• In total there are 2 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 2 guests (based on users active over the past 60 minutes)
    Most users ever online was 616 on Thu Jan 18, 2024 7:47 pm

Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand

Share your current reading list, your impressions of the books, and whether you'd recommend them to fellow community members. Authors, please do NOT post in this forum.
Forum rules
Do not promote books in this forum. Instead, promote your books in either Authors: Tell us about your FICTION book! or Authors: Tell us about your NON-FICTION book!.

All other Community Rules apply in this and all other forums.
User avatar
Lesley_Vos
Atop the Piled Books
Posts: 35
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:57 am
9
Location: Chicago, IL
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 9 times
Contact:

Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand

Unread post

I am currently reading it, and it's awesome. I am sure, most of you agree with me, but still... It would be interesting to hear negative comments from people who did not like this book at all! As far as you know, there is also a movie after this book. What do you think of it?

Image
User avatar
LanDroid

2A - MOD & BRONZE
Comandante Literario Supreme
Posts: 2800
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 9:51 am
21
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Has thanked: 195 times
Been thanked: 1166 times
United States of America

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Unread post

BookTalk discussed Atlas Shrugged in 2012. It did not go very well.
Guess I can say that cuz I was s'posed to lead it. :blush:

http://www.booktalk.org/atlas-shrugged- ... -f202.html

The movies are weird because the cast changes completely between each of the three parts. The free market spoke on that matter. :whistle:
User avatar
Lesley_Vos
Atop the Piled Books
Posts: 35
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:57 am
9
Location: Chicago, IL
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 9 times
Contact:

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Unread post

LanDroid wrote:BookTalk discussed Atlas Shrugged in 2012. It did not go very well.
Guess I can say that cuz I was s'posed to lead it. :blush:

http://www.booktalk.org/atlas-shrugged- ... -f202.html
In 2012 I was not... hm.. how to say that... ready enough to read this kind of books :blush:
LanDroid wrote:The movies are weird because the cast changes completely between each of the three parts. The free market spoke on that matter. :whistle:
Exactly. Moreover, none of those actors was able to show the full depth of characters...
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6497
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2717 times
Been thanked: 2659 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand

Unread post

Well I liked the discussion of Atlas Shrugged, but the problem is that you need to have some irrational sympathy for crazy fascist ideology to appreciate Ayn Rand.

We had an Ayn Rand fanatic join the discussion to inject some uber-conservatism, which maybe LanDroid did not appreciate.

What I mainly liked about Atlas Shrugged was the comfort John Galt gave me for my isolated entrepreneurial inventiveness regarding a large scale ocean based algae production system, a capitalist idea to stop climate change that surprisingly almost no one has commented favourably on, although it did get to the finals of an MIT geoengineering proposal competition.

Ayn Rand's mythology really needs to be moderated by a more compassionate and sympathetic set of values. Did you hear that when the movie of Atlas Shrugged included promo material saying it was a story of sacrifice all the DVD covers had to be pulped, because the Rand self-interest dogma says sacrifice is evil?

Fixing climate change needs a paradoxical combination of creativity and science, which John Galt is the poster boy for. Unfortunately most of the Rand crowd don't believe in objective reality when it comes to planetary climate - so much for objectivism.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Thu Jan 29, 2015 5:20 am, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
LanDroid

2A - MOD & BRONZE
Comandante Literario Supreme
Posts: 2800
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 9:51 am
21
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Has thanked: 195 times
Been thanked: 1166 times
United States of America

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Unread post

Mr. Tulip said We had an Ayn Rand fanatic join the discussion to inject some uber-conservatism, which maybe LanDroid did not appreciate.
Uber-libertarianism or objectivism actually, but yes. I recall one exchange with "Mr. A" was about fire safety or the general need for employers to provide a safe working environment for employees. He stated employers have no such responsibility and the only recourse workers have is to find employment where safety is provided. Mr. A considered any effort to force such requirements on employers to be immoral, as is anyone who disagrees with his concepts.

The main thing that surprised me about the book is how it is misrepresented to the public as entrepreneurs and others who "make the world go 'round" get fed up with regulations and restrictions and go on strike. They just stop working, the world collapses, then they return to save it. WRONG! In the book the "world movers" do not just go on strike, they attack the system by sinking ships loaded with critical materials, creating massive fraud to purposely destroy the wealth of non-insiders, sabotaging factories, etc. Mr. A thought this was a purge prior to the healing and I agree. Your phrase "crazy fascist ideology" is correct.
_______________________________________________________
When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.
Isaiah 1:15

But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Exodus 21: 23 - 25
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6497
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2717 times
Been thanked: 2659 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Unread post

LanDroid wrote: In the book the "world movers" do not just go on strike, they attack the system by sinking ships loaded with critical materials, creating massive fraud to purposely destroy the wealth of non-insiders, sabotaging factories, etc. Mr. A thought this was a purge prior to the healing and I agree. Your phrase "crazy fascist ideology" is correct.
It is fascinating how this conservative icon celebrates terror as a method of politics by sinking ships to demoralise the population.

A synopsis noting the role of the libertarian pirate Ragnar Danneskjold is at http://www.atlassociety.org/synopsis-pl ... s-shrugged

http://www.conservapedia.com/Ragnar_Danneskj%C3%B6ld explains the terrorist philosophy: “As Ragnar saw it, society was guilty of armed robbery—and if that society would not police itself, then the men of the mind must not only withdraw from it, but make war against it to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.”

The justification Rand presents for terror is to defeat communism, which she depicts as taking over the USA with a doctrine of equality enforced by state power. She sees these free market terrorists as outsiders, not insiders, defending liberty against conformity.

This philosophy is immensely dangerous, inciting hatred and conflict. Entrepreneurial capitalism does not need such a radical hostility to state power. As another conservative icon, Friedrich Hayek, argues in The Constitution of Liberty, states have essential regulatory functions which provide the business enabling environment for property rights in a free market economy. I would have thought that fire safety standards are well within the proper ambit of a state’s responsibility to protect property.
User avatar
Lesley_Vos
Atop the Piled Books
Posts: 35
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:57 am
9
Location: Chicago, IL
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 9 times
Contact:

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand

Unread post

The problem appeared: I am reading a book 3 of Atlas Shrugged now and... I feel I can't finish it!! I mean... It sounds sooo boring for me now, and I believe it's because it's tooooo long. I believe the author could be more laconic with her ideas, and we (readers) would still understand and get them. It seems impossible for me to finish reading a 50-page monologue of John Galt without falling asleep! Sorry...
janny
Getting Comfortable
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2015 7:44 am
9
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand

Unread post

The book itself was quite enjoyable. An interesting plot, even more interesting characters, and a lot of moments you really want to reread all over again. As for the movie, it didn't appeal to me as much as the book. The actors didn't really connect to the character, it's as if they were given a script, they were to execute it, then boom, movie.
Janny > Love books, Coldplay and my second half Henry Ford - my beautiful Berner sennen
Proud member of the Swedish book club Cordia.
User avatar
Murmur
Internet Sage
Posts: 344
Joined: Mon Nov 09, 2015 12:13 pm
8
Location: Tarrytown, NY, USA
Has thanked: 30 times
Been thanked: 128 times
Gender:
Ukraine

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand

Unread post

I read the book a few years ago. My memory isn't perfect. I liked the overall premise of the book. I liked the overall plot too.

However, there are a bunch of negative things that can be said about it.

Rand justifies murder at least twice. Dagney murders a guard and some politician (I think a relative of hers?) killed someone to get him out of the way to develop something. I find this justification of murder, just to get people out of your way, to be distasteful.

The book is too wordy. It could be 1/5 the size that it is and tell the same story.

The 50 page speech was one of the most unmemorable things I've ever read. It's so unmemorable, that I can only remember the very beginning of it.

The heroes are too perfect. The villains are too perfect in their villainy. Well, I guess those perfect character traits are one of the more forgivable things in the book.

Rand ignores the fact that people can still accomplish things without these superheroes of leadership that live in Galt's Gulch. The notion that the world ceases functioning properly without these superheroes of leadership is just silly.
User avatar
DWill

1H - GOLD CONTRIBUTOR
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6966
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:05 am
16
Location: Luray, Virginia
Has thanked: 2262 times
Been thanked: 2470 times

Re: Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand

Unread post

I'm completely ignorant of the book and Ayn Rand in general, but in reading the comments, and having just finished Jon Krakauer's book on Mormons, I have to ask: Is there a real difference between the ideology of Rand and religious fanaticism? Could be way off base here, just asking.
Post Reply

Return to “What are you currently reading?”