I encountered this quote about Atlas Shrugged a few weeks ago from Kung Fu Monkey
"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."
Like many other adolescents, I read Atlas Shrugged; happily the effects were short term. Others are not so lucky; I currently monitor the cesspool of FreeRepublic, and they've been gushing deliriously about this novel. Putting that together with the recent surge in sales (the book is now #50 on Amazon) and wingnut claims of "going Galt," it was time to refresh my memory. It was an interesting reread several decades later, especially with some understanding of writing. Follow me over the jump and I will share/inflict my analysis.
The first thing I noticed was related to the writing. For those who have never read it, the book has three strands – adventure story, love story, political philosophy. The book works reasonably well as an adventure, less well as a love story (at least for post-adolescent readers), and fairly miserably as political philosophy. This does not refer to the philosophy itself, but to the presentation of the philosophy in the context of the novel. Of course, the philosophy has lots of problems, too.
A brief synopsis:
- - The protagonist is Dagny Taggart, who comes from a long line of railroad builders/executives. Despite her obvious ability, her inept older brother is the head of the railroad, while she does the real work as VP for operations. Her job is slowly becoming impossible as capable employees, suppliers and customers are mysteriously disappearing, and the government is regulating in what is obviously an insane manner. The mystery of the disappearances is explained when she discovers that people of intelligence and ability are going on strike. - -
Adventure
The adventure portion is probably what carried me through this reading – Taggart's search for the inventor of an abandoned partly completed motor, which will reshape the world, and the mystery of why people of ability are vanishing just when she needs them most.
Romance
The love story is very adolescent indeed, on the order of Twilight, the recent vampire series that is the darling of teenage girls. Like the Twilight series main character, Dagny Taggart is what is known in fiction as a Mary Sue, a term that came from fanfiction but has entered the mainstream. Mary Sues (or Marty Stus) are self-insertions by the authors. Mary Sues distort or devour the story, as everything revolves around them and showcases their beauty, attractiveness, brilliance, courage, etc. Actions which are normally considered criminal or cruel are written as understandable or even commendable if done by the Mary Sue. Reading the book again after all these years, the sueness is like a hammer, no subtlety to it.
The sex scenes strike me as very adolescent. They are framed in terms of a competition or even a battle, and some brag of "owning" the other person. The initial encounters often involve attempts to refrain from sex, which are described as "torture," in each case the characters, though "heroically" resisting, are unable to control their sexual impulse. Further, the heroine’s thoughts declare that she wants to be overpowered, not asked.
Additionally, the book's concept of who one loves would very much limit marriage or other relationships. According to Rand's ideas, every "good" man is drawn to the strongest, most accomplished woman, and every "good" woman is drawn to the strongest, most accomplished man. Which means each generation only gets one ideal relationship, and all the less accomplished people are left out and lonely for the rest of their lives, or may marry someone they don't love that much (who will then always be conscious of being second best). Two of the major male characters are the protagonist's lovers, both lose out to the third lover. Both declare they will still love her to the end of their lives.
Political Philosophy
On the final level, that of political philosophy, the novel is awful, and not mainly because I disagree with the philosophy. Good writing dictates that one "show, not tell." Many novelists with a political or moral axe to grind convey this through their characters and plot - George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens come to mind. In contrast, Atlas Shrugged has a 50 plus page interruption of the story which consists of one person declaring their political philosophy. It is repetitive and wordy; most of my teenage friends who read the book skipped this section. I suspect many wingnut adult readers skip all or part of this section, too.
In terms of the actual writing, Rand has some terrible habits. She has common ones such as overusing certain words, which is a frequent trap for authors. Worse, she lapses into shortcuts most often seen in children’s literature of the past – using physical appearance to indicate who is good and bad. This is on the order of putting white hats or black hats on the good and bad cowboys in B-grade western movies. All of Ayn Rand’s major "good" characters are thin and tall, as are most minor "good" characters. (One or two are "shorter and muscular.") Most "bad" characters slouch, are unattractive, flabby, have protuberant eyes or drooping eyelids, etc. The one "bad" character that is physically attractive is described as having "vacant eyes." Of course, one wonders how Rand’s industrialists - who spend 14 to 16 hours at their desks - get enough exercise to avoid becoming flabby.
Atlas Shrugged also contains lots of straw men, which Rand knocks down with great gusto. However, she never tackles some of the real difficult situations that her philosophy would lead to – too difficult, I suspect.
Contradictions for Wingnuts
Wingnuts who hold Rand up as an ideal overlook several bits of the book and Rand's philosophy. Rand has no use for religion whatsoever, she holds that, "Faith is the worst curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought." Atlas Shrugged clearly dismisses religion as something of no value, and even an obstacle to Rand's "correct thinking."
Several characters who are "good" act in ways most consider reprehensible: the adulterous "good" character’s wife says cutting things about his mistress; he responds by threatening to beat her up. Rand excuses railroad workers who don’t intervene in what they know to be an unsafe situation, and by their silence send passengers to their death - it’s all right because those passengers agree with the bad government policies.
From a wingnut perspective, Dagny Taggart should be problematic. She has sex with three different men, makes no commitments and is married to none of them. One of the men is married during their affair, although his wife is one of the minor villains of the book. Obviously, this does not square with the social conservative view of laudable heroes and heroines.
Finally, one of the main "good" characters, John Galt, is tortured by the evil statists using electric shock. After rescue, he notes that there will be no longterm effects because of the voltage used - I'd like to ask a freeper if that means it wasn't really torture?
The Freepers are currently running a book club on this, gleefully looking for correlations between Atlas Shrugged and the current situation in this country. To do so, they have to ignore a basic fact: The US did not get into an economic crisis from restrictive regulation, quite the opposite. Alan Greenspan, an associate of Rand's, has now publicly stated that there was insufficient regulation. But of course freepers can ignore that, as they ignore any inconvenient facts.
Share your contradictions or comments!