So 50 fucking hours later I am finally done with this monolith of a novel. It's sure as shit not an entertainment piece, but an important work of fiction nonetheless.
At what point in the book did you realize that everything said/assumed about the book was untrue? For me it was James Taagart's wedding.
lol all you people that have a staunchly negative view of it have actually read it, right?
I don't think it is important. I think it is a 3rd rate science fiction novel that only sold well originally because there is rape sex and sells well now because loopy people treat it like the maunderings of a mediocre SF writer are Deh Troooth
>9212442
Multiple times, actually.
>Rands libertarian utopia was communism
Literal engineers and bankers becoming pig farmers on the side.
The Fountainhead was much better.
>At what point in the book did you realize that everything said/assumed about the book was untrue? For me it was James Taagart's wedding.
For me it was chapter 2 - when you first meet Rearden's family. It was exaggerated, but totally believable and you could see the major battle lines of the book being drawn already.
It's an amazing bit of writing about a man being held to ransom by his own charity.
It IS an important novel. Even if I don't agree with any of it, I have no problem admitting this.
But Veeky Forums can't get beyond their political preference so already denounces it as if they were already commissars.
But why is it important? Simply because it was a useful propaganda piece during the cold war.
Why things are important is more important than their importance. I've tried to read it once, the writing was bad, I didn't waste my time further.
Yeah. It's poorly written fiction espousing a childish philosophy that is taken way too seriously by people with political power who themselves stopped growing as persons once they hit 19.
Because it is liked/read by very influential people.
It's the most divisive book on history.
>he thinks the Cold War was won with books
I remember my favorite bit from that chapter where Hank's brother, or maybe it was one of his friends, asked for a donation for some political group but asked him to do it in cash because "we don't want people to think we're taking money from Hank Rearden."
The chapter where the train blows up is one of the most stunning chapters I've ever read. The mounting tension, and the cause-and-effect chain, reaches to the highest forms of drama.
Oh shut the fuck up.
The tension ends up going nowhere. Train explosion's a huge let-down.
It was a fantastic read, aside from the massive soliloquies inserted to shove Rand's philosophies bluntly in your face.
On the philosophy, it is an interesting concept and in an ideal world it could be a workable social system but, like communism, it doesn't take into account human nature. All of Rand's captains of industry and great thinkers are good people and as such are 'moral' capitalists. Anyone who hasn't worked for a bad boss could thus potentially buy into the philosophy fairly easily. Sadly, for those of us that have worked for bad/abusive bosses, we can see the error lies in her assertion that business owners are inherently altruistic when providing work, when, in reality, the majority of them are in it for blind greed and don't care for their workers at all (a point of the philosophy being that if the workers work hard for their boss then they too will benefit in turn).
Is this our version of Kpop threads?
>One of the most stunning
Blah blah blah do you want big boy points now? No one cares about your opinion, you're obviously a reader of no consequence
Yes
supremely underrated post
epic desu senpai famalam
I liked most of it, the third act was incredibly weak however.
Up until getting to Galt's valley was great, seeing the break down of a society whilst strong protagonists held true to their values was a nice read.
Then John Galt did that 50 page speech and it was probably the worst thing I have ever read.
Bullshit
Not even in the top 1,000 of divisive books
The one where Rand says little children deserve to die because their father has a government job, and then the destruction is 'off camera'?
Total hack writing
What's it like to have shit taste?
The thing you have to realize about this book, is that it reflects what some have said, that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man's sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty. You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and I-I am the man who has granted you your wish. Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of morality was designed to destroy. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it out of your way and out of your reach. I have removed the source of all those evils you were sacrificing one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man's mind. Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind isn't. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom there aren't. While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of justice, of independence, of reason, of wealth, of self-esteem-I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality-mine. It is mine that they chose to follow.
"All the men who have vanished, the men you hated, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don't. Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt.
Probably the most well written part