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GAF Book Club (Feb-Mar 2013) - "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand

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The looters, the takers, the candlestick-makers.


Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Who is John Galt?

With this acclaimed work and its immortal query, Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her vision of existence. Atlas Shrugged made Rand not only one of the most popular novelists of the century, but one of its most influential and controversial thinkers.

Atlas Shrugged is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged stretches the boundaries further than any book you have ever read. It is a mystery, not about the murder of a man's body, but about the murder--and rebirth--of man's spirit.

"Ayn Rand is destined to rank in history as the outstanding novelist and most profound philosopher of the twentieth century."
- New York Daily Mirror

"Atlas Shrugged is not merely a novel. It is also--or may I say--first of all--a cogent analysis of the evils that plague our society."
- Ludwig von Mises

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged . One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
- John Rogers


Find it here:
Amazon paperback
Kindle edition

Or try your local library. It's a pretty well-known book. ;)

Let's read!


Guidelines:
-Discussion of anything and everything is encouraged. It's a book club, let's chat!
-Please use spoiler tags sensibly.
-The milestones are there to help keep you on the path. If you get ahead or behind, don't worry--it will have no impact on your final grade.
-Try not to get brainwashed or whatever.


Reading Milestones:
Feb 1-9 - Part I, Ch I-VI
Feb 10-16 - Ch VII-X
Feb 17-23 - Part II, Ch I-IV
Feb 24-Mar 2 - Ch V-X
Mar 3-9 - Part III, Ch I-II
Mar 10-16 - Ch III-VI
Mar 17-23 - Ch VII (yes, it's that chapter)
Mar 24-31 - Ch VIII-End

This thing is damned long, so we get two months in which to finish it.


Previous Book Club Threads:
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (September 2012)
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller (January 2012)
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (December 2011)
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy (Oct 2011)
The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov (Sep 2011)
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (Aug 2011)
Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian (July 2011)
The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin (June 2011)
A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (May 2011)
The Afghan Campaign, by Steven Pressfield (Apr 2011)
Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein (Mar 2011)
Flashman, by George MacDonald Fraser (Feb 2011)
 
I picked this up at the library a couple months ago and read the first page or two. I'm just so bad at making myself read, but I subscribed to this thread and might think about trying again to read the book.
 
t-ramp said:
I picked this up at the library a couple months ago and read the first page or two. I'm just so bad at making myself read, but I subscribed to this thread and might think about trying again to read the book.
Click to expand...
It's definitely not going to be an easy book, even with two months to read it in. But given its outsized influence on a large segment of the political spectrum (at least in the US), I think it's worth attempting.

Ayn Rand's voice still lingers today, and I'd like to have a better idea of how and why.

Grakl said:
Ugh. Good luck to anyone who attempts to read this.
Click to expand...

Thanks. ;)
 
Subbed.

I've read this before. GAF wasn't too positive in the past, but it will be nice to hear more detailed responses to the book.
 
I read this in high school and loved it. Revisited it in college, and realized how batshit this philosophy is when taken to its uncompromising extreme. But the prose is occasionally good, and the mystery aspect of the plot is pretty interesting.
 
Not a parody thread? Every time I see Rand brought up in the OT she is almost universally maligned. Can't imagine many gaffers will be joining you on this one.

I found a lot of her work refreshing in the way it challenged conventional social morality
 
I enjoyed this book for a lot of it. There was a part that started to lose me a few hundred pages in, so I never got passed that, but I am willing to do it all over again, for great justice.

I am in. :P
 
JB1981 said:
Not a parody thread? Every time I see Rand brought up in the OT she is almost universally maligned. Can't imagine many gaffers will be joining you on this one.
Click to expand...

Not a parody thread. I'm not going to mess around with the book club threads like that. :P

I fully expect that some people won't be interested because it's Rand, and that's totally fine. I also expect that some people will be interested for the same reason. She's controversial, that's how it goes.
 
Cyan said:
Not a parody thread. I'm not going to mess around with the book club threads like that. :P

I fully expect that some people won't be interested because it's Rand, and that's totally fine. I also expect that some people will be interested for the same reason. She's controversial, that's how it goes.
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Have you read Atlas Shrugged before?
 
Also, you don't have to agree with a book to want to see what the author actually said. I read Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto (although I do agree with some of the latter) for that very reason.
 
t-ramp said:
Have you read Atlas Shrugged before?
Click to expand...

In fact, I haven't! For purely selfish reasons, all the book club threads I've done have been for books I haven't read before (the single exception being The Count of Monte Cristo, but it had been so long that I hardly remembered anything in any case).

Mumei said:
I won't be participating this iteration, but nice to see you are continuing this, Cyan!
Click to expand...

I'll get you next time, Mumei!
 
This is a long ass book, I'll be interested to see how many people stay with it till the end. It's kind of like the bible in that it's really long and rambling and lots of people say they're going to read it and give up
 
i would like to join in but it's really hard to motivate myself to read a book that i'll probably hate as an intellectual curiosity when it's that long.
 
I have been meaning to read this book. I might actually join in this time, mostly because we are covering Atlas Shrugged over two months rather one month. I need to finish Sputnik's Sweetheart before then!

Mumei, you really should join us! I would love to read your impressions.
 
ElectricBlue187 said:
This is a long ass book, I'll be interested to see how many people stay with it till the end. It's kind of like the bible in that it's really long and rambling and lots of people say they're going to read it and give up
Click to expand...

Empty said:
i would like to join in but it's really hard to motivate myself to read a book that i'll probably hate as an intellectual curiosity when it's that long.
Click to expand...

You just gotta believe in yourself hard enough!
 
I am saying exactly what I wrote. Word for word.

But no, I'm not comparing it to Mein Kampf in terms of evil...ness. I think The Communist Manifesto is a fair comparison though. They both advocate extreme economic philosophies.
 
Is this actually any good?

Honestly, I read The Fountainhead and thought it was terrible. Not just because of her awful philosophy, but also because it just wasn't particularly interesting nor well written.

Sometimes I feel people like to read her books simply because she is controversial and not because they actually have substance in them.
 
Since I started the book ... a couple years ago, I've only gotten 1/5 of the way through it. Maybe this will be time to actually finish!
 
Cyan said:
I'll get you next time, Mumei!
Click to expand...

Calvino! I will get you to read him.

Necrovex said:
I need to finish Sputnik's Sweetheart before then!
Click to expand...

Pfft. Shouldn't take you more than a weekend for that novella dressed up as a novel. Love it. <3

Mumei, you really should join us! I would love to read your impressions.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'll become inspired later from seeing the topic mocking me on the front page for a month and pick it up.
 
Jack Remington said:
I read this in high school and loved it. Revisited it in college, and realized how batshit this philosophy is when taken to its uncompromising extreme. But the prose is occasionally good, and the mystery aspect of the plot is pretty interesting.
Click to expand...

This sums it up rather nicely for me. I enjoyed the book when I read it, but if I were to now I probably wouldn't. While I don't agree with a lot of things Rand says, there are some things I do agree with. Some things I even wish more people believe, such as her view on money being a tool to help you accomplish things rather than being your motivation to work.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to seeing people's thoughts on the book. Here's to hoping people actually read and think instead of going "lol Rand".


Edit: as a side note, try reading Rand before doing your homework. Shit gets you motivated.
 
genjiZERO said:
Is this actually any good?
Click to expand...

It's pretty average in general, but has so much constant repeating of Rand's philosophy in absurdly long speeches (Galt's is the most infamous, but it's basically just a longer variation of the same speech given by other characters earlier in the book and they're also ridiculously long) that it slips to bad overall due to these stops in the plot killing the pace. Villains have no depth, characters will irritate because they're full with bizarre Rand character traits. I think there were some good character interactions that did actually demonstrate some of the positive aspects of people who want to follow Objectivism and there is some interesting mystery, but it's overall not very good I think.

One of the most surreal and bizarre endings (in a bad way) in a work of fiction that I can remember as well.
 
lightus said:
Some things I even wish more people believe, such as her view on money being a tool to help you accomplish things rather than being your motivation to work.
Click to expand...
This is already understood, as the richer you get the more your spending goes from material goods to influence.
 
Hitokage said:
Since I started the book ... a couple years ago, I've only gotten 1/5 of the way through it. Maybe this will be time to actually finish!
Click to expand...

Yeeeesss! Join us, Hito!

genjiZERO said:
Is this actually any good?

Honestly, I read The Fountainhead and thought it was terrible. Not just because of her awful philosophy, but also because it just wasn't particularly interesting nor well written.

Sometimes I feel people like to read her books simply because she is controversial and not because they actually have substance in them.
Click to expand...

Well, I mean, probably. Rand is remembered for her philosophy, not her prose.

As to your question, my guess would be that if you hated another of her books, you won't find this one much more to your taste.
 
Hitokage said:
This is already understood, as the richer you get the more your spending goes from material goods to influence.
Click to expand...

Some people like to assign more value to themselves as a person based upon their wealth. I like that Rand does not agree with this.
 
After reading The Fountainhead in high school at the behest of a truly odd lit teacher, I'm expecting long, robotic speeches, rape justification and thinly veiled philippic. So I'll let you guys be my proxy readers.
 
I tried to read this book, I honestly did. But I just had to put it down. Maybe I'll give it another chance someday.
 
Can't say that I'm overly psyched about the book but I am intrigued by the whole concept of a book club so I'm in. Gonna download right now.
 
I tried reading it a few years ago but quit after 50 pages due to boredom. It didn't help that the authorized translation only came out in 2011.
 
Mumei said:
Pfft. Shouldn't take you more than a weekend for that novella dressed up as a novel. Love it. <3



Maybe I'll become inspired later from seeing the topic mocking me on the front page for a month and pick it up.
Click to expand...

I really need to give myself a few hours to dedicate completing this novella novel. All of these games are taking away too much of my free time!

But what if people here actually enjoy Atlas Shrugged?! Ok, I couldn't help but laugh as I wrote that last sentence.

EVOL 100% said:
I was going to join but the responses aren't very encouraging :(

Maybe.
Click to expand...

I am someone who believes you cannot have a true opinion unless one reads/play/watch the material. This was the original reason why I read Fountainhead; this will probably be the main reason why I read Atlas Shrugged (besides the book club!).
 
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