/lit/ - Literature

No it's all pretty shit. The climax of the novel is a 50 page speech. That's not a joke. John Galt literally delivers a speech outlining why Ayn Rand is right and everyone else is long, and that speech is 50 fucking pages long. This is a thing that happened in a work that some people think is good.

Rand was an even worse writer than she was a philosopher. I think I got through about 20 pages of Atlas Shrugged before I gave up.

Most philosophers write treatises detailing their ideas in relation to the real world. Rand liked to write about fantasy worlds where her ideas were the only rational conclusion, which is pretty retarded.

I think this book could have been cut down to like, 100 pages. It would still be shitty, but why make what is essentially a political manifesto so goddamn long?

I tried to read it, the book is shit, objectivism is shit and just an excuse to be greedy.

>>2027264
Get the fuck out of here John Galt delivers the speech!

Yeah... no I'm not even gonna finish the book I gonna get 'the road' tomorrow. Thank you for helping me dodge that bullet.

I can't believe the lady at world's biggest bookstore actually recommended that I read this book. After I told her I just got through the latest Song of Fire and Ice book.

>>2027260

I've been pondering the success of this book too.

I think it has more to to with justifying capitalism, thus congratulating us for the great job we're doing making lots and lots of money for wealthy people.

So, no, i don't think it's "classic" status is due to quality of prose.

>>2027294
I got this feeling as well, but it sounds far-fetched until you actually read the book.

Thanks again for the heads up everyone

>>2027268

>Most philosophers write treatises detailing their ideas in relation to the real world. Rand liked to write about fantasy worlds where her ideas were the only rational conclusion, which is pretty retarded.
>implying Lassize-faire isn't possible in the real world

Ayn Rand lived in the USSR. She was sick of people feeding off her hard work.

"I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don't exist. That this
book has been written—and published—is proof that they do."

-Ayn Rand on justifying her terrible characterization

>>2027308
Missing the point completely.
If her ideas were so valid, why did she have to invent a straw world and fill it with strawmen to knock down to advocate them?

How ironic.

>>2027308

Ayn Rand took welfare for years.
People are supposed to help each other succeed there is a reason altruism is hardwired into our DNA.

/thread

And then she died on Social Security. Ayn Rand supports whatever is best for Ayn Rand.

>>2027308
>lassize faire

Nope.

Also (and I'm saying this as someone who loves writing and wants to write, and as someone who thinks that the treatment of humans in the USSR was unconscionable) Ayn Rand didn't know shit about hard work. She was a writer, and her writing was little more than masturbatory ranting. It was not the product of hard work, or an enduring spirit, or any other such noble trait, but simply one woman's self-centered ideas sold to the public at a fortuitous moment in human history.

>>2027316

Look at the USSR, look at North Korea, look at all the Marxist states that have existed. These are prime examples that the world and men Rand described CAN come into reality and that it DID exist in some form. Maybe not in the exact picture Rand described but the characteristics of her made up dystopia in her book did and does exist.

>>2027318

man anthem FUCKING sucked.

>>2027337
except that her contention is that any kind of collectivism is morally identical to North Korea, and will lead inexorably to the world she describes. that's the part that's incredibly unrealistic and the reason she has to set up a world of caricatures so her philosophy can work. because only in her world is "the income tax" evil and only in her world will it inevitably lead to the enslavement of every human being. she sets up a world where all these things are true and then acts like that proves something.

>>2027337
Man, those states aren't Marxist. They put up a facade of Marxism, they played with the word Communist, they used propaganda about "the people" and "the state" to make the world think that collectivism had been institutionalized, but in reality, they're just one more example of old power structures doing what old power structures do. They benefit those who already have the power, and take from those who have less to give.

There's very little "collectivism" going on in any of the examples you put out there.

For all the philosophical bullshit, Rand can tell a good story.