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?
Atlas Shrugged
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Bruno
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Dive right in! Its all there for you. Long read, but very interesting and applicable to today's events.
Bruno
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One thing I believe they disagree on is religious views.
Kludge
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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?
ScoutsHonor
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malkusm
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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)
Kludge
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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.
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".
tremendoustie
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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.
emazur
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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.
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.
ScoutsHonor
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Mine too!
RedLightning
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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...
low preference guy
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Great! I wouldn't read it again, but I remember not being able to stop reading it when I did.
malkusm
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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-Ideal-Ayn-Rand/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.
WRellim
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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.
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.
ScoutsHonor
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(snip)
In any event, thank you for your very interesting post.
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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