First, the few things I knew about this book and the reasons I read it: Considered by some a masterpiece, it is a novel born from Ms. Rand’s philosophy of the world (the triumph of the industrialist), and after decades of failed attempts to make it into a movie, it finally seems to be in full production. I got curious and had to know.
Setting: A United States set in a parallel dimension, with elements of early last century, but with emphasis askew. Planes and automobiles abound, but people/freight travel mostly in trains. TV is mentioned, but mass communication happens mostly through the radio. The most important industry is copper mills, though a new version of it (Rearden copper) produced by one of the heroes (Hank Rearden) is a better option. Most countries outside the U.S. are ‘people’s republics’ controlled by ‘looters,’ who are also represented inside the U.S. One would think that workers’ revolutions would have originated these foreign regimes. One would be wrong.
Let’s also establish some points about the style. Three adjectives precede every noun. Most are negatives: incredulous, indifferent, unstated, incomprehensible, unimportant, unknown, un-thought, involuntary, incredible, inhuman, causeless, purposeless, heartless, unsuccessful, undesirable, unpatriotic, unendurable, inestimable. A Word search should be done to count the number of times “impersonal” makes an appearance. The above, by the way, are mostly good things in Atlas Shrugged. So is contempt, especially if bitter. Solemn and sullen tend to intermingle. Characters are also astonished a lot, laugh silently, and do nothing but smoke. Let’s hope the producers are making this into a comedy.
The world, and the characters of this novel, are divided into the good and the bad, black or white, no shades of gray. And, by the way, there are no blacks or any other races. This is all a conflict among Caucasians.
On the bad side of the ring are top-level industrialists who care more about the common good than profit—the looters. On the good one, the for profit industrial tycoons, one track mind people for whom gratitude, psychology and folk music are cardinal sins—Dagny Taggart, our heroine, and all her male consorts.
Lazy workers, people who do not think or care and just want to receive, side themselves with the looters. Their notions of social justice seem founded in an attitude of apathy and lack of leadership ability, thus creating more poverty and suffering with their actions. On the other hand, dedicated workers look up with reverence and awe to the scarce Dagny Taggart’s and Hank Rearden’s of this world.
The enlightened set (though they probably would not appreciate the word enlightened because, among other things, they despise Oriental philosophy and soy beans) eventually strike against the looters by abandoning their factories or their jobs following the command of a mysterious John Galt, who fed up with messages of social justice set up to stop the engine of the world.
Looters, whether rich factory owners, government officials, or low-level workers, are in general full of malice or guilt, and their moral shortcomings show, among other things, in the poor décor they choose for home or office. And, in an interesting twist, they don’t even enjoy sex. They just can’t do anything right. While our heroes are young, eager and mostly tall, blond, lean and beautiful. But all characters, to a T, suffer from the same malaise: an earnest and humorless rejection of brevity. Atlas Shrugged is the triumph of the long-winded. John Galt wins the prize with his three-hour-long speech (literally, it takes that long to read it) where he repeats ad infinitum his theory of the survival of the fittest.
There is also a pirate who has the honor of bearing the worse name in literature, bar none: Ragnar Danneskjold (rhymes with minuscule). Dagny Taggart is as good at the head of her family’s railroad as on her back. Contrary to looters and their women, whose only actions in the sack are angry, Dagny astonishes her men with her prowess, though we are left to imagine what she does since it’s not described. She also goes through all of the good ones, starting with Argentinean industrialist Francisco D’Anconia, following with Hank Rearden, topping it up with John Galt. At this point, Francisco and Hank acknowledge John’s superiority, gladly accept that he takes their adored woman, and retreat to play with their toys. There’s a scene following this renunciation where Francisco and Hank actually sit on the floor and play with some plans, contented children letting the adults do their thing. This smells of cult mores—if you’re too young to know about David Koresh, do a Google search and you’ll get it.
Near the end, Francisco, Hank, Ragnar and Dagny rescue John Galt from a torture chamber where the worse of the looters have applied some death ray punishment to his naked body. The scene has the consistency of TV sci-fi preceding even the original Star Trek. Valiant earth men, about two or three of them, breaking into an alien facility and deactivating the death machine as audiences at home could smell the paint in the cardboard set, while a robot repeats “take…me….to…your….leader,” and their fake swords appear to break on camera. I can’t wait to see what the movie does with this material.
In conclusion, my open, eager, impersonal mind struggled through the incomprehensible, un-thought, sullen prose, which almost became unendurable, though I bore it with bitter contempt and enjoyed it with silent laughter. In the end, I had to fight the desire to open my own copper mine, run a railroad and smoke a cigarette. I settled, instead, for a plate of tofu.
And that’s all she wrote……
