I've read about Ayn Rand, and I've read short extracts from "Atlas Shrugged", supposedly her magnum opus.

Those extracts did not inspire me to plough through the whole of "Atlas Shrugged", but I thought to be fair I ought to read a complete work of hers, so I picked up a copy of her 1938 novella "Anthem".

In a repressive, techophobic, collectivist dystopia, a young man rebels, rediscovers electricity, and then escapes from captivity to be joined by his female lover. He hopes to rebuild a society based on individualism -- "Anthem" concludes with the protagonist determined to carve into the stone portal of his fort the "sacred word EGO".

Rand's writing is lifeless, with both characters and setting being little more than vehicles for the author's ponderous didacticism. The slight romance narrative smacks of sub-Hollywood teenage fantasy, with the protagonist renaming his lover "The Golden One", followed by her dubbing him 'The Unconquered".

The concluding pages are supposed to be a poetic invocation of egoism. Instead, they come across as Rand attempting to club the reader into submission.

I am pained to learn that this book is frequently assigned in US high schools, as it is devoid of literary merit and of no great significance in literary or cultural history. If teachers or school districts want to assign a mid 20C "antitotalitarian" work, why not press copies of "1984" into students' hands?

Nevertheless my afternoon was not entirely wasted, as I can now get through the rest of my life without having to read another word of this tiresome crank, yet have a clear conscience when I describe her as possessing not a shred of literary talent, because my judgment is based on a first hand acquaintance with her writing.

#Books #Literature #USLiterature #AmericanLiterature #AynRand #Anthem #RightWing

‘Out of Order’ Sign on Urinal No Match for Free-Thinking Libertarian

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://thehardtimes.net/culture/out-of-order-sign-on-urinal-no-match-for-free-thinking-libertarian/

Out of the mire of Galt's Gulch did Neil Peart and Rush (the band) pluck the delicate flower that is 2112, which somehow manages to be the perfect rock operetta, or something like that, even though it's only twenty minutes long. Perhaps that's why it works so well! It's ridiculously long, but only as long as it needs to be for the slight, wispy, magic-faery-dust narrative of 2112 to play out. It's a genuinely charming fable, and it might be the best thing that Ayn Rand ever inspired.

Peart makes a weensy change, a saving one: in Anthem the generic protagonist's claim to greatness is cemented by his miraculous re-invention of the incandescent lamp, but in 2112 the protagonist finds the miracle, with wires that vibrate &c., and it's the strangeness of the device and its music which repels the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx. That's a much nicer basis for a boffo prog-rock track than the "they hate me because I'm smart and clever" vibe of Rand's Anthem.

Parents, do you know what your kids are reading?

#books #parenting #humour #cartoons #AynRand #adolescence #literature

Listening to Curtis Yarvin is like reading Ayn Rand, omg so bad.

#CurtisYarvin #AynRand #Libertarians #EveryoneIsTwelveNow