great for highers
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this book is one of the best you can read for higher english although you will need to use a marker pen to get the best lines as it is really long and complex book. not for the faint of heart
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Nunkey Publishing
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I'd been recommended by my mentors in the self development field a million times to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged before I finally got round to getting it: Christmas 2006 - some six years after I'd first heard of it. And even then, it lay dormant on the bookshelf for another few months. Before I continue, let me point out that there will be spoilers of form in this review.
Being an avid reader of anything self development, its one thousand plus pages put me off reading it, since I was expecting a much shorter, non fiction book of true self help style and not some monster of fiction; I didn't want to spend a few weeks or months plowing through a book, hoping it would measure up, only to discover I'd wasted my time on rubbish when it could've been spent on a decent read, such is the value I place on my time.
Eventually, on reading the synopsis one day, which resonated heavily with the philosophy I'd been furiously honing for a while, I decided it was time to delve in, reasoning that it was now or never. And was I pleasantly surprised. The more I read, the more I couldn't believe what I was reading! Every chapter, every scene, every interaction, left me reeling and exclaiming, "Yes! That is how to live!"
To say that this book, which is the fictional representation of Ayn's 'Objectivist' philosophy, fit with my own, new, growing philosophy - is an understatement. Rather, at a time when I was just building the foundation for my site, I was suddenly given fresh purpose and impetus.
The book itself is very well written. The plots are racy, the characters - deep, the backdrops - massive and the moral - right. Ayn Rand leaves no stone unturned in giving a detailed background on all major characters - and even some of the smaller, less important ones.
The book's events are broken down from every relevant viewpoint, allowing you to form your own alliances with the teams and characters of your own, calculated choice. Although you won't have gone too far in Atlas Shrugged before taking the right side.
Indeed, for anyone that has a flicker of, at the very least, 'suppressed' anger at the seemingly unrelenting, merciless, surreptitious journey toward a totalitarian state - worldwide, I challenge you to not get riled and fired-up at the evil in the book - because it is this evil which is represented in our media today.
The antics of the enemy in the book will fill you with fight, passion, cause and ambition and you will duly feel inspired to become your own version of a Hank Rearden, John Galt, Dagny Taggart, to step out your door and face our own Dr. Robert Stadlers, Mr. Thompsons and Jim Taggarts. And you wouldn't be alone: A poll carried out in 1991, by The Library Of Congress and The Book Of The Month Club reported Atlas Shrugged to be the second most influential book behind the Bible.
And if a survey of 1,239 American adults - conducted by Freestar Media/Zogby between October 10 and October 14, 2007 - asking the question, "Have you ever read the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand?" is anything to go by, its 8.1% affirmative would seem to suggest that I'm not a member of an exclusive club in being a reader myself.
Quite simply, if you're reading this review, there's a good chance that this book will do something to you. Something good. I strongly recommend you make it the very next book you read. And when you have, come and tell me what you think. I could use someone like you...
To freedom,
Scotty Stevens
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A tedious read.
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This the most tedious book i have ever read, I enjoy philosophy and i also thoroughly enjoyed Rand's Anthem, however for me this book is undecided as to whether it is a novel or a philosophical treatise and therefore fails to be either. The reader is subjected to page after page a Capitalistic/Rationalistic sentiments and by the time I reached the "This is John Galt" chapter whereby the same aforementioned sentiments are again painfully regurgitated I had hit the proverbial wall. Only shear stubborness got me though the thousand plus pages and upon finishing i felt like i had wasted hours of valuable time.
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For the Believer
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Of all Ayn Rand's fiction, this fictional presentation of her fully fledged philosophy has probably the most limited audience. It will be enjoyed by already-admirers, or by those newbies ready to appreciate capitalistic heroes engaged in philosophical battles.
ATLAS SHRUGGED's good points include its plot (the heroine's discovery of her ideal man who has called for a strike -- of the capitalists!), the philosophy lessons embedded in the narrative, and the grandeur of it all.
Detractors have rightfully complained of the intransigent tone of the novel. Like so many systemizers, Ayn Rand thought she constructed a perfect philosophical edifice and refused to contemplate flaws in it. So the novel (like Ayn Rand herself, and her numerous admirers) casts a harsh glare at mortals who don't toe the line, regardless of the width of the gap.
If you're new to Ayn Rand, try another novel first. I'd recommend them in chronological order: ANTHEM, WE THE LIVING, THE FOUNTAINHEAD. Then you will know if you want to plunge into this, her ultimate opus, ATLAS SHRUGGED.
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Actually being objective...
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This is bascially a philosophy in novel form. It is not a good novel, but the philosophy is fascinating and the book an extremely worthwhile read. It is well recommended, but to reiterate points made by previous reviewers, this is not great as a novel.
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Painfully bad
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Upon completing this book, I threw it in the bin. How this women ever got any recognition for anything is beyond me. The book is badly written and execrably dull. The `characters' are pathetic, stilted drones, the `story' plods on and on as we read of the valiant struggle of the heroes hoping to save their silly little railways, steel processing plants, etc. who cares. This book and the other twaddle she wrote could have been condensed into a single paperback, but lacking any artistry whatsoever she deemed fit to bulk her stories out with the same dismal pontification repeatedly hammering home her anodyne message.
I'd leave it at that, however the fact that this book was apparently a blueprint for her `philosophy' is worrying. Her asinine school of thought actually has a following.. The author was a humourless misanthrope who took herself and her laughable creed seriously. She should have got over herself and her inadequacies spared us all this horrible waste of paper.
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Virtues of Individualism and Free Market Capitalism
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Atlas Shrugged has an extremely black-and-white quality; either you are an embodiment of highest virtues or you are unredeemably evil. There is no middle ground. All the characters in this book are as if they had come from some sort of a Baroque opera. No doubt, Atlas Shrugged would have benefited, if it had had a better editor.
Like Albert Einstein the physicist (and the philosopher), Ayn Rand has an absolute belief in the law of causality. I cannot help but wonder what her views on quantum mechanics and Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle were.
Notwithstanding these flaws, the book makes many a good point:
- Reason is the main epistemological tool of acquiring knowledge about reality. Thinking and rational mind are what separate us most clearly from other animals.
- Do not apologize for your virtues.
- Altruisms, when forced upon by the State, is a grave sin.
- Mankind makes quantum leaps forward by brilliant and free individual minds.
- In its core, capitalism is a system of individualism, thus inherently capable of making quantum leaps forward (in science, innovation, etc).
- Communism, or any collectivism for that matter, cannot work, not even in theory. Enforced socialism is to be opposed. (Ayn Rand's views on socialism and capitalism were probably influenced by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek).
I find it rather fitting that exactly 50 years after Atlas Shrugged was published (1957), the Nobel Prize in economics (2007) was awarded to Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson for their work on mechanism design, which deals with the problem of arranging "our economics interactions so that, when everyone behaves in a self-interested matter, the results is something we all like." Since the 18th century, we know (thanks to Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson) that the pursuit of self-interest is not a zero-sum game.
The book is worth the reading effort. It will induce you to think about the nature of humanity, the perils of far-left egalitarianism, and what the struggle for happiness is all about (needless to say, Ayn Rand was no closet Aristotelian).
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