One of the greatest books of all-time. Rand is a goddess. ( )

It's a shame that an opinion about this book is taken as a political statement, because the story's actually really good. In a nutshell: the government decides that competition is unfair and starts regulating trade and production. In response, the producers disappear one by one, abandoning (or destroying) their mines, factories, and mills. Chaos ensues. Our protagonist is Dagny Taggart, head of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad. Objectivist women are evidently hard to find; she had so many admirers I almost wanted to rename the book "Everybody Loves Dagny." But that's neither here nor there (though the sex scenes were a touch disturbing); it is she who struggles to keep her railroad running as increasing government regulation and a decreasing population of competent people bar the way. At times I was reminded of Animal Farm, which is no surprise considering Rand grew up in Bolshevik Russia. What starts with good intentions rapidly devolves into a miasma of bribes, favors, and threats. My favorite character was Francisco d'Anconia, CEO of d'Anconia Copper and childhood friend of Dagny. I just love his snarkiness. Everything he does seems calculated to piss off the looters (so the enemies of individuality are called) while remaining impeccably polite. As an aside, I also found it telling that so many of the looters had ridiculous names, such as Tinky or Chick.

I found this story fascinating from an intellectual and philosophical viewpoint. A lot of people seem to treat capitalism as a given (or as the enemy); I've never read such a detailed defense of it. And while I do not purport to completely understand Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, these are the nuggets I gleaned from this story:
* Logic and facts are paramount.
* You are entitled to nothing and must earn everything. Needing something - anything - does not entitle you to it. Even food and shelter.
* Government involvement in private enterprise screws everything up.
* The worst thing is to live a life without purpose.
* Every man working in his own self interest ultimately produces the most good for all.

I'm not going to go into my own personal philosophy here, but these views definitely made for some interesting reading. Certainly better than The Fountainhead. (Howard Roark struck me as petty.) Once again, this is a book that made me think, and that is always high praise coming from me.

I listened to this on (unabridged) audiobook, which I think was the only way I would have gotten through it. Not only is the book incredibly long, the characters spend a lot of time making speeches, most notably John Galt's famous three-hour speech near the end. (Yes, you do learn the answer to "who is John Galt?" in the third section.) These speeches are unquestionably an integral part of the book, both the plot and the philosophical ideals, but they can get a little tiring. On audio they come across much more naturally. ( )

This is one of my all-time favorite novels. Yes, the characters are cold and hard to relate to emotionally, but the drama is easy to become wrapped up in, and the black-and-white morality of the novel is actually quite fun, whether you agree with Rand's views or not (or find yourself somewhere in the middle, as I do).

I wouldn't recommend this book to a slow reader--I spent four days on it, myself, and I tend to race through books. I've got friends who took as long as a year to finish, and that just isn't practical for me. ( )

I used to buy into the philosophy much more when I first read this book at 20 years old. 7 years and 2 more reads later, I don't think I agree with it as much. Nonetheless, Rand is a master of narrative unparalleled by any author I've ever read. The story just gripped me from start to finish, with the characters, especially Fransisco so profoundly interesting I would finish this brick in a week. ( )

I’m not so sure about Atlas Shrugged. On the one hand, it’s an incredibly deep novel that presents a strong philosophical stance on the nature of man and many of the events seem especially relevant today. On the other hand, it seems, to me, to be an incredibly self-centered ego trip that presents the popular financial principal in the worst way possible. The book is basically about a woman named Dagny Taggart, the vice-president of her family’s dominant railroad company led by her brother, Jim. Dagny is essentially in control of Taggart Transcontinental; her brother is portrayed as a nervous pushover who lets emotion get in the way of his business and is obviously, therefore, a bad leader who lets Dagny take over. Soon, however, the government starts enacting laws forcing the companies to take into account the other, less successful businessmen, which starts a slippery slope in the economy. The majority of the novel deals with Dagny and another major CEO, Henry Rearden, as their allies and their companies collapse all around them as they try to unravel several mysteries and overcome severe hardships.
I honestly don’t know what to say. I mean, the protagonists in this novel would probably be the antagonists of any Disney or really any other story of all time. They are the unsympathetic, big business leaders sent from hell, and they are the only way for the world to survive. Everything is about money with them, in keeping with the philosophy Rand tries to push. There are scenes where they seem to legitimately care about an employee of theirs, until Rand pointedly reminds you that it’s all because of their value to the company. Self-sacrifice for love is portrayed as one of the greatest of evils, and the greatest hero is a reverse Robin Hood – stealing from the increasingly socialized government to pay the rich back their income taxes. Rand makes it very clear that she feels a large government is harmful to the American people, so of course the State Science Institute characters are all – in her world – the ultimate evil. Everything the government in her novel does is wrong and harmful, so obviously that means government is wrong. It almost seems satirical of hardcore conservative values, but it obviously isn’t. I think the main turn off for me in the book was that it was so angry. She literally has nothing good to say about big government, as if they can do no right whatsoever. But it is, of course, because they aid others. ( )