I've been trying to get through Atlas Shrugged

[PaulConventionWV]

Curiosity killed the cat.

It can be more irksome to be left out of a conversation that a whole bunch of people around you are having.

Reading it can take a torturous month, but being able to say you've read it lasts the rest of your life.

And there are such things as masochists in the human race, too.

You're not going to try to deny anyone the right to do so 'for their own good', are you...?

Who said anything about rights?

[RJB]

Is there a psychologist on the forum?

Maybe we can have a secret section for those who call ourselves libertarian or libertarian leaning people and have overriding guilt from either having never finished or finished but totally disliked Atlas Shrugged for what ever reason. We can learn to feel better about ourselves and be empowered to be libertarian despite not having tortured ourselves needlessly through an endless book of bad writing or was insulted when we realized we could never make a good burger without having been a CEO.

We are all worthy... (Best hippy therapist voice.)

[heavenlyboy34]

Is there a psychologist on the forum?

Maybe we can have a secret section for those who call ourselves libertarian or libertarian leaning people and have overriding guilt from either having never finished or finished but totally disliked Atlas Shrugged for what ever reason. We can learn to feel better about ourselves and be empowered to be libertarian despite not having tortured ourselves needlessly through an endless book of bad writing or was insulted when we realized we could never make a good burger without having been a CEO.

We are all worthy... (Best hippy therapist voice.)

LMAO!!

[otherone]

I really don't understand the concept that you have to suffer to enjoy yourself.

Then you DO understand Rand!

[moostraks]

Curiosity killed the cat.

It can be more irksome to be left out of a conversation that a whole bunch of people around you are having.

Reading it can take a torturous month, but being able to say you've read it lasts the rest of your life.

And there are such things as masochists in the human race, too.

You're not going to try to deny anyone the right to do so 'for their own good', are you...?

Since I only lack 5 hours of the book, you better believe I am gonna finish it. masochistic is thinking I might glean something by giving the monologue a shot at a later point in time. Mine was definitely a case of curiosity killed the cat. Some folks really seem to love the book and it sounded like my type of storyline. I just failed to connect to the characters. The main character was too frustrating for me to relate to and reminded me of Robinson Crusoe. I have not finished that book yet but intend to by Spring.

[PaulConventionWV]

Then you DO understand Rand!

Touche...

And I didn't even need to read the book... amazing.

[Occam's Banana]

Great fiction, as Dr Ingermason points out in his books and lectures, evokes an emotional response from the reader. A writer who can't engage the reader this way is either mediocre or purposely bad to make an artistic statement of some sort. I'm not sure which Atlas is. Zing!

Meh. The adjudgement of fiction as being "great" on the basis of its evocation of "an emotional response from the reader" is fairly useless. There are simply too many examples of "popular" fiction (with no pretensions to "greatness") that pack an emotional wallop - and, conversely, too many instances of "great" fiction that don't - in order for such overly-simplistic dicta to be usefully true, even as a generalization.

As for Atlas Shrugged: I have read it four or five times, and emotionally, I am still deeply & profoundly moved by at least three things in it - and in order not to "spoil" them for those who haven't read it yet but might, I'll just identify those things as involving (1) Tony "the Wet Nurse," (2) Cheryl Taggart, and (3) the things Hank Rearden had to say to Dagny Taggart after her appearance on Bertram Scudder's radio show.

The fact that others may read AS and be left emotionally unmoved by it just goes to show how utterly subjective a standard of "emotional evocation" really is ...

[heavenlyboy34]

Meh. The adjudgement of fiction as being "great" on the basis of its evocation of "an emotional response from the reader" is fairly useless. There are simply too many examples of "popular" fiction (with no pretensions to "greatness") that pack an emotional wallop - and, conversely, too many instances of "great" fiction that don't - in order for such overly-simplistic dicta to be usefully true, even as a generalization.

As for Atlas Shrugged: I have read it four or five times, and emotionally, I am still deeply & profoundly moved by at least three things in it - and in order not to "spoil" them for those who haven't read it yet but might, I'll just identify those things as involving (1) Tony "the Wet Nurse," (2) Cheryl Taggart, and (3) the things Hank Rearden had to say to Dagny Taggart after her appearance on Bertram Scudder's radio show.

The fact that others may read AS and be left emotionally unmoved by it just goes to show how utterly subjective a standard of "emotional evocation" really is ...

It is subjective, but not useless. That is precisely the reason people read fiction! Movies and performance arts are the same way. We don't normally go to the theater hoping for wooden dialogue, shoddy plots, and 2 dimensional characters. That's for the realm of non-fiction. If the audience feels no reason to care about the characters, they will just put the book down.

[acptulsa]

It is subjective, but not useless. That is precisely the reason people read fiction!

Gee, I could swear I remember reading fiction for other reasons. Like when I read a John Erlichman novel out of sheer curiosity, and to see if he let anything semi-historical slip. And the things I read because my teacher told us to.

Movies and performance arts are the same way. We don't normally go to the theater hoping for wooden dialogue, shoddy plots, and 2 dimensional characters.

Then how did Steven Segal become a millionaire? And Sylvester Stallone, for that matter? And Raymond Chandler, when you come right down to it...

That's for the realm of non-fiction.

You haven't read some of the outstanding accounts of history that I have read. A plot doesn't have to be a lie to be engaging, and people don't have to be made up out of whole cloth to be very human.

If the audience feels no reason to care about the characters, they will just put the book down.

Unless they think the characters they don't care for are about to get murdered in a most gruesome fashion, of course.

[Occam's Banana]

It is subjective, but not useless. That is precisely the reason people read fiction!

Bull$#@!. "Emotional evocativeness" is merely one of many reasons people might read fiction. It is not even close to being a necessary one - let alone the only one. For one example, as a fan of "hard" science fiction, I greatly enjoy stories that exercise "scientific" acumen in elaborate and imaginatively speculative fictional settings - and to hell with characterizations and their "emotional evocativeness!" For another example, fiction may also be enjoyed for the sake of aesthetic appreciation of skillful prose composition, regardless of any "emotional evocativeness" (or lack thereof) of its characterizations or other elements. (Hell, some fiction doesn't even have "characters" ...)

And in any case, none of this has anything to do with what I was talking about. Your original claim - the claim to which I was responding - had nothing to do with "why people read fiction." It had to do with "what is great fiction." I was addressing the attempt to distinguish "great" fiction on the basis of its "emotional evocativeness." That many people may read works of fiction primarily or even exclusively for the sake of their "emotional evocativeness" is irrelevant to the question of whether any of those works are actually "great" or not. What I tried to point out (but which you appear to have ignored) is the salient and incontrovertible fact that "trashy" or "popular" fiction can be quite "emotionally evocative," but is not therefore considered to be "great." And THAT is precisely why "emotional evocativeness" is indeed useless as a standard for judging a work's "greatness" (whatever that might actually mean) or lack thereof. QED.

Movies and performance arts are the same way. We don't normally go to the theater hoping for wooden dialogue, shoddy plots, and 2 dimensional characters.

The ascription of "woodenness" to dialogue, of "shoddiness" to plots, and of "two-dimensionality" to characters is itself often subjective. Besides which, while people may not be hoping for those things, it does not follow that those factors are the only criteria by which such works can be judged and found (un)meritorious. For example, I absolutely love me some H.P. Lovecraft, and he can be found guilty of all the flaws you mentioned at one time or another (sometimes all of them in the same story). I don't adore Lovecraft for his scintillating dialogue or emotionally "deep" characters - he hasn't got any. I adore him for the delightfully and deliciously eldritch weirdness of his stories - the characters be damned! (And in Lovecraft, they usually are ...)

That's for the realm of non-fiction.

"Wooden dialogue, shoddy plots, and 2 dimensional characters" are "for the realm of non-fiction?"

That makes no sense whatsoever ...

For one thing, non-fiction does not typically partake of dialogue, plots or characters. Those are generally the accoutrements of fiction.

For another thing, even when they do occur in non-fiction (such as for biography or "true crime" or the like), such "woodenness," "shoddines" and/or "two-dimensionality" ought to be every bit as deleterious as they are alleged to be for fiction. Why should they be less so for non-fiction? That just doesn't make any sense ...

If the audience feels no reason to care about the characters, they will just put the book down.

Again, bull$#@!. Audiences are NOT homogeneous. As already noted, there are MANY motivations for reading fiction OTHER than "caring about the characters." Of interest in this respect is the essay "The Little Tin God of Characterization" by Isaac Asimov - an incredibly popular and prolific author who was well-known for the shallowness and "two-dimensionality" of his characters (which was deliberate and intentional - emotionally "deep" characterizations would only "get in the way" of the kinds of stories he wanted to tell and his readers wanted to read).

I do not "care about the characters" in Asimov or Rand - yet I do not, as you have predicted I should, "just put the book[s] down". That is NOT why I read them. I read (and greatly enjoy) them for their invigorating and thought-provoking ideas and the larger speculative settings in which those ideas are presented. And if the size of the readership for the works of Asimov and Rand are any indication, a very large chunk of "the audience" agrees with me. These facts pretty much blow a gaping hole in your thesis ...

[rhelwig]

To paraphrase the quote: great minds enjoy fiction about ideas, average minds enjoy stories about events, and small minds enjoy character development. :-)

I enjoyed AS although the speech was too long for my preferences. But before I read AS I had read, in order, Anthem, We The Living, and The Fountainhead. I think that better prepared me for AS.

Also, if you want a much better written version of the Fountainhead, just watch the Pixar movie Ratatouille.

[RJB]

But great ideas are brought about by great characters through history. Look at the passions that the Founding Fathers had for liberty. Great characters always have desire, ideas that burns in their hearts for something. Then there is the obstacle is stopping them. A good story is based on how a good character achieves what they want despite seemingly overwhelming factors. Would we be free from England now without Washington, Jefferson, Paine, Henry, etc. Exploring their weaknesses and strengths behind the men is one thing that makes history exciting.

The reason why I disliked reading Atlas Shrugged stems from:

With seemingly shallow characters, the motivation is lacking and it comes across as fake or propaganda because the author forces a person not to do their intentions but rather to force through an idea that may be false. Daphne Taggart's brother is a great example-- He is a weakling in the same ways as all the other antagonists in the story (convenient for Rand). His desire is supposedly altruistic to have government run things and not for his own profit but for the betterment of society. I didn't believe that. In real life, altruism may be used as an excuse, but the real root for crony capitalism is greed, not altruism.

On the other hand the protagonists are all virtuously greedy to demonstrate how evil and dangerous love and self sacrifice is to society. The protagonist all share the same strengths. And in their greed, they do the greatest benefits to the society. Indeed "Love one another as I have loved you." is not just quaint but a malicious evil. From what I gathered from her writings, Haliburton profiting off of the war should have ended the war by now.

With the contrived characters, I found the story unbelievable and it reminded me of people saying that communism works in theory but not in real life. From what I've seen in real life, it's not classical altruism, but greed that leads to crony capitalism.

To paraphrase the quote: great minds enjoy fiction about ideas, average minds enjoy stories about events, and small minds enjoy character development. :-)

I enjoyed AS although the speech was too long for my preferences. But before I read AS I had read, in order, Anthem, We The Living, and The Fountainhead. I think that better prepared me for AS.

Also, if you want a much better written version of the Fountainhead, just watch the Pixar movie Ratatouille.

[RJB]

Speaking of ideas. It is precisely why I disliked her characters. The virtues of the story also go against the classical archetypes. Dagne's preaching that dying for someone else is wrong really goes against the traditional heroes.

Especially in the West:
In religion, Jesus lives his life in virtue and dies for the salvation of all.
In literature, Romeo and Juliet live for each other and die for love.
In philosophy, Socrates lived for seeking knowledge and wisdom and dies for truth.
However in Ayn Randian's world, people die for nothing and live for glorious money.

[heavenlyboy34]

To paraphrase the quote: great minds enjoy fiction about ideas, average minds enjoy stories about events, and small minds enjoy character development. :-)

I enjoyed AS although the speech was too long for my preferences. But before I read AS I had read, in order, Anthem, We The Living, and The Fountainhead. I think that better prepared me for AS.

Also, if you want a much better written version of the Fountainhead, just watch the Pixar movie Ratatouille.

Why do those have to be mutally exclusive? How much of the literary canon of enduring classics (i.e. the sort of stuff you'd find in collections like Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books)has no or poor character development? (or perhaps that is internet sarcasm that is escaping my detector?)

[acptulsa]

Why do those have to be mutally exclusive? How much of the literary canon of enduring classics (i.e. the sort of stuff you'd find in collections like Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books)has no or poor character development? (or perhaps that is internet sarcasm that is escaping my detector?)

Books from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica's Great Books List?

I thought you were talking about books significant numbers of people actually read...

[heavenlyboy34]

Books from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica's Great Books List?

I thought you were talking about books significant numbers of people actually read...

FYI, Significant numbers of people have in fact read War And Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, (both in the Great Books collection) and so forth. And note I said "the sort of stuff", not exclusively what EB publishes. "The Master And Margarita", "Yevgeny Onegin", and "Huckleberry Finn" are also considered literary classics-and very readable.

[acptulsa]

FYI, Significant numbers of people have in fact read War And Peace...

Huge numbers have read the first chapter or two. Myself included.

A soap opera? This thing weighs twelve pounds and it's just a soap opera? Oh, hell no.

[helmuth_hubener]

His desire is supposedly altruistic to have government run things and not for his own profit but for the betterment of society. I didn't believe that. In real life, altruism may be used as an excuse, but the real root for crony capitalism is greed, not altruism.

You should meet some of these people and listen to them and you'd think differently, I believe. There are many business leaders today, especially in tech, whose primary motivation is to change the world, not to make a buck. These people truly believe in "socially responsible" business models, "green" technology, etc., etc., etc. Mistaken, fine, but insincere they are not.

[acptulsa]

You should meet some of these people and listen to them and you'd think differently, I believe. There are many business leaders today, especially in tech, whose primary motivation is to change the world, not to make a buck. These people truly believe in "socially responsible" business models, "green" technology, etc., etc., etc. Mistaken, fine, but insincere they are not.

I believe you missed his point.

He was trying to contrast capitalism, which can be altruistic, and crony capitalism (or corporatism, or fascism), in which an army of mercenaries (called government) is brought in to ensure the pesky competition doesn't cut into any more profits.

[RJB]

You should meet some of these people and listen to them and you'd think differently, I believe. There are many business leaders today, especially in tech, whose primary motivation is to change the world, not to make a buck. These people truly believe in "socially responsible" business models, "green" technology, etc., etc., etc. Mistaken, fine, but insincere they are not.

I understand the point you are making, but:

Is Haliburton in the war to bring our troops home and to keep us safe or to make a buck?
Did the insurance companies force through Obamacare because they care for the health of others or do they want to make a buck?
Does Al Gore like carbon credits to save the world or to make a buck?
Does the Fed (Greenspan, Ayn's student) take care of the banking industry for the sake of all or to make a buck?

[otherone]

I understand the point you are making, but:

Is Haliburton in the war to bring our troops home and to keep us safe or to make a buck?
Did the insurance companies force through Obamacare because they care for the health of others or do they want to make a buck?
Does Al Gore like carbon credits to save the world or to make a buck?
Does the Fed (Greenspan, Ayn's student) take care of the banking industry for the sake of all or to make a buck?

Yeah. These enterprises EXPLOIT the concept of ALTRUISM.
THIS IS RAND'S POINT.
If the individual is taught that his Rights and interests are SECONDARY, then who's needs are PRIMARY?

[moostraks]

Yeah. These enterprises EXPLOIT the concept of ALTRUISM.
THIS IS RAND'S POINT.
If the individual is taught that his Rights and interests are SECONDARY, then who's needs are PRIMARY?

Maybe the book wouldn't suck so bad if I wasn't already aware of the premise she is trying to promote? So instead it is just a dull book with flat characters which just reiterates something I am well aware of and takes a hell of a long time getting there.

[moostraks]

To paraphrase the quote: great minds enjoy fiction about ideas, average minds enjoy stories about events, and small minds enjoy character development. :-)...

Says the "writer" who has an idea to share but no skill at weaving a story if someone wants to share an idea and sucks at character development then don't waste my time making it fiction. Cut the crap and share the idea. For goodness sake don't make it the size of the NYC phone book and make me endure 3 hours alone of one character beating me over the head with the theory being promoted because you think I am a complete moron...

[PaulConventionWV]

Why do those have to be mutally exclusive? How much of the literary canon of enduring classics (i.e. the sort of stuff you'd find in collections like Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books)has no or poor character development? (or perhaps that is internet sarcasm that is escaping my detector?)

Either way, you make a good point. All 3 categories can fit into one, so it doesn't necessarily mean a story about an idea without any substance and shallow characters is enjoyable. Quite the opposite, I would argue. Rand's problem is that she tried to write a story about an idea but her story was poorly developed and her characters were shallow. If someone doesn't enjoy a story about an idea that lacks all other facets of a good work of fiction, does that mean their mind is not great?

[helmuth_hubener]

I understand the point you are making, but:

Is Haliburton in the war to bring our troops home and to keep us safe or to make a buck?
Did the insurance companies force through Obamacare because they care for the health of others or do they want to make a buck?
Does Al Gore like carbon credits to save the world or to make a buck?
Does the Fed (Greenspan, Ayn's student) take care of the banking industry for the sake of all or to make a buck?

I think that Al Gore, for one, may very well believe in all the environmental doomsdayism he is crusading about. So there's one, at least out of those four. You seemed to be asserting that it is not realistic to have a character like Jim Taggart -- that portraying a character who is a businessman with altruistic/humanitarian ideals and motives and who believes in statism is just impossible to believe, not in the realm of reality, because in the real world there aren't any people like that.

I was just contradicting that assertion that I perceived with my own: there really do exist many people, including many businessmen, who have truly bought into various ideologies and are doing what they do and running their businesses in accordance with those values in order to help improve the world. "Green Business." "Sustainability." "Social Entrepreneurship."

And there's an element of truth and rightness in that. You should be living your life and running your business according to your principles. That's why Francisco and John majored in physics and philosophy. There should be an underlying reason. You and your company should have an agenda. You and your company should be trying to dent the Universe. People joke, but your grocery store should have a philosophy and a mission. It's just that many of the values and beliefs currently in vogue happen to be rubbish.

Altruism is one of those values.

People are complex. Not all the bad guys in the world are insincere. Not all are purely mercurial. Crafting a bad guy like Jim Taggart who is sincere and humanitarian and who in any other book would probably be considered good-hearted is a good thing, not bad. Having multi-dimensional characters that make you think is a good thing. So many are complaining the characters are too shallow; perhaps really they are too deep for you.

[otherone]

So many are complaining the characters are too shallow; perhaps really they are too deep for you.

...or simply not Christian enough.

IRT "Altruism", this is what Rand was against:

[moostraks]

People are complex. Not all the bad guys in the world are insincere. Not all are purely mercurial. Crafting a bad guy like Jim Taggart who is sincere and humanitarian and who in any other book would probably be considered good-hearted is a good thing, not bad. Having multi-dimensional characters that make you think is a good thing. So many are complaining the characters are too shallow; perhaps really they are too deep for you.

*Spoiler alert*

























Jim Taggart slapped the crap out of his wife because she did not worship him and drove her to suicide after he had an affair with the wife of a man he resented in some pathetic effort to grab a piece of Rearden's manliness (intelligence and creative genius) which his wife respected. He only married his wife because he wanted someone who would not outshine him and he thought she would mindlessly buy his hero status that he farmed off to her regarding the railroad, which she initially did. Good hearted? He was a completely narcissistic cad and a womanizer. And he wasn't a humanitarian. He didn't care. He went through the motions of life. Like most of the antagonists in the story he was rudderless. He had a career and no purpose except to be a player at both manipulating the system and women for personal gain.

Now, I have been mulling over Rand's choice of flat characters and think it was completely intentional for the purpose of the book. Most of the characters are flat, thoughtless, colorless but that is the point she is trying to make yet even her heroes and heroine lack much luster. It makes the book difficult to get into when a person is looking for a soul within the protagonist to connect to since it is fiction. But after mulling over it, I think she played off the book the way she did to make a point. Maybe I am giving her too much credit? I guess I will have to read The Fountainhead to compare.

And as for Gore, someone capable of chastising others for their choices should have been well capable of walking the talk rather than looking into green energy credits when he was being criticized for his hypocrisy.

Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin."...

But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore's office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths.


Living carbon-neutral apparently doesn't mean living oil-stock free. Nor does it necessarily mean giving up a mining royalty either.

Humanity might be "sitting on a ticking time bomb," but Gore's home in Carthage is sitting on a zinc mine. Gore receives $20,000 a year in royalties from Pasminco Zinc, which operates a zinc concession on his property. Tennessee has cited the company for adding large quantities of barium, iron and zinc to the nearby Caney Fork River.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...re-green_x.htm

Or there is this article by a former supporter turned critic:

...Gore has vilified fossil fuel usage for decades. In his new book, he writes “Virtually every news and political commentary program on television is sponsored in part by oil, coal and gas companies — not just during campaign seasons, but all the time, year in and year out — with messages designed to soothe and reassure the audience that everything is fine, the global environment is not threatened.”

But what did Gore turn around and do? He sold his Current TV network to Al Jazeera for $500 million. Gore reportedly pocketed $100 million, and in another widely reported story he is alleged to have pushed to get the transaction completed before higher tax rates kicked in on January 1 of this year.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that Al Jazeera is funded by Qatar, which receives the bulk of its wealth from fossil fuels...

Al Gore’s “activism” has been a money maker on a tremendous scale. He has made a mint selling indulgences — er, I mean “carbon offsets” — and in some cases even sold them to himself in order to claim that his (very high) carbon footprint was neutral. So while he’s busy taking the high road telling people what to do, he himself not only goes and profits off of that (creates network, sells it) but his profit comes from the very same people/industry he built his reputation on by vilifying and imploring people to avoid...

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Ge...sil-Fuels.html

If you believe what you say then your actions are consistent with your words. You don't scramble to cover bases later on or brush of criticism because it is from the little people, and what do they know. Gore has a list of reasons why he is excused from behavior he ridicules others over. Gore, like Jim Taggart, is no humanitarian.

[Southron]

I didn't have too much trouble getting through Atlas Shrugged. It was so unlike anything else I had read that it kept me interested. I can't say that I agree with Ayn Rand on much of anything, though.

[TommyJeff]

The OP (years ago) talked about not being able to keep focus, I was the opposite and couldn't put it down. I read it three times. Is anyone else in this camp?