day creative banking.

All the people I have met who adore Atlas Shrugged are nothing like her characters. I don't understand how they can like the book, and not aspire to be Rearden or Dagne in real life. I think the real life objectivists are often more hardcore philosophers than the engineer/industrialist characters Rand has created, so don't accidentally judge the book by who likes it.
posted by niccolo at 11:02 PM on July 9, 2010 [2 favorites]


I had the exact same problem. I finished it (after, like, 6 months, and many "recovery" books I had to read in between, because it was just so terrible). I'd say it was worth it. It made me think about a strange ideology some people apparently subscribe to, and made me realize why, and on what specific counts, I don't agree with this ideology. I had a lot of good discussions about it with my husband (who also read it). I'd say it changed some of the ways I think about the world (maybe not in the way intended by Ms. Rand, but anyway). It wasn't any fun, though. It did definitely NOT "get better" later on. I'd say it even got worse, if that is possible. It's a nice book to have discussions about, not a nice book to read.
posted by The Toad at 1:18 AM on July 10, 2010


It goes quickly and easily as an audio book.
posted by K.P. at 5:06 AM on July 10, 2010


I listen to the unabridged audio all the time. [What can I tell you? I'm peculiar.] It emphasizes the crude-but-effective pulpiness of Rand's style. Characters are always "incredulous", "whirl" to face each other, and achieve improbable nuances of communication like a "half gasp, half scream".

It's also a useful reminder of the violence and hatred at the heart of the book. Though Rand goes out of her way to condemn the initiation of physical force (as opposed to the use of force to defend oneself), it's unconvincing when she will write of one of her heroes:

Rearden knew what the boy he had been would have felt: a desire to step on the obscene thing which was Larkin and grind every wet bit of it out of existence.

This is not an isolated example. Elsewhere, it is described as a triumph when this character manages to refrain from killing his shrewish wife. And later, it is presented as a kind of intellectual enlightenment when another of the heroes shoots in cold blood one of the "sub-humans" who "clutter up the world". [These are Rand's words.]
posted by Joe Beese at 7:41 AM on July 10, 2010


You don't read Atlas Shrugged for the storytelling. It's an abysmal cast of one-dimensional characters with ridiculous trappings (custom "$" printed cigarettes? a mountain hideaway where the rich and powerful control the world?). Parts of it made me cringe.

That said, WHEN the 50-odd page monologues on the virtue of capitalism and self-interest kick in, they're very convincing, very passionate, and well worth reading. Certainly motivating, if not inspiring. You could just go right for "The Fountainhead", which was blessedly shorter, a more interesting story, and says pretty much the same thing.
posted by holterbarbour at 8:07 AM on July 10, 2010


All the people I have met who adore Atlas Shrugged are nothing like her characters. I don't understand how they can like the book, and not aspire to be Rearden or Dagne in real life. I think the real life objectivists are often more hardcore philosophers than the engineer/industrialist characters Rand has created, so don't accidentally judge the book by who likes it.

I met someone once who's only complaint with Objectivism was that it didn't include God/religion. So that's one argument for finishing it, so that you can snicker at the people who claim to be into it but who are completely missing the point and who would probably be the first people killed in any Rand book.
posted by anaelith at 10:30 AM on July 10, 2010


It's one of those books, like "Wicked," where you tell a famous story from the villain's point of view. Unfortunately, the original has been lost.
posted by Trochanter at 2:47 PM on July 10, 2010 [5 favorites]




I finished Atlas Shrugged. But then I'm a compulsive reader; at five years old I wouldn't leave the breakfast table until I'd finished the back, front and both sides of the cornflakes box.

The John Galt monologue that occupies 200 uninterrupted pages about three quarters of the way through is certainly worth reading, as it's the only bit of the book that actually says anything - the rest is pretty much inconsequential.

If you think anything like me, it will leave you feeling vaguely ill, with some kind of desire to take the author out for a coffee and go "but... but... but..." and show her how she's completely missed the point of being human. And then you'll turn on commercial talkback radio, and you will get weirded out when you start hearing exactly the same kind of selfish, ignorant, insecure, entitled cant from far too many of the callers, and you may really start to wonder what the hell kind of world you've been born into and start seriously questioning whether or not it's actually worth bothering to try to help these poor benighted fools understand how their present attitudes are not only generally destructive but self-destructive.

There is nothing new or helpful or even particularly insightful in Rand. What there is, and what's worth reading her to get a handle on, is a sharply outlined illustration of insularity, tribal loyalty, fear and closed-mindedness posing as enlightenment without a trace of irony.
posted by flabdablet at 12:08 AM on July 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


Feel free to skip over the long speeches and get on with the plot, which is actually quite interesting.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:54 AM on July 11, 2010


I've read a lot of books for the same reason you're reading this - and purely that - and didn't enjoy them.

In the UK, barely anyone reads Rand, but Ulysees is touted in the same way. I've read the latter but not the former, and it's not for everyone - if it's for you, it might change your life, it might amuse you a bit. If it's not, then you've just wasted 400 pages and some nice afternoons.
posted by mippy at 3:59 AM on July 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


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