Ayn Rand's Epic Objectivist Novel Still Packs a Wallop in Spite of Its Convolutions

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	• Atlas Shrugged (Centennial Ed. HC) Ayn Rand Dutton Adult, 2005 - 1192 pages average customer review:based on 34 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Atlas Shrugged A Masterpiece of 20th Century Literature?

Atlas Shrugged should be thought of as a sequel in imagery only to her other classic -The Fountainhead. This novel fortells the destruction/implosion of American society by our fatalistic approach to living without concern for others and society at large. Mrs Rand style of writing is somewhat gossip columnish in frank style but is still effective in portraying the major characters faults, aspirations and actions with vivid color. The novel denotes the struggle of a brother (Jim) and sister (Dagny) Taggert who run the family business of the Taggert Transcontinental Railway headlined by the Luxorious(?) Comet train. She vividly portrays Dagny Taggert's acumenal and better business management as being the only reason why their railroad line is still operation. Jim Taggert is only a figurehead at best with a few personal problems (he beats his wife and calls her a whore about a year into their marriage) he is a poor excuse for a human being in just every facet of your imagination. He should be restricted to a neighborhood cocktail lounge. But little at a time close friends and lovers of Dagny are introduced and expertly developed. The millionaire Reardon steel magnate who is married but bored with and out of love with his spouse. The idealist character-John Gault. An automotive engineer who develops an engine which runs on ambient light and heat energy. Dagny discovers this engine as it is left after the automobile factory closes and she becomes obsessed with finding its creator. There is a running line said well before and after she discovers this motor-Who is John Gault? The novel is 1168 pages long but it is captivating and obviously had a profound effect on societies intelligensia of the 1950's and 60's. It is a book were the pages tear easily and my binding is very weak after one read and the pages are soon to fall out. I wish this novels was housed in a better binding.

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One of the best books I have ever read.

Long book, but well worth the time to read. Very prophetic of where our country is heading now.

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Wow!

Why this is not required reading in college or even high school is beyond me. A truly an eye opening book. I have recommended this to all my friends especially those in business.

I only wish my boss would read this book.

Ayn Rand's Epic Objectivist Novel Still Packs a Wallop in Spite of Its Convolutions

Fourteen years after The Fountainhead, objectivist pioneer Ayn Rand wrote an even bigger epic novel that would end up being her most definitive book on her polarizing philosophies. She again wraps her perspective in a powerful, often melodramatic character-driven story, this time on a more sweeping landscape and with a pervasive mystery suspense element. It's a fulsome story that dares the reader to envision an intellectual revolution where the great thinkers disappear to avoid the complete destruction of their spirits. Rand populates this fanciful world with her trademark Baroque-style characters beginning with her beautiful protagonist, Dagny Taggart, a young railroad VP driven to run Taggart Transcontinental as she fends off the looters. She is surrounded by a bevy of conflicted men - great steel industrialist Hank Rearden who creates an alloy that renders steel and aluminum obsolete and whose ruthlessness marks the way for his own self-destruction; flamboyant Francisco D'Anconia who converts himself from an innovative copper mining baron to a hedonistic playboy; failed philosopher Ragnar Danneskjold who becomes a pirate stealing for the rich; and self-sacrificing composer Richard Halley.

Through the fray comes the pivotal character of John Galt, who actually does not appear until about two-thirds into the dense story. As the brilliant mind behind an automobile engine that will convert atmospheric static electricity into motor power, he witnesses his invention lie dormant under the ignorant leadership of the factory's owners. Galt masterminds the strike of the world's great minds, and gradually, the greatest thinkers and most ingenious engineers find their way to Atlantis, the hidden valley where they can escape the persecution of the bureaucrats exploiting them. Their absence means that the industrialists lose their social and economic leverage and fall prey to each others' machinations until they lose control completely. It is only at this point of desperation that the philosophers become accepted as honorable citizens worthy of respect. Told with Rand's familiar verbose writing style intact, it's an audacious, often compelling story that carries far more plot convolutions than necessary to carry through on the author's convictions.

At 1,192 pages in the Centennial Edition, the book could have realistically used the hand of an equally strong-minded editor who would have seen through the repetitive nature of Rand's didacticism. Still, the story is arresting, and Rand makes it clear that the highest goal in life is one's own productive achievement, that individual rights must be upheld over any form of collectivism, whether social or political in basis. Whereas in The Fountainhead, she focuses her philosophical application to the somewhat rarefied world of architecture, here she takes a much more grandiose look where the ideas of independence and personal liberty have even greater ramifications. At the same time, there is no denying that the world Rand paints is palpable and more relevant than ever as CEOs today are reading the book to justify their positions of self-interest from a moral as well as economic perspective. Even at its most basic level, the book is about deciding what's important in life, i.e., the choice between self-reliance and dependence, and going as far as one can to fight for it. Rand succeeds in bringing vivid life to these arguments in a most eminently entertaining way.

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An Epic Adventure

A wonderful epic told by a master story teller. I was held joyously captive by this book.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

The year 2005 marks Ayn Rand?s Centennial Year.

The astounding story of a man that said that he would stop the motor of the world?and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged is unlike any other book you have ever read.

?A writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly.?
?The New York Times

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