I started re-reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand this January. I tried to read it circa 2002, but gave up about 1/3 of the way in. Ryan and I decided that we would try to read it at the same time, in a kind of "Finer Things" book club. Members of this club include Ryan and myself. I wouldn't try to subject anyone else to a book of this length.
In all fairness, I'd have to say I've skipped at least 50 pages of this book. It's extremely repetitive. If someone is giving a long talk, I read the first sentence of each paragraph, skim, and see if they are actually revealing new plot, if not, I skip it. It's the same old shit in each diatribe. If she would have just said "Dagny is not a whore by any means, she only slept with Rearden because he was the culmination of her awesomeness and the answer to her incredible potential and you are never allowed to forget that in this entire story." she could have saved herself 50-70 pages of writing.
Some people say that Atlas Shrugged was one of the most important books they ever read, and made them look at life differently, etc. Others claim it was the biggest waste of time they ever tried to read. I wouldn't put it in either category. Yeah, it's incredibly long, but there are some good parts. It would have been a lot better if there was ANY humor in it. It's definitely the most pages I've ever read without smiling or being emotionally moved in any way. Even the descriptions of sex are dull. Rand tried to make Dagny this woman who was completely unable to do anything illogical. Every bit of lust she felt had an entirely logical motivation, which makes no sense. Attraction between two people and sex especially, is probably the least logical part of human life. Why do you think there's so many unplanned pregnancies?
Anyway, I don't think I'll be reading anymore Rand. I find the way she writes to be a bit pretentious and dull. I think trying to argue a political philosophy through a novel is a waste of a novel. As you're writing it, you become too focused on the politics and ideas you're trying to drive home, and you forget that you have to write an interesting story with characters that the reader might care about. You'd be better off writing a political treatise.
I could write a lot more, but in a non-Randian fashion, I'll end it here.
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I should be doing a lot of other things, but instead, I'm blogging.
3 comments:
so did you finish reading it or are you just putting it down for good? I'm currently reading the works of Jane Austen. I figure that "The Classics" are always a good choice. The read is going slowly though because apparently the characters in the book do not know what the quidditich is, have never been to Hogwarts, nor have they ever seen grindylow....
exactly. what's the point in reading a book, if the characters have never heard of quidditch?
i'm still on page 270 or something like that... it's not even as far as i got when i first tried to read the book (which was somewhere around page 400 or so).
I have about 15 pages left to read. I don't really care though, it's obvious how it's going to end.
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