online i see people saying this book is good but irl everyone i know who has read it tells me it's ass and i shouldn't read it. are they right and what should i expect?
online i see people saying this book is good but irl everyone i know who has read it tells me it's ass and i shouldn't read it.
This book convinced me to never read again.
that bad?
I don't know, but it's the origin of Bioshock, so it's interesting only because of this. Basically a meme ideology book
It's a bit like a superhero comic. The characters are fairly one dimensional. They exist only as archetypes to help explain her view of the world. I think her ideology is excessively reductive in the same way that her characters are but that's no reason for you to not read the book. All that said I found it to be a real page turner when I read it. It's one of the most heavily read books in America and was really influential to the libertarian right so reading it may help you to understand our society and politics more clearly.
I read it. I thought it was a fun read but wouldn't read it again. Do think most people who are against it haven't read the book. Not saying I'm a objectivist. Entire premise of the book is told to you somewhere near the end in a 60 page speech. Just go read it anon
Worth reading, not worth taking too seriously.
>but irl everyone i know
there's your problem
became a friendless basement dwelling chud and you'll like this book
I read this book without any prior knowledge about Ayn Rand and I thought the author was narcissistic. It's fun I guess, but not really that great.
It's not fun at all.
yes it is, it's fun because it's so hilariously masturbatory
Yh ig you've never grown up with 2 morons with this ideaology
i might be taking a leap here but i think 99% of the population hasn't
ALTRUISM LE BAD
Ok so i'm getting the vibe that i shouldn't read it
have you ever played bioshock? it is bioshock except everything works because the author was a senile woman
Bioshock was fun though. AS might be able to pass itself off better as a toy with some moronic window dressing if it had more shooties and zappies.
dont let these mental midgets discourage you. the book is very good. she showed so clearly how disgusting the leftist mindset really is, they have been seething intensely ever since. its pretty funny.
when i read it, the forst 700 pages or so felt like i was reading a thriller. i enjoyed it a lot. the speech pissed me off because i felt it was unnecessary, but its only a fraction of the book.
there is a reason many people dont want you to read it. you will learn a lot about how the world truly is and what works and what wont.
the mere mention of the book makes lefties and statists VERY uncomfortable.
Just download the epub and read a couple pages you will soon know if you are ready for it.
you can also read the fountainhead first instead. i think its overall a better book. both are amazing as frick though.
Atlas Shrugged takes arguments that Rand discussed during The Fountainhead in about 700 pages and boils them down to >1000 pages.
The points can be made more succinctly and it's odd because Rand does that in her other writing.
However you feel about the ideology, she kind of comes off as a lunatic in this one and the book suffers for it.
That said, when the action was happening, I was engaged since I liked the development of the plot and how the characters interacted.
It's delightful, and not (as often stated) a rehashing of The Fountainhead. Rand was familiar with the thought of Nietzsche, specially in her youth, and I find her engagement with him essential to understanding both works, for the following reasons.
The main characters of The Fountainhead expose of two basic frameworks of thought that shape man's action. Rand's contention in The Fountainhead is essentially that resentment and incompetence motivates the perverted use of language and emotion, the latter disguises socialistic thought as morality, for the hidden benefit of those who wield a capacity to shape men's minds, and for nothing else (the priestly type in Nietzsche, in contemporary society the intellectual). Toohey being the example of this phenomenon, Roark illustrates the counterpart: a competent (and ultimately triumphant) expression of naked egoism as a heroic, iron premise. This is a work of character-analysis, a genealogy of morals if you will.
In Atlas Shrugged the same struggles are cast unto a much larger landscape, and the question shifts to that of the highest human type, the aim of mankind's existence. The philosophers presented in AS as socialistic have a voluntarist, Nietzschean outlook: they purposefully will evil and slavery for the many, denouncing the fictional nature of reason for their own benefit. They wish to be slavemasters, and most people are willing to be enslaved. A different, almost banished school of thinkers in AS defend reason as the soul of man, holding the pursuit of self-interest as rational, and as the ultimate source of objetive moral codes. Their battle for the world is presented allegorically, and at times explicitly.
Whereas The Fountainhead deals in a compelling manner with the meaning of personal development, AS is a tremendous exercise in exploring the consequences of voluntarist philosophy. Well worth reading, and terrible in its clarity of sight as to what unleashed 'will to power' means. I believe AS is Rand's attempt at reconciling that concept with the traditional thought of men like Aristotle.
tldr, do read it
Somehow you have surrounded yourself with sensible people in real life and frequent websites with people who are not sensible at all. Just look at the list of people this book has influenced, mostly soulless American libertarians who view capital as the objective measure of success in life and who are epistemologically naive in their conceptions of "reason" and "objectivity". Her main fault is a complete lack of moderation in any of her beliefs, an inability to mediate and consider ambiguity, not to mention her total disregard for emotion and the human soul. She is the left hemisphere without check: over-confident, overly "rational", utilitarian, intolerant. Her characters are cartoons and it is a propagandistic treatise in novel form, not art. She is interesting to consider as an unusual case but ultimately abhorrent to endure.
This is a great post, but as a fan of Nietzsche and not a fan of Rand, I think you do identify AS is obviously very much in opposition to Nietzsche, especially in terms of their respective views of reason and morality, even if it engages with some of his ideas. I dislike her unambiguously evil characterisation of socialism in the book, and if those cynical socialistic philosophers were supposed to be specifically 'Nietzscheans' rather than just influenced by his critique of socialism, then I would disagree with her interpretation of Nietzsche -- Nietzsche never advocates using slave morality to obtain power.
Yes, I think you're right in that she didn't understand him completely. My best guess as to why is she probably took his work to mean an indiscriminate casting away of any objectivity. A good portion of the cultured people who were acquainted with him in the interwar period missed the two most important parts of his thought: an enphasis on biological objectivity and a desire to revive the ancient spirit. Hitchwiener (in a film like Rope) shows this crooked understanding as well, they read him like a mad Freud. If she'd read The Will to Power carefully this could've been corrected but alas.
Glad to see competent readers still reside in this board, salute.
A friend recommended it to me. I really liked it. I recommended it to another friend of mine and to my grandma. Both really liked it. It will be particularly impactful if you've lived in a commie shit hole or have generational knowledge about that.
you don't actually have to finish all books you start, just read idk 50 or 100 pages and then decide if you like it or not
Haven't gotten around to this yet, I liked We The Living though
ayn rand writing about capitalism < ayn rand writing about individualism
fountainhead is superior
>what should i expect?
You either drop your expectations or accept being an NPC.
it's dystopian & utopian fiction from a libertarian perspective
all the heros are gigachads who instantly succeed at anything they try, except when sneaky villains undermine their effort through trickery
all the bad people work in government and all the good people work in the private sector
there are long autistic digressions about trains, metallurgy, and misreadings of aristotle
the book is famous for being too long, nevermind the one-dimensionality or the parochialism
overall, 4/10, mid and won't read a second time
Book is trash. Her life was interesting though. Was part of a rich family in Russia that got their money taken away during the reform. Lived in spite, adored Hollywood. Risked it all to move to America. A lot happened while she was here. Ended up living in poverty at the end of her life and on welfare.
its a ledditgay book written by a gay on welfare, about how you shouldn't be on welfare.
badass book. read it with my book club last year consisting of a few bros. frick the government
The prose is trash, the ideas lack nuance, and you can tell that if the author was alive in 2023 she'd be one of those "no step on snek" moronic zoomers.