If you put aside John Galt's insanely long speech, what did you think of the book?

Not an interesting book sans its philosophy. It's philosophy suffers from the same affliction of /pol/ - namely, that it thinks that it has left the cave while everyone else is stuck looking at the shadows, while still suffering from the same logical gaps.

Sans means without.

Yes, your point.

I loathed it. The arrogance of the main cast, Rand's stupidity and ignorance of the human mind, the lack of knowledge about science and law... All of it just made me angry. It was the first time that I threw a book across the room after finishing it.

Childish, in a literal sense of the word

Is The Fountainhead any good?

I don't real cultist literature

Thats an insult to Mickey Spillane. Spillane was a genuinely amazing writer that pulled off minimalism & machismo better than Hemingway

>When you sit at home comfortably folded up in a chair beside a fire, have you ever thought what goes on outside there? Probably not. You pick up a book and read about things and stuff, getting a vicarious kick from people and events that never happened. You're doing it now, getting ready to fill in a normal life with the details of someone else's experiences. Fun, isn't it? You read about life on the outside thinking about how maybe you'd like it to happen to you, or at least how you'd like to watch it. Even the old Romans did it, spiced their life with action when they sat in the Coliseum and watched wild animals rip a bunch of humans apart, reveling in the sight of blood and terror. They screamed for joy and slapped each other on the back when murderous claws tore into the live flesh of slaves and cheered when the kill was made. Oh, it's great to watch, all right. Life through a keyhole. But day after day goes by and nothing like that ever happens to you so you think that it's all in books and not in reality at all and that's that. Still good reading, though. Tomorrow night you'll find another book, forgetting what was in the last and live some more in your imagination. But remember this: there are things happening out there. They go on every day and night making Roman holidays look like school picnics. They go on right under your very nose and you never know about them. Oh yes, you can find them all right. All you have to do is look for them. But I wouldn't if I were you because you won't like what you'll find. Then again, I'm not you and looking for those things is my job. They aren't nice things to see because they show people up for what they are. There isn't a Coliseum any more, but the city is a bigger bowl, and it seats more people. The razor-sharp claws aren't those of wild animals but man's can be just as sharp and twice as vicious. You have to be quick, and you have to be able, or you become one of the devoured, and if you can kill first, no matter how and no matter who, you can live and return to the comfortable chair and the comfortable fire. But you have to be quick. And able. Or you'll be dead.

I don't like the capitalists who use it as a manifesto or the socialists who use it as a strawman

(OP)
She touches on many important ideas which are insanely relevant in any modern capitalist society - especially the United States, obviously.

Rand has an extreme tendency toward pontificating, or using her characters less like characters and more like microphones (like in the 40 page rant at the end), but her mediocre writing skills aside, it is an important work.

Also, the best novel I've ever read by a female author. No offense, ladies.

Very true.

If you think that, you are either a fool, or you have never lived in the United States. Her criticisms were scathingly accurate.

Your charaturization of her readership is what's sociopathic and shocking.

Yes, it's better than AS.

I'm unfamiliar with Ayn Rand, why does she trigger people so much?

I don't like metacriticism that's been

>unrealistic, cardboard character "protagonists"
>tissue-paper thin strawman "antagonists"
>an idiot plot driven by a marty sue
>incoherent stance on morals, ethics, and even economics
It is a 4th rate piece of shit science fiction novel with poorly written erotica, with or without the "speech".
As a writer, Rand was a mediocre novelist.
As a philosopher, Rand was a mediocre novelist.

>She touches on many important ideas
FFS
The Twilight books 'touch on many important ideas', the problem is the person doing the touching is a low-grade moron.
Same with Miss Rosenbaum.
At best her works prove that she had no grasp on ethics, economics, or human nature.
>the best novel I've ever read by a female author
Andre Norton's juveniles are Nobel-level compared to the trash of AS.

Imagine Danielle Steel declared that her potboilers were actually advanced psychology disguised as soft-core erotica and that if you read them and studied them you could become the most charismatic, influential people to walk the earth, the true leaders of Mankind.
And millions of impressionable young dorks with stunted social skills *believed it*.
Replace 'psychology' with 'philosophy' and that is essentially Rand. She wrote terrible potboilers but told people that they held the hidden gems of the Only True Philosophy and rubes bought it.

i dropped it when weapon X or whatever it's called was called useless

i can think of a lot of uses for weapon X

also i'm not an ugly woman so i don't want to read about an ugly nerd girl seducing the man of her dreams away from shallow mean stacey

Shit, is her following really that expansive? I've only heard people mention her name in spite desu

oclubs.org/

3Y

No, they don't touch on a single IMPORTANT idea.

If you think that, you're a raging idiot.

Rand was a wealthy active investor who attended investment seminars alongside financial scholars, senators, congressmen, and even presidents.

I'm sure she knew more on the subject than you.

Likewise she held a degrees in history and philosophy.

I'm sure she knew more on the subjects of human nature and ethics than you.

You're altogether unqualified to even compile an argument, much less understand the implications of her work.

She didn't believe that exceptionally talented people had an obligation to help the greater good.

This is why people react so vociferously against her. Sure, her Objectivist philosophy is very flawed, but many philosophies are. The immense hatred people have for her books comes from something else.

for you

The chapter where the train is destroyed in the tunnel is one of the best written chapters of any novel.

It was incredibly bleak and depressing. I kind of liked The Fountainhead's optimism, but in Atlas Shrugged Rand put forth a horrendously dim view of people in general. She doesn't really understand how people think. She can only empathize with other people through the proxy of what her philosophy tells her people must be thinking. That her entire philosophy, as spelled out in John Galt's ridiculous speech, was built on a fallacious appeal to nature was fucking stupid and actually embarrassing to read. I can't believe I actually sat through the whole thing. That said, her books highlight some fundamental human truths, whether she understands them or not. Everyone should at least give The Fountainhead a try, if only so you can see how you react to it.

>the best novel I've ever read by a female author
>hasnt read Behn, Austen, the Brontes, G. Elliot, Woolfe, Stein, etc.
Look here kid, if you dont read books then don't come to Veeky Forums. This is discounting the fact that Rand is utter trash, less valuable than the paper she's printed on. Get your shit outta here.

>she held a degrees in history and philosophy
Are you claiming that having a degree makes her intellectually outstanding?

>If you think that, you are either a fool, or you have never lived in the United States. Her criticisms were scathingly accurate.
God forbid it, who would want to live in that shithole?

Ayn Rand changed my life. I was confused about my sexuality, was beta af and had got back together with the ex that cheated on me. I picked up the book and by the time I got to D'anconia's money speech, I had dumped her, stopped fapping to gay porn, became fully straight, starting working out, and began reading the Greeks, especially the Stoics.

Now I make 150k at a company and I'm not even 30.

Thank you, Ayn. See you in Durango

and who says people have to help the greater good? not even trying to be edgy. pls explain

I have never read it but her philosophy sounds very toxic to society.

>toxic
>>>/tumblr/
>>>/SRS/

8/10

I loved it. A true gem of economic and sociological insight. Should be taught in schools.

It's ok. If viewed as a novel it's like 4/10. If viewed as a philosophical work with a thin plot to keep you engaged it's slightly better (despite her philosophy being full of practical and logical holes) 6/10. People should read it if they wanna understand libertarianism and unchecked free-marketism. Other than that it's skippable.

Because a healthy and thriving community benefits everyone, and it all comes back to benefit those who gave toward the greater good.

You have to be absolutely blind not to see that.

A turd flung in the collective face of the book-buying public.

lol you obviously didnt even read this book. what is good for the individual is good for everyone. get your kike communist sorcery nonsense out of here.

Pour toi

Rand was more interested in the aesthetic of individualism than the actual practice or efficacy of it. Shit books, shit philosopher

Look, don't make me start quoting Adam Smith on you.

What is done in the self interest CAN be good for the social interest but it is not always so. Jesus, do you just read a book and let the opinions of the author become your own? Rand is a hack.

Despite that. I think the psyche of post 29's crisis is the key factor for Ayn's appeal. It gave shape and words for the elite who lost control.

>lol you obviously didn't read this garbage doorstop harangue that spends 1000 pages repeating how laissez faire is the tip-top system and everything else is base and immoral
>lol you must be a communist if you disagree with me and my doorstopper
can you fuck off already? AS is shit, just like you

t. Paul Ryan

No, but I am saying it is clear from her writing she wasn't the sort who didn't take her studies seriously - she gave the history and course of man a lot of thought, decades in fact, and it shows in her work. Likewise she gave a large amount of contemplation to ethics and philosophy in general, and was well versed in these subjects.

I am also ABSOLUTELY claiming, by comparison, you are a philistine and have no authority to denounce her expertise.

>that shithole

You mean the one who has 1000x more relevance from literally ANY point of view than whatever country you live in?

You've also made my point then. You don't have the point of reference to understand her work or why it was written.

I know it seems trivial but this book has absolutely epic chapter names. It seems to give the events a very dramatic weight.

Out of curiosity does anyone know the first logically invalid statement made in John Galt's speech? I keep hearing the logic is utter nonsense and not accepted by any real philosophers, and I don't dispute that, I am just curious at which sentence the logic becomes invalid.

She used a layman's version of dialectical materialism and called it objectivism while simultaneously putting down Marx. The only rigor she employed was the rigor with which she sucked capitalist dick.

Take a look at how she viewed the masses and unproductive parasites then read how the Bolsheviks thought of people, the similarities are uncanny. There is a reason that Orwell's 1984, a much better critique of the USSR, was brought into the Soviet Union almost 50 years before anything Rand produced.

Logic is very trivial. All of logic is based on assumptions. Rands assmptions are retarded. She thinks a government (which will mainly exist to protect property rights) can function without taxes. That's because she assumes taxes=evil. That's like the only thing she ever says in AS, over and over. Rich man virtuous, poor man base. Socialism bad, capitalism good. There is nothing special about John Galt, he simply arrives at the end and repeats everything said by francisco dagny and hank. Also, magic generators, magic forcefields, and the good guy ensemble is one collective Mary Sue. I recommend this book for narcissists and libertards who intend to skip econ 101.

I guess without it.....good. I guess.

Ideologically, it's claptrap, but claptrap I sympathise with, so I can abide it. Fun dialogue, pretty fun in a pulpy way overall.

Seriously though - the protagonist lady (I read it 5 years ago) her arc was literally fucking her way to the best ideological symbol. The fuck was Ayn Rand like at parties.

Recently finished it. I didn't hate the storyline and philosophy, but the style was often a little trivial. One-dimensional characters, but that's because they're meant to portray archetypes. I guess Eddie Willers is fine.
Where the book really shines in my opinion is as a first introduction to libertarianism, anarchism and the whole bunch. If AS is your first exposure to this topic and way of thinking, I can understand being extremely fond of it. Otherwise, you probably don't need to bother.

No, the reason 1984 was brought in to the USSR first is probably the same reason it has more popularity among US high school students than almost any other novel - it is simplistic and accessible.

It's also one of the most overrated novels of the 20th century. Congratulations.

>not "pour vous"

>You mean the one who has 1000x more relevance from literally ANY point of view than whatever country you live in?

This is way other countries think that the people living in the US are shitheads.

Get out of here, /TV/.

Very bad.

Yes that is true about 1984 but Atlas Shrugged is more accessible and simplistic. The reason 1984 was brought in was that even people who lived under the terrible yoke of communism could recognize what a piece of shit Atlas Shrugged was.

ohh, its a butthurt commie. probably from sheltered america.

>She thinks a government (which will mainly exist to protect property rights) can function without taxes. That's because she assumes taxes=evil.

I don't recall her saying that. She was not an anarchist, she thought that we needed government in some form.

ITT a bunch of people never read anything written by Ayn Rand

If only We were so lucky.

wew

Un-ironically shit.

It's an 1100 pg novel. You're kidding yourself if you think most people would even commit to reading it.

Just accept that your argument fell apart long ago, friend.

Many people have read every single Harry Potter book all combined total well over 1100 pages. Length isn't the issue here, it's content. Atlas Shrugged is a piece of shit and any person living in a former socialist republic would roll their eyes at the depiction of collectivism.

para você

...

Not an argument.

I above all else, love the idealism in that book. Is it shakespeare? No. Is it Kant? No. But it is a book which openly believes that it is good for man to be his own end, that there is a beauty and a righteousness to what man does and is. Is it logical? Not always, but it was an affirmation of my own right to exist and pursue my own happiness that I badly needed at the time. It was the right book for the right man at the right time. It's a book for seekers, not for intellectuals. The intellectualism can come after.

>You pick up a book and read about things and stuff

>illogical
>not for intellectuals
>gives this person reason to live
>is the right book

para usted

Amazing beginning, honestly it has the best 20 pages of any book I've read set in the modern-ish era.
After that is becomes anarcho-capitalist propaganda, then the main character discovers a perpetual motion train engine and I threw the book away.

I loved how the amount of words compared to action is commentary on government bureaucracy.

Her criticisms of socialism are extremely valid, yet it's better to read Hayek for these. Other than that, it's a decent Train Tycoon fanfiction.

>Other than that, it's a decent Train Tycoon fanfiction.
I'm fucking dying. Someone has to put Atlas Shrugged on fanfiction.net under the train tycoon section. (Maybe change the names of characters or write a new book with the same plot?)

You didn't prove him wrong.

What country are you from user?

It's only good for the first 300 pages or so when Dagny leaves her company to save it. It's probably the best time to drop it. The rest is filler shit and the reveal of who is John Galt is such an anti climax that it's insulting. I get that he's supposed to be a vanilla blank state microphone for her philosophy but he's so bland that it feels weird when Dagny falls in love with him.

The Galt speech actually makes sense when you picture that it's talking directly to what people on the internet refer to as ''SJW''. In that aspect, Galt speech is actually on the nose. When you read the speech, it feels completely patronizing and you don't understand how such a group of people could exist. But with the recent rise of internet leftist SJW that argue for collectivist values, it shows that Ayn Rand was entirely right.

Much better.

>Did Dagny really have to shoot that security guard?
If someone puts a gun to your head, what would you do? Anyone would reason with the person or run away. All that security guard had to do was break the chain of command and decide for himself to save his own life. He couldn't do even do that, he had to ask for someone else to tell him if he should live. Slave morality at its best. When no one is able to make decisions, you keep asking for your neighbor until only the insane can make the decision for you.
What's more important, your job or your life? A spook, or your life? Anyone would pick their life but that security guard couldn't even save his own life. He wasn't even alive at that point.

Even the guy on the cover is ashame of this shit.

>they don't touch on a single IMPORTANT idea.
Any romance novel mentions loyalty, fidelity, honor, and personal attachment. Frickin' Flowers in the Attic "touches on" important ideas!
Mentioning them != adding anything of value to them.
>Rand was a wealthy...
That made me laugh. Her estate that was settled at her death was below average for the residents of her neighborhood and only about equivalent (after adjusting for inflation) to a middle-class American living in the suburbs of an American city.
Or, shorter, she wasn't wealthy.
Why?
Despite attending all those seminars she wasn't got at getting her money to grow.
Indeed, based upon book sales and speaking fees she typically lost money in the market.
>I'm sure she knew more on the subject than you.
What subject? Economics?
I have a Bachelor's degree in Ethics with a minor in Economics and my Master's thesis was on the impact of theological anthropology on macroeconomic behavior.
I also make money in the market.
So - not likely.
>I'm sure she knew more on the subjects of human nature and ethics than you.
You never even asked!
>You're altogether unqualified to even compile an argument, much less understand the implications of her work.
Lamest ad hominem EVAR!

It was actually pretty good

No that was your own autism and lack of a life outside of this board

...

Well thanks for fucking spoilers on that Galt even exists, now I have even less willing to finish it.

Galt is a literal meme in the story. Ayn Rand was beyond her time.

voor u

I thought it was good, but you need to understand how to read it since it requires a little bit of interpretation. I had to read it twice to figure out why I didn't like it the first time and why I still thought it had value despite that.

It's basically a very simplistic depiction of how unambitious and unmotivated people can (often) only find meaning in short-term greed and the destruction of large-scale works, like statues or art or railroads, and how the other side of that coin is people who can ONLY find meaning in making those same things, and how civilization can be viewed as the interplay between these two types of people. AS isn't necessarily an essay against government, but against the mindset of the kind of people that use govt as a weapon to restrict the activities of people they're envious or jealous of. AS doesn't go so far as to claim outright that government will ALWAYS fall to the kind of people who want to use its power for ill, merely that in the story's particular instance of govt, that's what happened, and then demonstrates the consequences at a personal level.

AS does a few things well:
>AS shows you how to be ambitious and accomplished and derive satisfaction from doing great things
>AS clearly shows the importance of action over verbosity
>AS does larger-than-life characters that are meant to convey/illustrate complex concepts very well.
>AS expresses a moving illustration of the importance of letting capable people be free to work on large projects.

Things AS doesn't do and wasn't meant to do:
>AS doesn't do realistic characters (characters are not meant to be fully developed people, but illustrate actions and motivations within the framework of the philosophy/conceptual framework.)
>AS doesn't do realistic worlds (The world is stripped down and basic, meant to be a place big enough to show the effect of restricting)
>AS doesn't do realistic solutions to the problems outlined (She had to end the book somehow :^) )

Most gripes I've heard are of a couple forms:
These are examples of the first kind, which is people who didn't like it because they identified with someone besides the Motive Power people. They're unable or unwilling to articulate any concrete objection, so they just call it bad and hope you don't inquire further.

The other kind is usually some type of misunderstanding resulting from trying to read it as a fiction novel, instead of an attempt to demonstrate Big Ideas using characters as plot devices.

I can agree somewhat with this idea. It's a good read for anyone who feels like they have potential and want to do big things but are lost or don't understand where they fit in the Big Scheme of Things.

>Train Tycoon
lel

AS isn't for everyone, but I think that if all the asshurt commies ITT gave it a read with the same level of epistemic charity they're willing to give to goons like Zizek, they'd glean some interesting gems.

Dagny falls in love with John because
>Rand (thought she) wanted a man who espoused all her Objectivist virtues and lived that life
>John Galt was a supergenius who invented a radical motor that got Dagny wet af
>John Galt is hot as fuck :^)

boy golly this is a big post