Ayn Rand on Writing Fiction

Why does this book even exist?

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/17425614

It's like Eichmann speaking at a fundraiser for the B'nai Brith...

Thankyou for that. I can't even talk about HER without using profanity.

You'll get on well here, David.

We must do everything we can to destroy her reputation--gradually, inexorably, her books MUST disappear from human consciousness...

Even Stephen King, who is not my favorite author by any means, can write a decent commercial page-turner. He knows things like plot, characterization, and world-building. The speeches in his books are of moderate length.

I would disagree with Cliff, since her disappearing won't do any good. What's important is more people know to stay away from her stuff like literary Ebola virus. It's most important for impressionable teens to stay away from it, or at least approach it in a snarky, ironic manner. Teens are into irony and snark, right? What with their video games and text messaging and drinking their phosphates at the Five & Dime.

Ayn Rand on writing is like Mengele on healthcare.

My best guess is that it's code for something. Maybe an anagram?

like, who she really is: "hater of t' fiction"
or how hard it is to write such bad novels: "titanic effort, oh"
or maybe a surrealist description of her works: "a hot trite coffin"

I dunno, am I off? Maybe a cryptogram instead? Somebody?

The single review says it was not even written by her but was transcribed from a seminar. She gave SEMINARS on WRITING. The mind boggles. I wonder if Dan Brown offers any.

#7: Ha ha! especially the second one...

On the whole GOP "Going Galt" phenomenon:

http://www.semiconscious.org/2009/03/12/atlas-shat/

Ayn Rand is bad enough but what about Terry Brooks - Sometimes the Magic Works.

What's next? Jack the Ripper's "Laughter in the Operating Room".

Jeffrey Dahmer's "To Serve Man: A Guide to Home Entertaining" ;)

Okay, I think I understand what snobs do.

#8: I think he does, actually.

Edit: used to, at least. At Phillips Exeter Academy.

WHAT? No one has a single positive thing to say about Ayn Rand? Just keep it up, you guys.

The capitalist whore is dead. That's a positive. Unfortunately many of her yuppie larva spawn are still around, poisoning the economy, society, and government with her radically stupid "philosophy."

If only all of her idiotic followers were also dead. Sharpen the guillotine I say!

I think most of her followers are planning to go Galt. The sooner the better I say. Let 'em have Texas.

Then where will we keep our hilarious hats??

>1 kswolff: - I actually own that. It makes me laugh; a guilty, very guilty pleasure. At least I know she isn't alive enough to enjoy the money.

>15 tonyshaw14: - Something positive?

...

...

She was good at promoting herself and making money. She even got an institute. Other than that...

Oh my, I hadn't really thought about Rand for years. Thanks to this thread, I'm now curious to reread one of her books!

edit - each subsequent post makes me even more determined to track down a copy of The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. I read both of those a long time ago and I don't remember them being such horrific books.

Promoting herself and making money? So how does that make her different from Pablo Escobar?

>22 kswolff: - Oh, I never said it did.

#16 “The capitalist whore is dead. That's a positive.”

Don’t feel threatened, kswolff! After the Revolution, when we’ve slashed taxes and eliminated welfare, we’ll let you bitch about it to your heart’s content! Free speech uber alles!

How's the slashed taxes thing going? About as well as deregulating the banks, I suppose.

I'm all for eliminating welfare, especially to people like Bear Stearns and the rest of the Wall Street welfare queens. Most are thieves and degenerate gamblers anyway.

i guess i'm always surprised at how a writer whose books are so relentlessly tedious could maintain her presence in the marketplace of ideas. I guess they served as inspirational bed time reading for the Chicago school of economics and its progeny. Back when i attempted to read Rand i hardly ever quit a book i started, but after going 0/2 over 4 decades ago, i shrugged off the rest of her oeuvre.

Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about Australian table wines:

"Another good fighting wine is Melbourne Old-and-Yellow, which is particularly heavy and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat."

I don't know if her fans actually read her stuff, so much as use her books as weapons to bludgeon any nearby critic or advocate of single-payer health care systems.

"Quite the reverse is true of Château Chunder, which is an appellation contrôlée, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation; a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends."

Which explains most sane people's reactions to reading Ayn Rand.