A short essay on Ayn Rand
How I got around to reading Ayn Rand.
A friend's recommendation prompted me to read these two novels by some author called Ayn Rand. He insisted that there were a lot to be learned from those novels, and the seemingly arduous task of two very long novels was even a turn-on for ol' nerdy me.
Personally, I didn't even know if that name belonged to a man or a woman.
It wasn't until I had already bought both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and was halfway through Fountainhead that I got a glimpse of what following Ayn Rand had in the United States of America. I was talking to a couple of American girls in a pub and I mentioned I was reading it. Usually, talking about stuff I like is something that just comes naturally, almost automatically for me. They giggled a little bit and remarked - with a facial expression that made it clear that they didn't want to expand on the subject - that it was really funny. Then we changed the subject.
What's the fuzz all about?
The writings of Ayn Rand turned out to be very influential in the 2nd half of the twentieth century. There's an Ayn Rand Institute, and I've even managed to find an article that mentioned Ayn Rand in a comment on the recent government bailouts. Of course, I should mention that fellow youtuber davisfleetwood has mentioned "Ayn Randian" parties in several of his videos.
As another friend quietly commented once: "she has quite a following".
There is a link between her name (used almost as a trademark) and what she seemed to have written about as being the end all be all of human existence: unrestrained capitalism.
A little bit of personal history.
Ayn Rand was originally born in Russia, in 1905 and was twelve during the Russian Revolution in 1917. She left for the USA in 1926 and never went back to Russia. The Fountainhead came out in 1943 and was actually made into a movie in 1949. Her masterpiece, however, was Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. She was involved in political activism and had followers such as Alan Greenspan.
This surprised me quite a lot when I read it, for several reasons.
Her love for free capitalism is so transparent throughout the pages of both these books, one would expect political propaganda to come in a less obvious form. Simply stating one's intentions isn't the usual way to do things in politics. I didn't expect someone engaged in political activities to be so vocal about their own agenda.
Also, I had it for a fact that she hadn't witnessed the 1929 crisis, otherwise she wouldn't put that much faith in the "American industrialist" (her idea of humanity's savior) or in free market. At least, that's what i thought.
Thoughts on The Fountainhead.
I was not prepared to what hit me when I first started reading this novel.
I really enjoyed her writing, and her idea of using architect lingo in her description, even for character's descriptions, seemed like a great idea at first. The story revolves around a man that wants to be an architect, and won't bow down to college professors, well-established architects or any second-hand standards that would be forced upon him.
On the last third of the book, however, I found myself quickly skipping over her elaborate descriptions and barely reading the long speeches she gave her characters.
Thoughts on Atlas Shrugged.
This is called Ayn Rand's masterpiece, and rightfully so.
Complain as I might about the same flaws found in The Fountainhead, this is a great novel overall.
The premise is that the US government had been steadily making it harder and harder for industrialists to thrive through poor regulation and politics. Because of this, the few "men of action" that actually built America (notice the nationalist tone?) have started disappearing. They simply vanish from their companies, leaving it all as it is, and causing the slow collapse of the whole USA.
I had a blast reading this one. It is heavily motivational in a real sense, not that of corporative motivational seminars.
What did I get from these books?
Reading a novel is almost like studying or reading philosophy. The reading experience consists of penetrating the headspace of the authors. No wonder some old friends felt terribly crushed after reading Nietzsche.
Ayn Rand's characters aren't super heroes in any sense of the word, but they are not the regular consumer we got used to calling men.
I was raised in a society that provided me with non-stop entertainment from the moment I was born, and that consistently maintains that pull whose side-effect is to have most people become nothing but spectators and consumers. In this society, nothing is more of a taboo than death. Almost as if, not having lived fully, avoiding death was all that could be done.
Ayn's heroes are people who've engaged in their lives in a way I can only describe as inspiring. Put aside her idealistic dreams of having nothing but beautifully built, charming rich company owners as her heroes, this is quite a thought to keep under your own belt.
A final word.
Whenever you seem to have found someone who is terribly confident that he or she has all the answers, I strongly recommend caution. This is the case here.
Reading novels has always been an experience that I deeply loved, which also caused me to openly hate bad novels and simply quit reading whatever I thought was not up to my standards. I never once thought of not finishing these two books. If you're considering reading them, I couldn't recommend it strongly enough that you do.
ps: I chose to ignore Objectivism in this article. It doesn't interest me.
A friend's recommendation prompted me to read these two novels by some author called Ayn Rand. He insisted that there were a lot to be learned from those novels, and the seemingly arduous task of two very long novels was even a turn-on for ol' nerdy me.
Personally, I didn't even know if that name belonged to a man or a woman.
It wasn't until I had already bought both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and was halfway through Fountainhead that I got a glimpse of what following Ayn Rand had in the United States of America. I was talking to a couple of American girls in a pub and I mentioned I was reading it. Usually, talking about stuff I like is something that just comes naturally, almost automatically for me. They giggled a little bit and remarked - with a facial expression that made it clear that they didn't want to expand on the subject - that it was really funny. Then we changed the subject.
What's the fuzz all about?
The writings of Ayn Rand turned out to be very influential in the 2nd half of the twentieth century. There's an Ayn Rand Institute, and I've even managed to find an article that mentioned Ayn Rand in a comment on the recent government bailouts. Of course, I should mention that fellow youtuber davisfleetwood has mentioned "Ayn Randian" parties in several of his videos.
As another friend quietly commented once: "she has quite a following".
There is a link between her name (used almost as a trademark) and what she seemed to have written about as being the end all be all of human existence: unrestrained capitalism.
A little bit of personal history.
Ayn Rand was originally born in Russia, in 1905 and was twelve during the Russian Revolution in 1917. She left for the USA in 1926 and never went back to Russia. The Fountainhead came out in 1943 and was actually made into a movie in 1949. Her masterpiece, however, was Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. She was involved in political activism and had followers such as Alan Greenspan.
This surprised me quite a lot when I read it, for several reasons.
Her love for free capitalism is so transparent throughout the pages of both these books, one would expect political propaganda to come in a less obvious form. Simply stating one's intentions isn't the usual way to do things in politics. I didn't expect someone engaged in political activities to be so vocal about their own agenda.
Also, I had it for a fact that she hadn't witnessed the 1929 crisis, otherwise she wouldn't put that much faith in the "American industrialist" (her idea of humanity's savior) or in free market. At least, that's what i thought.
Thoughts on The Fountainhead.
I was not prepared to what hit me when I first started reading this novel.
I really enjoyed her writing, and her idea of using architect lingo in her description, even for character's descriptions, seemed like a great idea at first. The story revolves around a man that wants to be an architect, and won't bow down to college professors, well-established architects or any second-hand standards that would be forced upon him.
On the last third of the book, however, I found myself quickly skipping over her elaborate descriptions and barely reading the long speeches she gave her characters.
Thoughts on Atlas Shrugged.
This is called Ayn Rand's masterpiece, and rightfully so.
Complain as I might about the same flaws found in The Fountainhead, this is a great novel overall.
The premise is that the US government had been steadily making it harder and harder for industrialists to thrive through poor regulation and politics. Because of this, the few "men of action" that actually built America (notice the nationalist tone?) have started disappearing. They simply vanish from their companies, leaving it all as it is, and causing the slow collapse of the whole USA.
I had a blast reading this one. It is heavily motivational in a real sense, not that of corporative motivational seminars.
What did I get from these books?
Reading a novel is almost like studying or reading philosophy. The reading experience consists of penetrating the headspace of the authors. No wonder some old friends felt terribly crushed after reading Nietzsche.
Ayn Rand's characters aren't super heroes in any sense of the word, but they are not the regular consumer we got used to calling men.
I was raised in a society that provided me with non-stop entertainment from the moment I was born, and that consistently maintains that pull whose side-effect is to have most people become nothing but spectators and consumers. In this society, nothing is more of a taboo than death. Almost as if, not having lived fully, avoiding death was all that could be done.
Ayn's heroes are people who've engaged in their lives in a way I can only describe as inspiring. Put aside her idealistic dreams of having nothing but beautifully built, charming rich company owners as her heroes, this is quite a thought to keep under your own belt.
A final word.
Whenever you seem to have found someone who is terribly confident that he or she has all the answers, I strongly recommend caution. This is the case here.
Reading novels has always been an experience that I deeply loved, which also caused me to openly hate bad novels and simply quit reading whatever I thought was not up to my standards. I never once thought of not finishing these two books. If you're considering reading them, I couldn't recommend it strongly enough that you do.
ps: I chose to ignore Objectivism in this article. It doesn't interest me.
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