I’m 80% through Atlas Shrugged and it has lit a fire of industry inside me. To be a producer, a maker, a supplier of value. To use my mind and hands to earn a living, and afford the best of other men’s minds and hands.
It’s certainly much too long winded but damn if it isn’t inspiring.
For some reason I only make it 30% into Atlas, but can’t get behind Dagny and Reardon as protagonists like I get behind Roark. Should I muscle through? I’m assuming the payoff is worth it giving your high praise.
I wouldn’t waste your time. Almost 100 pages of it is a three-hour long character monologue expounding the ideology of objectivism which is just so ultra utopian…as if everyone started from the same point and had equal opportunities. It’s philosophical garbage.
The first third of the book was the most inspiring. Scenes of Rearden’s foundry, a city-scale factory aglow with molten metal. Of Dagny and Rearden hurtling along the John Galt line for the first time, confident in the properties of Rearden metal and his unique bridge design, against the timid skepticism of all others. The reverence in which Rand describes the complex machinery controlling the immense power within a locomotive, expertly summarized to the operator through a dozen delicate dials and levers. That first third of the book lit the fire in me.
The second part is all the decline of industry as the competent abandon their posts and the government issues decree after decree expanding their power. Purposefully frustrating and my least favorite.
The final third is utopian, and a long expansion of her philosophy. Nothing new, but the only part to read if you’re looking for her description of Objectivism.
The Fountainhead.
I reread it every 10 years and it changes my life significantly each time.
I’m 80% through Atlas Shrugged and it has lit a fire of industry inside me. To be a producer, a maker, a supplier of value. To use my mind and hands to earn a living, and afford the best of other men’s minds and hands. It’s certainly much too long winded but damn if it isn’t inspiring.
For some reason I only make it 30% into Atlas, but can’t get behind Dagny and Reardon as protagonists like I get behind Roark. Should I muscle through? I’m assuming the payoff is worth it giving your high praise.
I wouldn’t waste your time. Almost 100 pages of it is a three-hour long character monologue expounding the ideology of objectivism which is just so ultra utopian…as if everyone started from the same point and had equal opportunities. It’s philosophical garbage.
Fountainhead was better and more reasonable.
The first third of the book was the most inspiring. Scenes of Rearden’s foundry, a city-scale factory aglow with molten metal. Of Dagny and Rearden hurtling along the John Galt line for the first time, confident in the properties of Rearden metal and his unique bridge design, against the timid skepticism of all others. The reverence in which Rand describes the complex machinery controlling the immense power within a locomotive, expertly summarized to the operator through a dozen delicate dials and levers. That first third of the book lit the fire in me.
The second part is all the decline of industry as the competent abandon their posts and the government issues decree after decree expanding their power. Purposefully frustrating and my least favorite.
The final third is utopian, and a long expansion of her philosophy. Nothing new, but the only part to read if you’re looking for her description of Objectivism.
Second to this book. Life was enlightened by it.