# Lifestyles & Discussion > Family, Parenting & Education > Books & Literature >  Atlas Shrugged

## jth_ttu

I was thinking about reading Atlas Shrugged, but Ive never read any of Rands novels and know little about her. Can some of you who are familiar with this book let me know if there is anything I need to read to understand Atlas Shrugged or can I just jump into it?

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## Bruno

> I was thinking about reading Atlas Shrugged, but Ive never read any of Rands novels and know little about her. Can some of you who are familiar with this book let me know if there is anything I need to read to understand Atlas Shrugged or can I just jump into it?


Dive right in!  Its all there for you.  Long read, but very interesting and applicable to today's events.

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## jth_ttu

Do you know what it is about her ideology that Ron Paul so stronly disagrees with? He suggests the book in "The Revolution" but says he disagrees with her on many points.

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## Bruno

> Do you know what it is about her ideology that Ron Paul so stronly disagrees with? He suggests the book in "The Revolution" but says he disagrees with her on many points.


One thing I believe they disagree on is religious views.

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## Kludge

> One thing I believe they disagree on is religious views.


Objectivist foreign policy, too, I imagine (there are no unjust killings of a people whose government aggresses, all citizens, women and children, included).


Atlas Shrugged was fascinating for the first 500 pages or so............. Then the amount of dialogue becomes very tedious and irritating. I gave up somewhere around page 750. I liked Rand's earlier We The Living much better, even if there were a few typos over half a century after first written. It doesn't deal with philosophy nearly as much, and the characters actually have some semblance of optimism and brightness. Objectivists are rare for a reason, and I don't think it'd be worth your time to explore it too deeply: I regret the time I spent reading biographies, novels, and writings of her "heir" of and by her.

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## jth_ttu

> Objectivist foreign policy, too, I imagine (there are no unjust killings of a people whose government aggresses, all citizens, women and children, included).
> 
> 
> Atlas Shrugged was fascinating for the first 500 pages or so............. Then the amount of dialogue becomes very tedious and irritating. I gave up somewhere around page 750. I liked Rand's earlier We The Living much better, even if there were a few typos over half a century after first written. It doesn't deal with philosophy nearly as much, and the characters actually have some semblance of optimism and brightness. Objectivists are rare for a reason, and I don't think it'd be worth your time to explore it too deeply: I regret the time I spent reading biographies, novels, and writings of her "heir" of and by her.


Getting tired of it was a great fear of mine. It looks complicated and I am debating whether or not reading it will benefit me. Would I be better off reading several less complex books?

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## ScoutsHonor

> Dive right in!  Its all there for you.  Long read, but very interesting and applicable to today's events.


Agreed. 

_Very_ long, and *very* interesting.

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## malkusm

> Getting tired of it was a great fear of mine. It looks complicated and I am debating whether or not reading it will benefit me. Would I be better off reading several less complex books?


I read the book in a month - 1 chapter per day (about an hour per day). I found it engaging, though long-winded in spots. I didn't have as much of a foundation in liberty then as I do now, and I didn't have trouble with it - it actually might help if you're unfamiliar with some of the concepts that she espouses in the novel, rather than reading things you already know and getting bored with it quickly.

I'm not sure how well-read you are on economics, but I'd suggest Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" and Rothbard's "What Has Government Done To Our Money?" if you're a beginner and want a primer on the basics, before jumping into Atlas Shrugged.

I'm currently working on Ayn Rand's collection of essays on capitalism (non-fiction), and find them to be very powerful arguments for capitalism with many in-depth examples. (FWIW)

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## Kludge

> Getting tired of it was a great fear of mine. It looks complicated and I am debating whether or not reading it will benefit me. Would I be better off reading several less complex books?


Well, though I couldn't get through Atlas Shrugged, I was able to make it to the end of The Fountainhead. It isn't so much the complexity as it is providing a LOT of unnecessary information on the characters and settings, and honestly, I learned much more information on Rand and her influence on libertarianism as we know it by reading "Radicals for Capitalism" by Brian Doherty.

Briefly summed up, Objectivism differs from "libertarianism" (Rand critiqued libertarians as all being anarchists) in that it is not open to anarchy (Objectivism requires minimal state interference existing for the sole purpose of defending natural human rights), objects to noninterventionism (Objectivists were anti-communist war hawks), and pities the religious. Objectivists claim that by excluding a core set of philosophical beliefs all individuals in the collective must believe in, libertarians are naturally nihilists and are anti-values. Libertarians, from an Objectivist standpoint, do not love liberty, but hate the government. They lack the Objectivists' passion, and because of it, the Communist system of government will eventually replace the libertarian utopia of anarchy because libertarians will never group together under common principles and fight for their rights.

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## jth_ttu

> I read the book in a month - 1 chapter per day (about an hour per day). I found it engaging, though long-winded in spots. I didn't have as much of a foundation in liberty then as I do now, and I didn't have trouble with it - it actually might help if you're unfamiliar with some of the concepts that she espouses in the novel, rather than reading things you already know and getting bored with it quickly.
> 
> I'm not sure how well-read you are on economics, but I'd suggest Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" and Rothbard's "What Has Government Done To Our Money?" if you're a beginner and want a primer on the basics, before jumping into Atlas Shrugged.
> 
> I'm currently working on Ayn Rand's collection of essays on capitalism (non-fiction), and find them to be very powerful arguments for capitalism with many in-depth examples. (FWIW)


"What Has the Government Done to Our Money?" taught me alot, I plan on reading "Economics in One Lesson".

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## tremendoustie

> Do you know what it is about her ideology that Ron Paul so stronly disagrees with? He suggests the book in "The Revolution" but says he disagrees with her on many points.


The main thing I disagree with her on is charity, or "sacrifice" as she puts it. I think it IS noble to consider the needs of others as well as your own. What I have a problem with is forced charity, not voluntary charity. Often, she sounds like she opposes both.

I think it's a terrific read, however -- I enjoyed it very much.

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## emazur

My favorite book - I will never forgot it, so of course I highly recommend you read it.

As for the Paul / Rand differences, although the differences mentioned here are part of Objectivism, there is nothing of the negative stuff in Atlas Shrugged (not that I remember anyway).  For instance, in the case of foreign intervention, there were instances of the govt. confiscating American taxes for foreign aid - those ships were destroyed but great care was taken to see that no innocent lives were lost.  I don't remember religion being discussed in the book, it was the philosophy of Immanuel Kant that was in Rand's crosshairs.  I do think she maybe took jabs at charity in the book - random acts of kindness and Rand do not mix.

If you're not ready to commit, try Rand's much shorter novella "Anthem" - the copyright was not renewed on time so you can download it legally in audio format here:
http://librivox.org/anthem-by-ayn-rand/

It's not complicated so I don't think you'll get tired of Atlas Shrugged, but if you just don't think you're willing to commit the time to reading it, consider one of the abridged audio versions.

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## RCA

Read it now!

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## ScoutsHonor

> My favorite book - I will never forget it,


Mine too!

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## RedLightning

Atlas Shrugged is a book that I'm happy I read.  Though for your first Ayn Rand novel you may want to read something shorter...

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## jth_ttu

Started on Nov. 16th and just finished it. Atlas Shrugged was awesome! I could almost read it again.

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## low preference guy

> Started on Nov. 16th and just finished it. Atlas Shrugged was awesome! I could almost read it again.


Great! I wouldn't read it again, but I remember not being able to stop reading it when I did.

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## malkusm

> Started on Nov. 16th and just finished it. Atlas Shrugged was awesome! I could almost read it again.


Good to hear! 

Like I said, if you enjoyed her writing style and are interested in getting into some of Rand's more detailed arguments on capitalism, I suggest her collected essays "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal."

http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Ide.../dp/0451147952

Personally, I'll be starting on Human Action in less than a month -- I should be underway by the time I'm up in DC for CPAC this year.

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## WRellim

*I would STRONGLY suggest* that you start with an "appetizer" of "breakfast" in the form of first reading her short (but deep concept) novelette,  _Anthem_.

Then, if you liked that, work your way up to a "lunch" and "dinner" with her (relatively small) novels _We the Living_, and _The Fountainhead_.

If you can successfully consume AND "digest" the concepts in those works_ (and those two works they contain MANY important "concepts" and background that are critical to understanding Rand's philosophy & ideas -- whether in the end you agree with them or not)_, *then* you are finally ready to bite into _Atlas Shrugged_, because it is a LONG read with a lot of things going on and a huge amount of extensive monologue "speeches" and discourse.

I will also say that while I know a lot of people who have tried, I have never known anyone who was able to succeed in reading through Atlas without first having become familiar with (and expecting/accepting/enduring) Ayn Rand's writing style.

And in my experience, the vast majority of people who are dismissive/hypercritical of Atlas and Ayn Rand... have never really read her works (they may have "tried & failed" but to me that's like saying you didn't like the original Indiana Jones movie because you fell asleep 10 minutes into it and didn't wake up until the Nazi faces were melting). I have yet to meet anyone who is dismissive of Rand but yet who can give even a basic overview of the plot or a summary of the major characters.


While they are wholly different works, a similar thing seems to apply to people who try reading the more obscure Tolkien pieces like _Silmarillion_.  The people who love and most thoroughly enjoy Tolkien nearly always start by having read _The Hobbit_ when they were still young (at least by teen years), and then read all three of the _Lord of The Rings_ volumes, typically more than once in their teen, late teen and early adult years -- those people can then finally appreciate _Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc_.But people who pick up _Silmarillion_ after watching the movies or just after reading _The Hobbit_ tend to become completely "lost" and befuddled by his more complex works.

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## ScoutsHonor

(snip)




> And in my experience, the vast majority of people who are *dismissive/hypercritical of Atlas and Ayn Rand... have never really read her works (they may have "tried & failed" but to me that's like saying you didn't like the original Indiana Jones movie because you fell asleep 10 minutes into it and didn't wake up until the Nazi faces were melting). I have yet to meet anyone who is dismissive of Rand but yet who can give even a basic overview of the plot or a summary of the major characters.*


Strangely, that has been my experience also.  It is as though they have an  immediate allergy to 'something' they see/hear about the book and from then on they show nothing but the deepest hostility.  Needless to say, these people can never give reasons for their  reactions, because the source is obviously deep-rooted (not readily available) --and they never do.  It's psychologically interesting...

In any event, thank you for your very interesting post.

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