Whatever one does or doesn't think of Ms. Rand's political and economic philosophies, I think it has to be admitted that she's one seriously bad novelist. One could argue that she's making a series of philosophical arguments and thus one shouldn't evaluate the novel as a novel - but then again, I'm not the one who described it as a novel, and ye gods, is it ever a clinker. Between the endless philosophizing, the cardboard-cutout characters, the utterly impenetrable dialog, and the irritable nastiness of the whole thing, it's decidedly unpleasant to read.
If you took the word "contempt" out of the novel, none of the characters would ever have any emotions at all.
There's a scene where Henry Rearden and Dagny Taggart have managed to collectively (no! not that word!) build a new railroad, and incited to heights of animal passion by the dull roar of locomotive engines and their own bloated senses of self-importance, succumb to long-suppressed desire and have a night of volcanic sex.
So they wake up the next morning after this night of long-delayed, oft-desired sex, and the first words out of Ole Hank's mouth are "I feel nothing but contempt for you." Then he goes on for about six pages, describing exactly why he feels contempt for her, and plumbing the depths of his contempt for her. Maybe this is what passes for pillow talk among 'achievers'. And all of this happens before breakfast! I'm not typically that contemptuous, hostile and bitter until about lunchtime.
The book is worth reading to understand what all the fuss and hype is about. But as a philosophical argument, I find it unconvincing. I'm trying to be charitable and not describe it as "hysterical, histrionic and grandly over-wrought", so let's just leave it at "unconvincing". And as a novel, it's... Well, it isn't very good. At all. It's kind of fun as a sort of ultimate "nerd revenge" novel, but once the trained pony has shown off that one trick, there just isn't much left to like.*
The average Star Trek novel presents a more lucid philosophical argument, and is a lot more fun to read to boot.
You like it? Enjoy it in good health, by all means. But I for one won't be going back for seconds.
*Lots of TV commercials these days hype the notion of people getting special treatment because the carry the Chase Plutonium Card, or because they spent extra to get special tickets. And yet people like me, who have worked in the commercial avoinics industry for 30 years and who played a not entirely insignificant role in building the modern air transport system, are stuck in the long security line with the sweathogs and have to fly in coach with our kneecaps being compressed to the density of lead by the seat in front of us.
Yet how many of these Chase Plutonium card holders who get all the special treatment (and who emit waves of almost unendurable smug snottiness as they pass through the special short security line) would know an ATCRBS interrogation if one fell in their cappuccino, or could replace the brakes on a 757, or could design a wing that generates a lot of lift at high angles of attack, has clean and predictable stall behavior, and is efficient at high speed and high altitude? It does kind of irk me that it's the smug schmucks with the Plutonium cards who get all the cream, not the people who built and maintain the system.
Maybe - just maybe - some of what Ms. Rand said rubbed off on me...
8 comments:
I have a serious problem with "novelists" who think the novel is an appropriate platform for a (usually, but not always) political diatribe. I number among those Barbara Kingsolver, Doris Lessing, Ann Rand, and (in the not political column) Wallace Stegner. If you just feel compelled to make your characters mouthpieces for your issues, abandon the novel and write nonfiction. At least then we'd know we're going to be lectured instead of entertained or enlightened about the human condition.
I agree with you - even when I agree with the author's opinion, I still don't generally enjoy reading a novel that is really just a long lecture.
"Atlas Shrugged" is particularly bad at that kind of thing - everything is very black and white, and the characters who represent opinions she doesn't like are even described as physically grotesque, which I think is a cheap and sleazy trick (to say nothing of the endless editorializing that passes for exposition).
I haven't read Barbara Kingsolver or any of the other ones you mentioned, and maybe now I won't read them either!
Although I agree with much of Rand's philosophical view points in that book. (the conservative libertarian that I am)though not all. But you're right it is a very long poorly written tomb and I had to keep stabbing myself in the face just to keep reading it to its conclusion. Mind that was a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away that I barely remember it and I'll be damn if I'm going to read it again. One aspect of the book that I do remember is quite often she would fly off into these female orientated meanderings, rambling on like an adolescent school girl (and writing like one). it drove me nuts. Never again.
And why did I make that list of authors who do this stuff? To save you the pain and suffering of trying to read them, of course!
One last thing--The Fountainhead has been the ruin of many an aspiring architects. The very idea that a CLIENT has something to say about the job s/he is paying for is more than Rand could stomach.
I took to reading just the dialog, and felt a strange sense of satisfaction when I could skip eight or ten pages of inner angst between lines of dialog. I also get a kind of perverse thrill out of skipping the long speeches - since she repeats herself over and over, I feel that I can skip them at will without missing anything.
Never again - wise words!
Suzanne, I GREATLY appreciate you pre-skimming books for me! I don't think after "Atlas Shrugged" I have the strength to face another political novel, and if I blundered into one, I might well despair. But now I know which ones to skip.
Is that really her main point in "The Fountainhead"? The idea that the architect knows better than the client what the client needs? I would think that if I were paying an architect a lot of money to design a building, the architect would jolly well dance to my tune, not vice versa - regardless of what she thinks.
I think it's probably a good thing that she never wrote a novel about me (not that I think I am worthy of a novel, but a 1000-page examination of my every fault and foible might not be a bestseller).
William, Rand's point in The Fountainhead is that architects (and, by extension, all other artists and artisans) should be free to create whatever they want, AND get paid a gazillion dollars for it, and those who pay them should fall to their knees in gratitude that they were permitted to hand over a gazillion dollars for the opportunity to commission such work. It's pretty galling, all in all. The movie, which stars Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, has its moments, but the book is just one ridiculous set-up after another.
The only reason I read it was because at the time I was married to an architect who was teaching aspiring architects, and a lot of the kids kept bringing up The Fountainhead as an explanation of why they shouldn't be asked to do anything with actual parameters.
Your comment about the word "contempt" in Atlas Shrugged reminds me of what an editor friend of mine said about Mikal Gilmore's book, Shot through the Heart, about his brother, Gary: "If I see the word 'ruin' in there one more time, I'm going to throw up. What was his editor doing, serving coffee?"
Ah, the old individualism argument! Who are YOU mediocre collectivists to tell me how I should design a building, or how much to charge for it?
I wonder if that would work in my life. I'll go to work and tell my boss "Gee, you know, this software that you want me to write doesn't really actualize me as an individual. I find it stultifying and unrewarding and downright bourgeois, so I'LL decide what kind of software appeals to me. And meantime, I'll be requiring an immense raise to compensate me for sullying my artistic integrity by associating with you."
And twenty minutes later, I'll be visiting monster.com.
"Serving coffee" - that's funny! I'm not an editor, and I never have been, and I'm probably not even remotely qualified to be one, but even *I* see things in books that make me wonder if anyone actually reads the manuscript before it goes to the printer.
I have a sort of editorial problem with the word "suddenly". I don't know what my problem is, but every time I see "suddenly" in a book, I grind my teeth, just a little.
"Suddenly a shot rang out!" Well, yes, that's more or less what they do...
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