Atlas shrugged, and then I hit him in the face with a piece of pipe.
I have FINALLY trudged my way through this book, despite the unwavering willingness to slit my wrists to make it stop, dear god, just please make it stop.
I NEVER take more than two or three days to read a big book, and anything under four hundred pages is gone in a day.
For the uninitiated, here’s the cliffs notes of the cliffs notes of Atlas Shrugged:
Liberalisim at it’s core is a desire to drag everyone down to the level of the lowest of the low, to take away from those who work hard for their success and give to layabouts. About racheting down the freedom of the individual until the gummint must decide everything for everyone. It’s true on a corporate level and on an individual level. The end result of all this robin hooded stupidity is that everyone’s lives turn to shit, fairly quickly.
Well, duh.
Okay, okay, I get that it’s written in a different time, a time when people couldn’t believe this sort of thing could happen, but shit, if you don’t understand the truth if this, you really never will. And no 57 page speeches by a fictional character are gonna make you believe it.
Under “over the top” in the dictionary, they should show this book.
man, I have had to read Count of Monte Cristo twice to clear my head. And therin lies my feelings about the matter; nemo me impune lacessit. Edmond Dantes was my perfect hero. Mess with his family? he’ll ruin yours. Annoy him? he’ll duel with you and kill you. A renaissance man with the education and the cash to do his will and enforce it on others at will. Give me Edmond Dantes over John Galt anyday. Who the fuck IS john galt.
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Sorry you had to suffer Ayn Rand, but it’s one of those things, you just have to go find out for yourself.
It takes her a while to get there, but she speaks the truth. Also reminds me of Harrison Bergeron and, strangely enough, “The Incredibles:” — “When everyone is special, no one is special.”
Just once I’d like to see mankind reach up instead of pull down.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Yeah, you could have just read Harrison Bergeron, and been done in 3 minutes! (and she’s totally right about The Incredibles, too.)
“It’s ok to be exceptional.”
I did read Harrison Bergeron, when I was about ten. Not a bad piece of work for a pacifist asshole, frankly.
You’re not allowed to hold people’s later mistakes against their earlier work. It’s bad for your karma.
That’s how I can still watch Barbarella.
No, Vonnegut was always a pacifist asshole. he was a pacifist asshole before I was born. I don;’t hold it against him, but I don’t cut him any slack for it either.
The way to get through Atlas Shrugged is to skip the speeches. It’s okay, there’s really only one, repeated several times, at length.
I always thought there was something wrong with me that I could not get through that book. I don’t think I’ve even got past the first 100 pages, the book is boring, life is too short to read boring books in my opinion.
I understand the “importance” of the book, but I can’t bring myself to read it and find out for myself.
Og Smash
The Neaderpundit recently made his way through Atlas Shrugged, and gives his cliff notes version: Liberalisim at it’s core is a desire to drag everyone down to the level of the lowest of the low, to take away from those…
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Heh – I loved Atlas Shrugged, and have re-read it twice. BUT – I now skip the 57-page diatribe *grin*
It is preaching to the choir, though.