For any Ayn Rand fans:

[surfered]

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." Author unknown to me

[Easterncedar]

1. I was impressed by Rand

When I was 14 or 15, but I grew up. I think it’s an exact tell of Dunning-Krueger when an adult is a fan of Ayn Rand.

[TheBlackAdder]

9. In true Randian poetry, she was abandoned by her RW base & fans, forced to survive on gov't programs.

[dedl67]

16. Ayn Rand tends to appeal to young boys

Ayn Rand presents what seems to be a sort of ''heroic individualism" that can be attractive to boys who are still finding out who they are. Her so-called philosophy, which she called 'Rationalism', sounds profound at first, but is simply selfishness wrapped in fancy words. After one starts to gain experience and encounters real philosophers, Ayn Rand seems pretty shabby.

[Susan Calvin]

36. To my recollection from high school,

I went straight from Ayn Rand to Bertrand Russell. Much better.

[NJCher]

60. same here

finished Rand, bought into it for about 15", then skipped to Russell and Erich Fromm.

[Shermann]

54. I was gifted a copy as a young boy

I didn't make it all the way through; I found it boring as hell.

[Susan Calvin]

20. Bingo

Getting into Rand is a high school thing. That's where you're supposed to explore different points of view. By the time you're an adult you should have figured out what a jerk she was.

[Ilsa]

34. Hers are the books which should be banned if books

must be banned.

But let's not ban books, okay?

[allegorical oracle]

51. Totally. That's why I was awestruck when Paul Ryan ran for POTUS and I heard him

say he was quite impressed with Rand after he had to read her books in college.

[Susan Calvin]

52. Had to read her books in college??

Wow. I hope the purpose was intended to be to find out how stupid they are.

[Demsrule86]

57. She was a terrible person

She base her philosophy and so called 'heroes' on a murderer.
In 1928, just two years after Ayn Rand arrived in the U.S. from Soviet Russia and settled in Los Angeles, she scribbled diary notes in her brand-new language that formed a story she called The Little Street. Its protagonist, Danny Renahan, is modeled on a real-life Los Angeles murderer, 19-year-old William Hickman, who strangled and dismembered a girl in a kidnapping-for-ransom gone awry.

In her notebooks, Rand makes a hero of both Hickman and the fictional Renahan, who murders a church pastor instead of a child, and extols the killers’ beautiful souls, which rise and set without a trace of “social instinct or herd feeling.” Of Hickman she writes, “A strong man can eventually trample society under his feet … That boy was not strong enough.” Meanwhile, Renahan “does not understand,” she writes quite rapturously, “because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people.”

She died poor forced to accept social security which she hated...her long term secretary did not even attend her funeral...describing Rand as 'difficult'. She didn't believe in charity at all and believed the powerful had the right to tample the weak...her book are sickening.

[NNadir]

2. My favorite remark about this: "If you're still reading Ayn Rand after your acne clears up...

...you probably are in serious need of professional help to help you grow up."

[hatrack]

4. And along those lines . . . .

The best 2.5 minutes on the topic you'll ever spend.

[hatrack]

17. Reminds me of a quote Oscar Wilde had about another author's book . .

"There is too much space between the covers."

[hlthe2b]

3. Uggh. Rand is the heroine of the most sociopathic RW... Nope, just nope.

[Silent Type]

5. Atlas Shrugged is the most dreary, painful, right wing tome I've ever attempted to read. Disgusting drivel.

[EdmondDantes_]

49. If you want a worse version, try reading Terry Goodkind

Particularly Faith of the Fallen. He wrote Randian philosophy in a fantasy world but he hated fantasy and throw in more sexual assault scenes than George Martin, a demonic chicken, and the hero single handedly inspired a revolt against communism via a sculpture.

On second thought maybe don't read it since it's hard to Mystery Science Theater a book.

[Aristus]

6. It's not so much that Rand was a bad writer. It's just that her writing reminds me that I'm reading.

It's the kind of thing Truman Capote used to call creative typing.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. "Creative typing": that's a gem I hadn't heard. . . . nt

[Aristus]

12. Most of Capote's writing has a gem-like quality.

Growing up, I only knew him as that weird, whining guy on the talk shows. My Dad loathed him. I had loved the short story "A Christmas Memory" when I was a schoolkid, but I thought that was maybe an anomaly. And I couldn't quite square that writing with that strange guy on the talk shows.

Then I read "The Grass Harp", and was absolutely captivated. I've been a fan ever since.

[SCantiGOP]

27. Harper Lee knew Capote

The young boy who spends the summer in the Mississippi town in To Kill A Mockingbird was Capote, and that was a true incident form her childhood that she put in the novel.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

39. Love Capote.

[Martin68]

10. Rand was a bad writer with an impoverished imagination and a grade school comprehension of economics.

[Martin68]

8. I well remember when my parents and a circle of their friends all read Atlas Shrugged. It was around 1969.

But it wasn't until Fox News got a stanglehold on a sizable portion of the nation that they become totally brainwashed.

[multigraincracker]

11. She had, a well deserved end of her life.

Even changed her name back and collect government benefits.

[dchill]

13. So you're saying she deserved government benefits?

Well there you go. Don't we all!

[Warpy]

14. She was a Russian rich kid of 12 when the revolution came

and became a poisonous old bat who just never got over the loss of Fairyland.

[tinrobot]

15. It sure hooked me in high school.

But that was a very long time ago and I got over it.

[Montauk6]

18. I never read Tolkien...

Did he fetishize handsome chainsmoking misunderstood-genius white men raping sexy, misunderstood-genius, chainsmoking white women too?

[Martin Eden]

21. Even the orcs weren't THAT evil

They were genetically bred to be what they were.

Ayn Rand has no such excuse, nothwithstanding what tje Bolsheviks did to her family in Russia.

Her hatred of them fueled hatred of every non-selfish impulse of humanity.

[Martin Eden]

19. When Paul Ryan was House Speaker he required all his aids to read Atlas Shrugged

There is a video of Ryan (shouldn't be hard to find) of him extolling Ayn Rand, saying her books represent the kind of "morality" we need more of in this country.

[Moostache]

28. I remember that clearly...

Just as I remember a point early in my career (circa 1996-ish) when an acquaintance of mine - who believed I was a right-wing lunatic like him because I had politely refused to engage his politics at work - tried to sell me on the works of Ayn Rand as great literature. He was unamused when I told him I thought there is more value in ONE Rand McNally road atlas than in all of Ayn Rand's babbling put together.

[rickyhall]

22. I read Foundation instead.

[The Revolution]

23. I had a coworker who was really into Rand

But also claimed to be a Christian, and I've always felt those things to be incompatible.

[bmichaelh]

24. It's a Wonderful Life

Ayn Rand believed the Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life was Communist propaganda.

What a nutcase.

[surfered]

25. Here's my Letter to the Editor of our local paper in 2017 in response to an Ayn Rand defender.,

Dear Editor:

Ayn Rand was not an economist and not her real name. Born Alissa Rosenbaum, she fled the Russian Revolution, moving to Hollywood to become a novelist and scriptwriter. She was an atheist, addicted to amphetamines, praised serial killers, insisted her followers smoke cigarettes as it symbolized man’s victory over fire, and claimed studies showing it caused lung cancer were Communist propaganda. She would die of the disease, friendless and alone.

Influenced by Nietzsche, she believed the world was divided between a small minority of productive “Supermen" and the rest of us who were just "savages, refuse, lice, and parasites." She thought a small revolutionary elite, i.e. the rich, should seize power and impose their vision on the "imbecilic masses."

She loathed Bolshevik ideals, but admired their methods. Readers of her novels should remember that she once said, “Fiction is a great weapon, because it arouses the public to an emotional, as well as intellectual response to our cause.” Her cause was basically selfishness and that one’s value to society was measured only by one’s income.

[Basso8vb]

26. My mom told me about 40 years ago to read Atlas Shrugged because it was so stupid.

She believed in knowing everything about your enemies.

[love_katz]

29. My father insisted that I read her novels.

I think I was in early high school? My reaction was that I hated them, from the get go.
Thank you for the Christopher Hitchens quote. The MAGAts and Agolf $Hitler demonstrate every day why we don't need more books extolling selfishness.

[Abolishinist]

31. For those not familiar with Atlas Shrugged, I offer the abridged version.

AYN RAND
Hello, I'm Ayn Rand. I wrote a novel based on my Objectivist philosophy called The Fountainhead, but I don't think 700 pages was quite enough to get my point across, so I will write the exact same novel, only it will take 1100 pages this time.

READERS
Hey, great.

HEROINE
I'm Dagny Taggart. I am a railroad tycoon, woman-in-a-man's-world, stunningly beautiful heroine. I am the only person capable of running this railroad. I am the only woman in the universe worth a damn. I am also the only woman in the universe with a real job. I am basically the only woman in this novel.

LOVE INTEREST #1
I have worshiped you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, from afar for my whole life.

HEROINE
That's nice.

LOVE INTEREST #2
I have worshiped you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, naked on the forest floor. Yet I will nobly step aside in the name of noble idealism, despite the fact that I love you and want you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, desperately.

HEROINE
Okay.

LOVE INTEREST #3
I worship you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn. Let us have creepy rape fantasy sex now. I will not ask permission to do all these kinky things to you, but luckily you want to be forced into all the kinky things, you dirty bitch.

HEROINE
This is clearly true love! Stick it in me.

ALL
Who is John Galt?

AYN RAND
I am not telling. Instead, please listen to someone pontificate about my Objectivist philosophy for a while.

SOMEONE
[Pontificates]

VILLAINS
There are many of us, but we are all exactly the same. We are caricatures of evil socialists and embodiments of pure evil. Let us create a perfect socialist world order ruled by the inept! We all suck! Socialism sucks! Ha ha!

HEROES
We are all exactly the same. We are noble and perfect and have very angular and insolent faces. We can read each other's minds and the minds of everyone else in this novel, leaving less room for misunderstanding and more room for pontificating. And we are all in love with Dagny Taggart, the only woman in the universe worth a damn.

ALL
Who is John Galt?

VILLAIN
[Threatens hero.]

HERO
[Flips coin]
If it's heads, I will gaze apathetically. If it's tails, I will laugh heartily.

VILLAIN
Although these are the only two things any of you heroes have done for the past 800 pages, I am shocked at this response! How could you! How dare you!?!

HERO
I will now pontificate about Ayn Rand's philosophy. It has been at least 50 pages since you've heard it.

AYN RAND
It is so convenient that all of my heroes are in perfect agreement about my philosophy so that their pontificating is so interchangeable.

ALL
Who is John Galt?

JOHN GALT
Hello. In this, the culmination of all the pontificating, I will explain Ayn Rand's philosophy for a full 57 pages. No, I am not kidding. This one monologue will last for 57 pages. Oh and also, I love Dagny.

DAGNY
I love you too. Man, this is really going to suck for Love Interest #3.

LOVE INTEREST #3
Despite my passionate love for you and enjoyment of our rape sex, and the fact that there is no other woman on earth worth a damn, and the fact that I sacrificed my life's passion on your behalf, and that I spent my entire fortune to get a divorce to be with you, I will now nobly step aside in the name of noble idealism.

DAGNY
Great! I will miss our creepy rape sex. Farewell.

LOVE INTEREST #3
Bye.

READER
Wait, what?

ATLAS
[Shrugs]

THE END

[NNadir]

38. That is brilliant!! Did you write it yourself? If so you should have a career in satire.

[Abolishinist]

43. I only wish! I found this online 10 or so years ago, never did find its author.

And yeah, it is SO perfect in so many ways.

A career in satire would be fun, but if I had to do it all over again I would love to have tried my hand as a political cartoonist.

[NNadir]

44. Well it is hilarious. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[Easterncedar]

45. Brilliant

[NNadir]

46. I've read several times and still laugh like hell at...

Readers: Wait, What?

[surfered]

53. Brilliant!

[Joinfortmill]

56. Rofl.

[Paladin]

32. That critique of Ayn Rand never, ever gets old for me.

Full confession: I read a couple of her novels, back when I was a freshman college student many years ago, also watched the movie of "Atlas Shrugged" (slightly better than it had to be); thankfully, I outgrew all that, a short time later.

To me, there is a direct line between Rand's piss-poor writing---with its concentration on money worship and the sanctifying of selfishness---and the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

[hatrack]

33. And for anybody who'd like to save some time . . .

[Hekate]

35. John Rogers. BTW -- fun thread

.

[lonely bird]

37. Never read Rand or Tolkien

I read Heinlein in high school. Eventually he went off the deep end too.

[ChazInAz]

40. Didn't he, though!

Those last few novels were just....sad.

[Cassidy]

41. John Rogers, screenwriter, etc. is the author of that marvelous quote.

John Rogers (Kung Fu Monkey - Ephemera blog post, March 19, 2009)

[Jacson6]

42. In her old age she was a welfare recipient.

So much for no hand outs for the disabled & retired by the society they live in.

[rampartd]

47. john rogers, is the author. n/t

[Wounded Bear]

48. I think I read Anthem, her shorter work...

Don't remember much of it and have never read it again.

I know I tried to read one of her longer works. Just could not wade through it. Got maybe 100 pages in and just set it aside. I've read War and Peace, it's a short story compared to Rand's drivel. At least in that there were characters I could care about and a reasonably decent story wrapped around Napoleon's invasion of Russia. It was long, but Rand's writing is just dense.

[GiqueCee]

50. The plots of Rand's two 3rd-rate door-stop novels...

... were so similar that they could have been bound together as Fountainhead Shrugged. She was a horrible person who, like Musk, railed against altruism and empathy every chance she got. My employers 68 years ago or so, were devoted "Objectivists" who strongly encouraged me to read everything she wrote. An essay expressing admiration for a psychopath that murdered a 12 year-old girl sealed my growing contempt for her, along with the mercifully short diatribe entitled, The Virtue of Selfishness. That there is still a following for her malicious drivel is sickening, and says nothing good about her admirers' judgement or their character.

[Joinfortmill]

55. I read her when I was young. Forgettable.

[mimitabby]

58. I read a few of her books, recommended by a boyfriend

While they were well written, I didn’t like the characters and didn’t like the stories. I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was.
In retrospect, the boyfriend was doing his best to emulate the protagonist in each book and as a result I found him lacking..
“Let’s just be friends”

[BobTheSubgenius]

59. I once opened an Ayn Rand book and tried to read it.

After 3 pages, I had a literal Dorothy Parker reaction - "This is not a book that can be tossed aside lightly. It should be hurled with great force."

And I did. I had hoped to break the spine, but it was made of stern stuff. I settled on the recycling bin.