The Ayn Rand Philosophy Lite. It's a great short tale about individualism vs. totalitarianism. Even kewler...it was the basis for Rush's 2112. ( )

Along the same line as 1984 and Brave New World. Loved it. ( )

Ayn Rand is an incredible writer; unfortunately, too many people take her writing too seriously. Think along the lines of The Da Vinci Code: it's fiction, people. ( )

As a fan of both dystopian novels and absolutist manifestos, I really enjoyed this. It was a quick read--the 90 pages took me about an hour, all told--and obviously much less fleshed-out or developed than Rand's other works. Like I said, I had fun with this book, but I will say that Zamyatin's We does "it" a lot better. ( )

I didn’t really know anything about Ayn Rand before I read Anthem – only that she seems to have the marvelous ability to polarize her readers into opposing camps: those that love her and those that hate her. So when I picked up this novella, I did so hoping that Rand would rouse great passion within me. I didn’t really care whether I fell in with the lovers or the haters, but I did want to fall in with one side or the other.

It didn’t happen. Anthem left me completely apathetic. Because it’s…well, it’s a bit boring. For a dystopia, it seems rather tame, doesn’t it? There’s certainly no question of liking the characters. And though the prose isn’t bad, it isn’t particularly spectacular either.

The only moderately interesting element is the Objectivist doctrine with which Rand insistently browbeats the reader. Really, I think Rand could have compacted this 70-some page story into a 10 page essay, and it would have been much more effective.

Probably, these are issues that Rand’s later and longer works (The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged), don’t suffer from as much…but Anthem didn’t particularly leave me wanting more. I suppose I wouldn’t object to reading more of Rand someday – but I’m not in any hurry to do so. ( )