"men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men"

books:


	• Anthem: 50th Anniversary Edition Ayn Rand Signet, 1995 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 437 reviews
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highly recommended

Anthem

Ayn Rand's disturbing and compelling look into a dark egalitarian future where individuality and creativity have been crushed and ignorant barbarism is triumphant.

Highly recommended!

Anthem---It's OK

I just read this book for a school project and I thought it was just OK. The story started off really STRONG and I believe the ideas are quite new for that era. I actually admired Rand's modern visions of the future and I thought it is so unfair that George Orwell's 1984 is much more famous.

After I finished, I find that this book isn't quite as good as I hoped it should be:
1. Sometimes, Rand suddenly adds some rules for the future just to make the story flow.
2. The main character, Equality, is like a saint. He has plenty of dreams for the human kind and he believes that he can save the universe from the WE world. He is perfect in any sense of ways. In the end of the story, he simply reminds me of one of those politicians. The truth is, Rand has chosen a character who isn't human enough to humanize others.
3. Lastly, the point I am most upset about, is Liberty, the girl Equality loves. Rand is a woman! I can't imagine that she could make her protagonist a beautiful but very submissive person to men (no offense though). Not only is she obedient, there is a scene when she can't help admiring her own body in the mirror (gosh!). That is the most out-of-date part in this novel. Instead of being a dumb beauty, I think she can be the person to give Equality courage and good advice and still be faithful!

Still, there are good parts in the story like the regressive future and generally the concept of WE. And the book does not have boring sections that sometimes appear in 1984.

I would recommend it to people who haven't read 1984. Save the better one for later.

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"men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men"

First published in 1938, it borrowed from Zamyatin's We (1921) and Huxley's Brave New World (1932) and anticipated Orwell's 1984 (and much less significantly, Lowry's The Giver (1993)).

I found the first dozen pages slightly difficult to slog through, but after that the novella (about 100 pages in all) really picked up.

The main character is Equality 7-2521, a 21 year old male who, despite his obvious intelligence, is assigned a lifetime position as a street-sweeper. Anthem takes place in a future that has regressed in knowledge after a cataclysmic battle. Society is run by a bunch of anti-intellectuals, who stifle innovation and regiment every aspect of life. Everything is meant to celebrate the group. Individualism is not discouraged, because it does not exist (there is a word that is not even known in this society - I will leave the reader to find it out for themselves).

Rand has stated that the last two chapters are actually her "anthem," and that all the rest of her novella is just building up to it. My favorite part is chapter 7, where the narrator brings a discovery before the council of scholars. They react....well, again, I leave it to you.

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A Timeless Warning

Pay no attention to the negative reviews, Anthem is pure genius. A timeless warning to humans not to give into the slavery of collectivism, be it of the socialist or mystic variety, and to cherish their individual rights and freedoms. Freedom is a central theme, with clarity that freedom is freedom from men.

This book should be mandatory reading for every high school student.

The basic premise of the book is that society had at some point become so collective that individuality had been essential banned. This included the right to make personal decisions and to pursue ones own happiness. It also meant a select group decided everything for the masses, creating an almost brain dead society, with the exception of a few with strong spirit. One of these strong of spirit is Equality 7-2521.

When finally realizing the evils of collectivism and political correctness, of the great "We", Equality 7-2521 delivers a hard hitting, to the point, in your face speech regarding the right to liberty, happiness, freedom of association, and freedom to use our own mind as the only guiding light.

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Excellent Book

If you read only one book this year, read this one. Thought provoking, moving, soul stirring.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Available for the first time in trade paperback--this provocative book is "an anthem sung in praise of man's ego"--from the legendary author Ayn Rand

Anthem has long been hailed as one of Ayn Rand's classic novels, and a clear predecessor to her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. In Anthem, Rand examines a frightening future in which individuals have no name, no independence, and no values. Equality 7-2521 lives in the dark ages of the future where all decisions are made by committee, all people live in collectives, and all traces of individualism have been wiped out. Despite such a restrictive environment, the spark of individual thought and freedom still burns in him--a passion which he has been taught to call sinful. In a purely egalitarian world, Equality 7-2521 dares to stand apart from the herd--to think and choose for himself, to discover electricity, and to love the woman of his choice. Now he has been marked for death for committing the ultimate sin. In a world where the great "we" reign supreme, he has rediscovered the lost and holy word--"I."

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