I'm currently reading The Fountainhead and I'm very much enjoying it. I have never read any of Rand's work before (only the scathing comments, critiques ect.) and before I go and do bunch of preliminary research-ie. probably ruining my opinion of her, I wanted to finish the novel first. But I do want to hear what more experienced people on here think, do you hate her? Why do (generally) people find her so repulsive? What are some of the more central vs. more controversial tenets of her philosophy?
Once I finish the novel and do some of my own research, perhaps I will chime in with my own opinion and thoughts but as for right now, at the very least I feel I have to give her credit. She is a very good writer, nice intricate prose (and intriguing plot) without sounding dry or antiquated. — Grre
Scholars should take her philosophy more seriously given that we had and still do have people with bright minds who adopted her philosophy. Alan Greenspan talked about her with exaltation... — Wallows
I always considered “[Atlas Shrugged]” to be a criticism of the users, the con men and bureaucrats that soak up taxpayers hard earned money. The way governments waste money and the way those who don’t earn it spend it. The waste that comes about from spending money you didn’t earn, and the waste that comes about from government behaving as if they know anything about business, behaving as if they’re a successful business because they have their hands on so much money, none of it earned by themselves. Obviously hostile to socialism: it’s easy to spend other people’s money until you run out of it. — Brett
I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.
Ayn Rand defended him. In public, she said that Spillane was underrated. In her book The Romantic Manifesto, Rand put Spillane in some unexpected company when she wrote: "[Victor] Hugo gives me the feeling of entering a cathedral--Dostoevsky gives me the feeling of entering a chamber of horrors, but with a powerful guide--Spillane gives me the feeling of listening to a military band in a public park--Tolstoy gives me the feeling of an unsanitary backyard which I do not care to enter." All of which goes to show that Ayn Rand's literary taste was no better than her literature.
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
Funny OP is asking us if he should like Ayn Rand, etc. OMG he's such a Keating! I've always been like Roark actually in life when I knew myself, when I had an opinion, but I've been like Keating as far as career because I've been clueless, without self-knowledge. I know now- engineering and building stuff, but I'm already 38, like Keating when he finally realized he was in the wrong line. So I've been like Keating but also like Roark. — badboy
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