What do you think

why read fountainhead first

I haven't read it, but I saw the movie. Am I any better? Will God forgive me?

God forgives all lad

LEADAH

Atlas Shrugged is more or less the spiritual sequel to The Fountainhead, in Rand's own words.

It's great worldbuilding for a wild west + mad max RPG game.

Here's a fa/tg/uy's take on it: emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/IronLegion.IronLegion.html

Give it to me straight lads
Are Rand's nonfiction books any good?

> "The road is cleared," said Galt. "We are going back to the world."
>He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar.
>THE END

The merit of her "objectivist" philosophy is debatable. I think it's a little to extreme, but not the shitshow that everyone makes it out to be.

That said, the book doesn't have characters so much as devices which act as characters to live out her philosophy and its detractors.

This is done unbelievably poorly, even more so in The Fountainhead. Anyone that opposes her viewpoints is a short, fat, ugly idiot, and anyone who embodies objectivism etc is tall, good looking, and sympathetic.

So Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is just a little weak, because it exists to advocate a philosophy, but only manages to do so by saying that anyone who doesn't agree is fat and ugly and stupid.

It's honestly a LOT better than her fiction, just because she's so terrible at mixing philosophy and fictional characterization. It's worth looking over, you've got nothing to lose but time by reading it. The Fountainhead will actually cost you brain cells

>little too* extreme
Sorry bout that.

>The Fountainhead.
Really? I've heard The Fountainhead is more enjoyable, less sociopathic, and less preachy than Atlas Shrugged. Was I lied to?

(You)
Fuck, I meant to highlight:
>the book doesn't have characters so much as devices which act as characters to live out her philosophy and its detractors. This is done unbelievably poorly, even more so in The Fountainhead.

First 200 or so pages were cool as fuck (I'm a bit of a sucker for iron-willed, extremely capable protags) , dropped it about 500p in because of how repetitive and overt-with-its-ideas it was

Yes, 100%. The Fountainhead is less political, since it's about architecture, but it's really poorly written. Anthem is less preachy, too.

Her best fiction is We the Living, since Communism is made to look bad via circumstance, but it's never beat into your skull over and over again. It's also shorter than The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, so you'll waste less time if you end up hating it.

This guy gets it completely. Thank you. It's just SOOOO ham-fisted.

No, you weren't lied to. The Fountainhead is the better book. It's just less grandiose and theatrical.

>The Fountainhead is the better book.
How so? Is the prose better? Is the protagonist less sociopathic than John Galt?

Less sociopathic, more realistic, more empathetic. Atlas Shrugged is the attempt of a dilettante to lay out A Philosophy, and absolutely everything within it is organized in those terms. It's still character driven, but the characters take their form entirely in relation to Ayn's ideology. In The Fountainhead, it's character driven, but the characters are allowed to be a little bit more organic, and to stand as the center point without being expected to carry as much.

Basically, The Fountainhead is a book about people. Atlas Shrugged is a dilettante's idea of a book about ideas as seen through the lens of people.

It's a much shittier book than Atlas Shrugged, imho. Read it yourself and see, it's a super repetitive read where all the characters are totally one-dimensional and static.

It's compelling at first, don't get me wrong, but you'll figure out pretty quick that it's just "beautiful people who have their own objectivist ideals are clever and right, ugly bozos who disagree are ultimately failures."

Over and over again, for ~700 pages.

Again though, just my opinion. Read it yourself and see. For every serious reader that loves her, there's another half dozen who hate her. I think Rand is decent, personally

I've never read it, but I hate most every objectivist I've ever met.

>most every objectivist
How many have you met???

If you want libertarian fiction read Heinlein. He's good, and is good at elaborating on ancap philosophy and hypothetical models of society in a manner that keeps the fiction enjoyable. Contrast with Rand. If you want libertarian nonfiction, read Rothbard, Nozick et al; classical economics, the Austrian and Chicago school, really just the modern canon of neoclassical economic thought, which is overwhelmingly pro-capitalism and will actually teach you something and help you defend yourself and your position. Contrast, again, with Rand.

Like, four. They were all assholes before discovering Rand, though.