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[tt_deeb]

Is this book worth reading? I have an outside reading project every month for English and if we enter into this contest (which for the most part is an essay on this book) I don't have to do my outside reading project and get some extra credit (which I could probably use) My main concern is the book is 700+ pages and I'm used to only reading stuff at like 250. If this isn't interesting there's no way I'm getting it done:

 

[Doth Togo]

Do Yahoo searches on the book and get summaries and Cliff Notes.

 

[Triumph]

Heh. Interesting is one way to put it.

 

[tt_deeb]

Heh. Interesting is one way to put it.

What's another way to put it?

 

[Triumph]

What's another way to put it?

A love letter to objectivism? I dunno. Rand was a nut cake and has spawned more nutcakes that have read her books.

She's not as insane as Milton Friedman, but she's a few tacos short of a combo platter. All IMHO.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

What's another way to put it?

Crazed and maniacal? haha, seriously though, this book has inspired a lot of people, especially young people who didn't join the Rand cult. You should try it and see what you think.

On a side note, I'm suprised there are no crazed Objectivists on this board (that I've noticed). They used to be all over the INTERNET, and their usually fairly young.

 

[GamePnoy74]

Read this book back in high school, would want to read it again someday. Didn't turn me into a Rand zealot, but was an interesting, entertaining read, IMHO.

 

[sefskillz]

My girlfriend likes this book quite a bit. Oliver Stone has been throwing around the idea of directing a new version of it.

 

[Triumph]

My girlfriend likes this book quite a bit. Oliver Stone has been throwing around the idea of directing a new version of it.

After Alexander, I'd be surprised if they let him direct COMMERCIALS anymore.

 

[White Man]

Worst book of the 20th century, in several ways. I may have a charred black heart, but at least I have a soul. I would sooner be a Lyndon LaRouche supporting scientologist than an Objectivist.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

Worst book of the 20th century, in several ways. I may have a charred black heart, but at least I have a soul. I would sooner be a Lyndon LaRouche supporting scientologist than an Objectivist.

excellent! should be an Amazon review.

 

[Gorgie]

I say read it. It was the first time I ever expericienced a new way of seeing life. I do think Atlas Shrugged is the better book, but the Fountainhead is still good.

 

[Dilbert]

(Ugh)^100

 

[White Man]

I'd probably say Atlas Shrugged is the worst of the 20th century, but since I couldn't bring myself to finish it (80 page idiotic monologue? Sub-romance novel quality writing? Ughhhhh), I won't give it the crown.

 

[Father_Brain]

Drinky on Ayn Rand:

[Atlas Shrugged is about] What every Ayn Rand tome is about: how the status quo keeps the SEKRET GENIUSES of society down by demanding that they conform to the expectations of their mundane and uneducated peers. Also, that the free market metaphor is actually an objective morality, and that a woman with a jaw you could crack brasil nuts on is TEH DEAD SEX-AY.

Basically, if you're 22 and still nursing a resentment that the jocks who wedgied you throughout high school didn't take your leet math skillz seriously and failed to worship you as an intellectual demigod, Ayn Rand is the dead shemale for you, SIR.

Ayn Rand is what you read before getting behind the wheel of your H2 and driving to your 10 year HS reunion to gloat, even though the jocks will probably still kick the fuck out of you. But at least you have the money to hire one of those lawyerly leeches you hate so much to sue their musclebound player asses into desuetude!

 

[way more]

This thread gives me hope. I think you should still read the book.

 

[JackFrost2012]

Time to post my Ayn Rand thread image!

 

[6.8]

I didn't like it at all. But I did enjoy Atlas Shrugged.

*shrugs*

 

[Christoff Yurievich]

[Atlas Shrugged is about] What every Ayn Rand tome is about: how the status quo keeps the SEKRET GENIUSES of society down by demanding that they conform to the expectations of their mundane and uneducated peers. Also, that the free market metaphor is actually an objective morality, and that a woman with a jaw you could crack brasil nuts on is TEH DEAD SEX-AY.

Basically, if you're 22 and still nursing a resentment that the jocks who wedgied you throughout high school didn't take your leet math skillz seriously and failed to worship you as an intellectual demigod, Ayn Rand is the dead shemale for you, SIR.

Ayn Rand is what you read before getting behind the wheel of your H2 and driving to your 10 year HS reunion to gloat, even though the jocks will probably still kick the fuck out of you. But at least you have the money to hire one of those lawyerly leeches you hate so much to sue their musclebound player asses into desuetude!

IHAWTP

my mom made me read Atlas Shrugged when I was 13. Talk about not understanding a damn thing! I read it again about 2-3 years ago and it was marginally better. Having some learning to help understand what you are reading helps.

 

[fart]

Worst book of the 20th century, in several ways. I may have a charred black heart, but at least I have a soul. I would sooner be a Lyndon LaRouche supporting scientologist than an Objectivist.

you will be the first burned by the fires of objectivism when they sweep across this land of invalids and convalescents.


man, i love that btaf strip. up there with NEXT: THE DOUBLE SLIT EXPERIMENT

 

[Mermandala]

I've known three people who were into Ayn Rand and they were all interesting at first but turned out to be really irritating. Trying to read her books = same. I only managed to finish Anthem as it was so short, in a similar fashion, I drunkenly kissed one of the girls who was into Ayn Rand(like Anthem she was short as well) and it was the retching gnaw of a cold lifeless corpse slightly moistened with tepid wine.

I think Ayn Rand rawks the skins though! - because one late night as I was dozing off I happened upon a black and white movie with a woman who was the spitting image of Ayn Rand! laying into the drums! - with a fascinating white head bobbing grinning intensity.

 

[FnordChan]

Turn back, before it's too late!

If you must read Ayn Rand, read Anthem, which has the virtue of being very short. If you're a sucker, read The Fountainhead. If you're a total sucker, read Atlas Shrugged. If you're God King Sucker, stand around at your local college campus delivering dramatic readings of the radio address.

Speaking of God King Sucker, there's someone on campus who drives a red Miata with the vanity plate "AYNTHEM". I have to supress the urge to key their car everytime I see it.

For an amusing critique of Objectivism (among other things), read Sewer, Gas, Electric: The Public Works Trilogy by Matt Ruff. It's terrific fun and features a debate between one of the main characters and the talking holographic head of Ayn Rand in a hurricane lamp.

And, yes, that Bob the Angry Flower cartoon really does sum it all up.

Who is Fnord Chan?

 

[Azih]

I got through half of it before Ayn Rand started going into LURID DETAIL about her SICK FETISHES which forced me to set it down and walk away.... acutally I threw the book across the room and spent the next half hour in the bathroom sobbing, but hey, whatever.

Edit: my bad, that was Atlas Shrugged. I actually finished Fountainhead, sorta ok, except that I completely hated all the 'heroic' characters in the book.

 

[White Man]

When I made the bad romance novel comparison, I wasn't kidding. Atlas on the cover should probably actually be fabio, holding a spherical wad of a new steel alloy that will change the way railroads are built.

 

[NLB2]

Just read the last fifty pages. That's how long the book would be if Rand didn't love her self so much that she had to repeat everything twenty times.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Here's a very interesting observation about Ayn Rand and her philosophy. Pay close attention to just who is discussing her here:

http://rous.redbarn.org/objectivism/Writing/NathanielBranden/BenefitsAndHazards.html

This may actually be useful to deciding whether reading the book sounds intriguing, or makes you run screaming.

 

[Hitokage]

Not directly related, but fairly close and a good read...

http://www.skeptic.com/02.2.shermer-unlikely-cult.html

 

[kaching]

I guess I'm going to be one of the very few to say that I very much enjoyed both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and appreciated the ideals they espoused. I'm more than a little surprised to see so much disdain for her work in this thread, considering how many on this board despise Bush, for many of the same reasons that Rand's own paragons to Objectivism would have despised him. That's not a criticism of anyone here, just an observation I'm not sure what to make of.

Anyway, thanks to Kaijima and Hitokage for the links to accounts of how Rand and her followers went wrong in attempting to practice what she preached.

I'd say the books are well worth reading, aside from the 80 page radio monologue at the end of Atlas Shrugged

 

[Vlad]

I'd say the books are well worth reading, aside from the 80 page radio monologue at the end of Atlas Shrugged

A funny note, it took a hurricane followed by a week of no power for me to finally work my way through that section of the book.

 

[snaildog]

Anyone read the Sword of Truth fantasy series by Terry Goodkind? He's a huge supporter of her to put it mildly, and incorporates her philosophy into the books more and more as the series progresses (at expense of the story). They're really popular though, and I enjoy them. I do agree with some of the objective morals (or his interpretation), but reading some of his interviews he does come across as a nutcase.

 

[Socreges]

I don't have any experience with Ayn Rand beyond this thread, but am I right in suspecting that she was heavily influenced by Neitzsche? Sounds similarly deluded.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

I don't have any experience with Ayn Rand beyond this thread, but am I right in suspecting that she was heavily influenced by Neitzsche? Sounds similarly deluded.

I think Neitzsche and Aristotle were the only two philosophers she ever read (briefly) before she "discovered" Objectivism and refused to have meaningful dialogue about or with contemporary philosophers. She seemed to have a real disdain for the University and it's hordes of "collectivists".

 

[Gorgie]

That Bob the Angry Flower makes no sense. The geniuses can't cook, yet can invent new metals, and command an railroad?

These comics are just one of the reasons why I've stopped reading those stupid free "newspapers" that contain Bob the Angry (but not Funny) Flower.

Really crappy comic.

 

[Azih]

The comic deals with Ayn Rand completely ignoring the entire underpinnings of the economy that make it y'know run. The unambitious loutish blue collar workers, farmers, 'servants' etc. For everyone to be a Randian ideal man/woman you'd need to replace all of the non-creative/enterpenurial workers with robots because y'know, tilling the soil to grow food, cook it etc. doesn't leave you much time to run a railroad or :lol pay people to invent new metals.