Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Rated PG for some sexuality. Taylor Schilling as Dagny. Michael O'Keefe as Hugh. Grant Bowler as Hank. Matthew Marsden as James. Graham Beckel as Ellis Wyatt. Michael Lerner as Wesley Mouch.
Reviews Who is John Galt? Well you may ask. It's a lecture and most people don't like to get lectured. I loved it. It gave me a good swift kick in the ass. It teaches you to think with your mind, rather than your heart. It doesn't make you an uncaring person. You still feel with your heart, but you think with your mind.
Use your mind instead of expecting to get the rewards of others who do all the thinking. If everyone did this, the world would be perfect - that is the idea behind Ayn's story. Of course, this will never happen.
Ayn knew that. She just wrote a story about her ideal world. A lot of authors do that. No need to get pissed off at her because of it. Yes, the book is wordy, but her words are genius in my opinion.
I loved the long radio speech. Skip it if you are hating the book or better yet, stop reading it. Go out and smell the flowers instead. Is the story black and white? Authors have different styles - people complain. If every author wrote in the same style, people would complain. I can't tell you how many co-workers I've met who complain about how the CEO is making so much money and they should get some of that money.
Well, go to college, get a business degree and work you're way up the corporate ladder if you want the CEO's salary. Don't sit around and expect those kinds of rewards because you work in accounts payable. You know what it takes, so do it and shut up. If it wasn't for the person who created this company, you wouldn't even have a job. I'm an administrative assistant making less money than the people complaing about wanting more money. It just makes me sick. But the people in Ayn's story didn't work for money.
They loved their jobs. And she wasn't saying you had to be a rich, corporate big shot to hold the world up. There were teachers and stay at home moms in her little world in the mountains.
Ayn has extremely valuable points and if you are someone who is constantly looking for something to criticize in every book, then don't read it. If you can't handle looking at your imperfections, don't read it. If you have an open mind and are willing to learn something from every book and experience you have and grow as a person, then you will benefit from reading this book. Jul 30, Richard rated it did not like it Recommends it for: assholes seeking rationalizations for their terrible ideas.
Ayn Rand's characters are almost completely defined by the extent to which they embrace her beliefs. A good guy by definition is someone who agrees with her; a bad guy someone who dares to have a different point of view. For all the lip-service Rand pays to individualism, she brooks no dissent from her heroes; none of her so-called individualists ever expresses a point of view significantly different from hers.
To illustrate the gulf between Rand's characters and human reality, consider this beha Ayn Rand's characters are almost completely defined by the extent to which they embrace her beliefs.
To illustrate the gulf between Rand's characters and human reality, consider this behavior. When Dagny Taggart meets Hank Rearden, she dutifully becomes his property, for no other reason than that he's the most Randian male around. When John Galt arrives, ownership of the prize female transfers from Rearden to Galt, because Galt is the more Randian of the two.
Does it ever occur to Hank to be resentful or jealous? Does Taggart experience loyalty or regret? Might Taggart love Rearden despite his lesser Randness? No, those are all things that human beings might feel. In a related departure from reality, sex in Randland is more or less indistinguishable from rape.
Capitalists don't have time for that commie nonsense. The real focus of Atlas Shrugged is to extoll Rand's philosophy. Not to debate it, since no one in Randland with any any intelligence or competence could have a different point of view. About Rand's philosophy I'll just make two points which I'm not going to bother providing evidence for at the moment.
The first is that, like most social Darwinists, Rand fell short in her understanding of natural selection. Her philosophy was largely based on the false belief that nature invariably favors individual selfishness. In reality, evolution has made homo sapiens a social animal; cooperation and compassion are very human traits. More importantly, even if cold selfishness were man's nature in the wild, it would not necessarily follow that that would be the best way for us to behave in our semi-civilized modern condition.
The second point is that, contrary to Rand's belief, pure laissez-faire capitalism never works; it invariably leads to exploitation of the poor and middle class and to environmental catastrophe. The best economic system that has ever been devised -- so far -- is a mixture of capitalism and socialism. Apr 17, deanna rated it did not like it Recommends it for: the unsubtle.
The best way to understand Rand's message in this book is to simply close it, and beat yourself over the head with it as hard as possible. This is essentially what Rand does throughout it's ridiculous length. I see no reason that a book with a strong lesson can't also have decent character development, natural dialog, and a believable plot. Of course, I also think that you can establish a theme with subtlety, and trust that your reader will figure it out.
Ayn Rand writes as if the elements of fi The best way to understand Rand's message in this book is to simply close it, and beat yourself over the head with it as hard as possible. Ayn Rand writes as if the elements of fiction get in the way of her message, and that reader's skull's are extraordinarily thick and require a firm beating over the head to absorb the theme.
Countless philosophers have said the same thing better and quicker. I realize that I offend many atheists, agnostics and free thinkers by writing this, but as one myself, I have to say that a passionate love of Ayn Rand is not required for membership in that particular club. Save yourself a headache, and pick up the much shorter Anthem. It's just as overdone, but weighing it at ounces rather than pounds, it'll leave a smaller dent in your head.
Oh, and if you're only reading it to answer the question on geeky bumper sticker "Who is John Galt? It's usually stuck on the butt end of a car to express general disenchantment with big government, and a lack of heroes. Now you know, so go read something worthwhile, and if you insist on reading Ayn Rand, hit her non-fiction.
Stripped of an attempt at storytelling, she doesn't do half bad. View all 48 comments. Jul 09, Jason Pettus rated it liked it Shelves: late-modernism , classic , character-heavy. Would you like to hear the only joke I've ever written?
Q: "How many Objectivists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Here in Rand's second massive manifesto-slash-novel, we follow the stories of a number of Titans of the Industrial Age -- the big, powerful white males who built the railroad industry, the big, powerful white males who built the electrical utility companies -- as well as a thinly-veiled Roosevelt New Deal administration whose every attempt to regulate these Titans, according to Rand, is tantamount evil-wise to killing and eating babies, even when it's child labor laws they are ironically passing.
Recommended, but with a caveat; that you read it before you're old enough to know better. View all 46 comments. Feb 12, Christopher rated it it was amazing. As Ayn Rand's immortal opus, Atlas Shrugged, stands as a tome to a philosophy that is relevant today as it was in her time. Basically, the major moral theme is that there are two types of people in the world: the Creators and the Leeches.
The Creators are the innovators who use the power of their will and intelligence to better humanity. The first person to create fire is often referenced as the paradigm for these people. In the book, each of the major protagonists also represent Creators improvi As Ayn Rand's immortal opus, Atlas Shrugged, stands as a tome to a philosophy that is relevant today as it was in her time.
In the book, each of the major protagonists also represent Creators improving the human condition with their force of will. The Leeches my word are the people who create nothing, but thrive off feeding on the Creators.
In Rand's view, they are the bureaucrats, politicos, regulators, etc. Throughout human history she tells us, these people have benefited through no ingenuity of their own, but merely from piggybacking on - and often fettering - the success of the Creators. Where the conflict in this book arises is when the Creators decide they have had enough and revolt. I won't spoil the book by describing specifics, but let's just say it causes quite the societal drama.
For Leeches can't feed where there's no blood. All that is fairly significant and involved and worth the read to begin with, but where this book really stimulates me is in the fact that it is still relevant. Today we have Creators and we have Leeches. Some titans of industry and technology move our culture forward and others hold it back to their own benefit.
I work in Silicon Valley and I see this all the time. That's why in many ways I consider this voluminous novel to be as important to a business education as Art of War. To cite other readers' posts, you don't have to agree with what Rand is extolling, but I think you'd be foolish to try and deny the existence of this struggle since it is ingrained in humanity. Yes, Ayn does get long winded and arrogant in parts as she draws the battle lines, but I don't think an author could have crafted such a powerful conflict without copious quantities of ego to accentuate the differences.
This book, as much as I detest it, is actually rather useful. Those who have read it tend to be those whom I most especially desire to avoid. Because those who have read it are invariably proud of the fact--ostentatiously so--it is even easier for me to keep my life free and clear of delusional egomaniacs. Thank you Ayn Rand. View all 21 comments. Sep 08, Simon rated it did not like it.
Absolutely terrible. Imagine an analogous situation: A white supremacist writes a book in which all the white characters are great and all the black characters are awful. If you were to read that book and as a result buy into white supremacy; that would make you an utter utter fool. And yet, Rand writes a book where anyone who is a raging capitalist is a veritable super-hero and anyone who pauses for half a second to consider that maybe such a system is sub-optimal is a sniveling lunatic - and lo, Absolutely terrible.
And yet, Rand writes a book where anyone who is a raging capitalist is a veritable super-hero and anyone who pauses for half a second to consider that maybe such a system is sub-optimal is a sniveling lunatic - and lo, the mindless prols think it's a masterpiece and a template for how the world should be run.
The most annoying book I have ever read. View all 56 comments. Jul 10, Meredith Holley rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: soviets. Shelves: girls-rule , classic-or-cannonical , utopia-dystopia , motherless-daughters , reviewed. I was visiting an old friend for the past few days, and she showed me this cover of Atlas Shrugged I made for her when we lived in Ukraine: [image error] It was a necessary repair, but it pretty much proves I should be a cover designer. I get that Rand is kind of loony tunes of the Glenn Beck variety, and some people maybe?
Warning: I think, to make my point, I have to refer to Dostoyevsky a lot, which I seem to always do because he really is some kind of touchstone to me. It makes people say that ideas are dangerous. It happens because people put forward too few ideas. Anyway, back to the book: First, story.
The third part of this book is super weird. My favorite part of her ending is how John Galt gives the most boring speech possible, and it lasts for about a bazillion pages, and you have to skip it or die. Nice try, liar. Second, writing. I know it made a huge difference in my reading of this book that I was living in a Soviet bloc apartment in Lozovaya, Ukraine at the time and had forgotten a little bit how to speak English. But, we allow for the weirdness because we picture the stuff happening in Russia, where the weird stuff typically goes down anyway.
No joke. Third, philosophy. Maybe I told you this story already, so skip it if you already know it. When I lived in Ukraine, I had the same conversation with three or four people of the older generation who grew up in the Soviet Union.
We had free health care, free housing, and now we have nothing. I mean, every once in a while your neighbor would disappear, but it was completely worth it. Admittedly, the problem with this argument is that it sets up a dichotomy where our only choices are the prosperity gospel and Soilent Green. From what I know of Rand, though, she had seen her neighbors and family thrown out of Russia or killed for being rich. She was fighting something extreme by being extreme.
To me, this comes from people taking her arguments too seriously on both sides. Why is it different with Rand? Fourth, women. I think, in this way, it was particularly important to me that the protagonist was a woman.
Anyway, that kind of hegemony really creeps me out. When I read this book, I was just realizing that I had joined Peace Corps with a similarly misguided motivation. I wanted to go to the needy and unfortunate countries of the world and sacrifice myself to save them. It might sound more nasty than it really was when I say it like that, but I think it is a really arrogant attitude to have.
But I love it for the things that I got out of it, and if someone else benefited from my being in Ukraine, it was dumb luck. This would be the Hank Rearden character in the novel. I love that Rand sets up characters who destroy this cycle of abuse. I love that her female protagonist lives completely outside of it. There are lots of other reasons to read Rand, but most of those get into the argument about her ideas being dangerous. Yes, she conveniently ignores the very old, very young, and disabled to make a specific and extreme point.
Anyway, read, discuss, agree, disagree. I hear in the sequel there are werewolves. Aug 16, Richard Derus rated it did not like it. This blog debunks some of the Aynholes' major misunderstandings about the book. Pretentious poseur writes pseudophilosophical apologia for being a sociopath. Distasteful in the extreme. View all 86 comments.
Apr 10, s. I believe they referred to it as 'the greatest book ever written. Because who cares about Ulysses, right? No, that won't do, I'm going to have to drink and rant for a moment.
I refrained from commenting to the customer, because I'm sure it is typically for political reasons that people like this book and, whatever, some people swing left, some people swing right, some people suckle the golden calf of capitalism and some love thy socialist ways and who am I to judge.
I'm not a politician and you should all thank me for that. I'd like to push politics aside but, frankly, I think it is solely for political reasons that this book managed to stay relevant and in print. However, I suppose you are all here to hear about the politics of this book and I would be boring you with talks of wooden character and language and overall juvenile writing abilities, so I'll save those for after.
I don't want to argue politics, especially not while drinking, so lets take a moment to look at the plot and oh what a plot it is and see how the politics hold up within. Besides, there isn't much to analyze in this one as the writing barely goes beneath the surface. Once upon a time there were some factory owners. These factory owners loved to preach about the pride in working for their company, and hey, maybe conditions are piss-poor and maybe you are barely scraping by to feed your growing family, but at least you can take pride in working for a great company and that should satisfy you and give you meaning some cool existentialist thought could have been added into the book for that, but Rand misunderstood Kant so I doubt she'd be able to add anything beyond surface detail and pop-philosophy.
Then one day the great evil government the government is such a caricature and it's almost a surprise she didn't have them all wearing black hooded cloaks. And really, who voted for those guys?
Suddenly, having pride in what they did seemed terrible. Instead of taking pride in their company and working hard to sustain the nation they so loved, like they preached to their employees, they bitched about it a bunch and then stopped working.
Nice guys, right? They set up a utopia Ayn Rand of all people should know utopia is a word for 'fake' society where competing is so cool and they say stuff like 'man, I hope someone competes with me and nearly puts me out of business', which isn't all that different from what was going on in the society they bitched out on in the most comically shameful manner possible. Meanwhile it is made to seem like cheating on your wife is way cool and general chaos ensues.
So it goes for awhile, but then, THEN, after a overlong speech that takes all the points any reader with half a mind already put together for themselves and regurgitates it out without the metaphors and into a boring speech that repeats itself many times about the points already mentioned in the novel and then makes sure you know the stuff already mentioned in the novel through a long speech, all hell breaks loose and the main characters bust into town like the goddamn A-Team.
Guns blaze, Dagny murders a few dudes and the one character who was actually worth reading about blows up the super-weapon because that guy was awesome. Screw the rest of the characters, I want to read more about that guy.
He was ' about it ', like people who are apparently ' about it ' say while slugging their Mountain Dews and playing video games. All integrity of the novel was lost with the hysterically overblown rescue scene. I mean, they even got out on 'choppers' at the end. It was the worst action movie I've ever seen, and I'm not even going to go into the scene where apparently it is okay to shoot your employees in the head for going on strike. And that, my friends, is Atlas Shrugged.
People seem to really like the politics, which are 'if things aren't going your way say 'fuck my beliefs, I quit, and fuck america too. Because if there is one thing Ayn Rand can't stand, it's taking pride in your work. The next generation of bubbly Save time, money, and ultimately help save the planet by forgoing your La Croix.
That movie grossed even less than the first one, which explains why Part III has an even less notable cast and was made on a budget so low the production had to license its shots of trains, cities, and landscapes from elsewhere. Much of this footage is quite old, and sourced from bleary standard-definition tapes. This is a world where a copper wire shortage robs America of electricity, and where the whole country is fed by wheat produced in Minnesota.
Quick Quizzes Test your knowledge of Atlas Shrugged with quizzes about every section, major characters, themes, symbols, and more. Mini Essays Suggested Essay Topics. Further Study Go further in your study of Atlas Shrugged with background information, movie adaptations, and links to the best resources around the web. Purchase Go to BN.
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