So what’s up with this novel? Can’t find anything obvious about it - only that it’s mighty popular among conservatives (which is usually a red flag)
There are plenty of articles going into great detail- here is one- but essentially it is a showcase for Rand’s moronic and hateful Objectivist philosophy and it has such ludicrous ideas in it as suggesting railroads would do great if it wasn’t for the pesky government getting in their way and after society collapses, the brilliant industrialists will all live in paradise just as soon as we find a way to create electricity by violating the laws of physics.
For those who are already familiar, this cartoon summarizes the problem with Atlas Shrugged quite succinctly.
I wanted to read this book so I could see what the fuss was all about. I’ve never made it 80% of the way through any other book and then intentionally stopped reading it. Everything about the way it is written is so bad. The characters are all made of cardboard. The situations that arise make no sense. Pretty much everything about the book makes no sense and is just to drive the story towards whatever idiotic conclusion Rand wanted.
When John Galt finally appeared and I realized he was just three incoherent speeches in a trench coat and not an actual attempt at writing a character, I basically abandoned finishing the book in disgust.
There’s at least a grain of truth in that book. Try starting a business or producing something.
Look at domestic attempts to mine lithium or building semiconductor plants. Try building anything here.
“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”
Eh, it wasn’t bad as a revenge fantasy. You might like it if you enjoy thinking about how all the people who don’t appreciate you would be screwed if you just left. The political philosophy being proposed won’t be too offensive if you already lean libertarian.
My main objection to the book (other than the infamous speech, which I admit I couldn’t read all the way through) is that it’s a sort of morality play with with exaggerated good and bad and no shades of gray, but it keeps denying this and insisting that the real world really is that black and white. The reader ought to take it with more than a little pinch of salt.
Oh, and that Ayn Rand’s self-insert has a BDSM fetish I really would have preferred not to know about. (Why do authors keep inserting their kinks into books? I’m looking at you, Robert Jordan. And especially at you, Piers Anthony.)
Why do authors keep inserting their kinks into books?
Oh… I suggest you don’t read my books when they come out. They’re romance novels entirely focused on my kinks.
Chuck Tingle? You’re on Lemmy?
