/lit/ - Literature

>>18447844
I seriously doubt that you even came close to finishing it
It is so very cringe inducing, "moralizing" bad prose, even much worse than the fountainhead

>>18447844
>this is not as bad as people say it is
The intellectual elite who are "on strike" deliberately engineer a financial crash by misleading the government and businessmen into accepting bad loans and investing in doomed projects. They cause a great depression, on purpose, to punish the country for taxing their wealth.

The "hero" of the story, Hank Rearden, kicks his brother and his mother out of his house because they tell him they believe in income taxes. He also threatens to beat his wife to death because she says something mean about the woman he's cheating on her with.

One of the geniuses who is "on strike" says that he knows how to cure strokes in the brain, but that he will never allow anyone in America to benefit from this life-saving technique until they abolish income taxes.

At one point, a train crashes and explodes, killing everyone inside. Ayn Rand goes through a list of every single person riding on the train and explains that, because they support income tax and the minimum wage, they all deserve to die. When the heroine of the novel, Dagny, learns about the tragedy, she screams--because the explosion caused her favorite tunnel to collapse.

At the end of the novel, when society is collapsing and Ayn Rand's gospel is spreading throughout America, Ayn Rand proudly tell us that a mother was punched in the face, giving her a fractured jaw, because someone saw her telling her son to share his toys with other children.

>>18447963
i cant tell if this is real or satire

>>18447963
>He also threatens to beat his wife to death because she says something mean about the woman he's cheating on her with
probably deserved it

>>18447963
Is the book really this based?

>>18447963
>the moral fibre of the characters determines the quality of fiction

>>18447963
>just let me steal from you, bro

>>18447844
Yes it is. You just have no taste.

>>18447963
Holy mother of cringe.

>>18449086
The moral fiber of characters who are meant to define the author's concept of flawless human beings does determine the quality of a tract which is meant to sell you on adopting the author's philosophy, yes.

>>18448712
Yes.

Rand had no children in her books. There's no place for them in her "utopia". She hated them irl and never had one. Don't allow your mind to be polluted by selfishness; it is not a virtue.

>>18447963
Your account is a bit off. Take the train scene, the train has a terrible accident which causes the tunnel to collapse, killing everyone inside. Up to this point Rand has set up numerous plot points about lacking diesel so they need to use coal, but the fumes from the coal will build up in the tunnel and so on. When Rand explains that every person believes in income tax, or the right to a job and so on, she shows how they, indirectly, through their votes, have orchestrated their own downfall

Based as fuck

You’re right, it’s far worse

>>18447844
Beyond halfway through the book, I believe it offers an interesting perspective for one's interpersonal life (the parasitic antagonists depicted in the book are quite caricatural but that kind of people who demand everything without bringing anything good in return do actually exist and are to be avoided); however her socio-political stance is very simplistic and naive and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Also Hank Rearden is the most autistic character I have ever read.

>>18447963
>He also threatens to beat his wife to death because she says something mean about the woman he's cheating on her with.

Genuinely the worst book i've ever read

The book was the most based thing I ever read
>you don't owe anyone shit
is the basic philosophy of it and I needed to hear it.

>>18447963
>At one point, a train crashes and explodes, killing everyone inside. Ayn Rand goes through a list of every single person riding on the train and explains that, because they support income tax and the minimum wage, they all deserve to die. When the heroine of the novel, Dagny, learns about the tragedy, she screams--because the explosion caused her favorite tunnel to collapse.
>
>At the end of the novel, when society is collapsing and Ayn Rand's gospel is spreading throughout America, Ayn Rand proudly tell us that a mother was punched in the face, giving her a fractured jaw, because someone saw her telling her son to share his toys with other children

These things did not happen in the book.

>>18452295
Thats an oversimplification of Ayn's oversimplification.

Thats all :3

>>18452319
I can accept that

It's worse

>>18447963
Holy shit, this book sounds unbelievably based. I may just read it now thanks to this post.

>>18447963
>The "hero" of the story, Hank Rearden, kicks his brother and his mother out of his house because they tell him they believe in income taxes. He also threatens to beat his wife to death because she says something mean about the woman he's cheating on her with.

>>18449280
From the other anons summary it sounded like the book is critizising america and its mentality, making the characters overyl flawed

>>18447963
this actually sounds pretty good

>>18447844

Thinking that Ayn Rand is good is embarrassing

>>18447844
Rand is just discount Nietzche

honestly the first half of the book or so was really enjoyable. The mood is set well even from page 1 with the clock tower and ominous weather. The characters were pretty well fleshed out with a lot of backstory so they were easy to support and root for even if you didn't agree with their personal sentiments. There was a spooky element throughout the first half of the book (especially when characters start disappearing out of the blue and no one knows what happens to them) kind of like a "something's going on here but we don't know what" feeling that gives the sense of a race against time sort of conflict where they need to find out what's happening before it's too late. I thought this was really well done.

Unfortunately the book starts nosediving right around when you find out what's "really" going on with all the disappearances. It's the kind of thing where you're like "are you fucking serious ayn rand"; just an extremely ridiculous, stupid part of the story where you get more upset with each page because as you read on it becomes more and more clear that this is really the direction ayn rand is going with the novel, culminating in the infamous 50+ page John Galt speech that basically sums up how awful this piece of shit book is. It's literally something that a 10 year old kid who's getting bullied in school would fantasize about, complete with an overt self-insert and eye-rolling "haha I told you so should have listened to me" level of resolution.

Do yourself a favor; read up to the point right after Wyatt (the oil guy) disappears and Taggart is staring at a lone oil well that is still flaming at night. Then put the book down and make up your own ending to the story because it can't be worse than the direction Rand ended up taking it

>>18447844
Exactly, OP is right, it's even worse

>>18455010
oh man you are smart

>>18453018
>Holy shit, this book sounds unbelievably based. I may just read it now thanks to this post.

Seriously, I stopped reading darn quick as not to spoil more than necessary but what I did see was tremendously based and I'm shoving these books on my queue immediately.

>>18452295
Here is the list of "moochers" aboard the train that crashes

>>18452295
Here is Dagny screaming when she finds out that her favorite tunnel was among the victims

>>18452295
Here is the woman whose jaw is fractured because she told her son to share his toys

>>18447844
Yeah, people who badmouth her are seething soys who end up acting like the very villains in her novels. It's prophetic.

>>18447844
and neither is it as good as people say it is.

>>18447963
sounds rather based if you ask me

>>18447844
The philosophy that Rand desperately tries to draw out can only work inside the realms of her fictional world that she has designed so that her philosophy works like some mystical way of life.

>>18455513
>who end up acting like the very villains in her novels.
That describes literally everyone. Her "villains" include anyone who is donates to charity and anyone who tries to be nice to another person.

>>18447844
“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."

>>18455513
being an objectivist is like being in a cult

>>18455555
It sure is, especially because she still believed in what is today called a Minarchist State, that magically defends property, but you don't have to be an Objectivist to appreciate her books. Each book written by Ayn Rand reflects a slightly different phase of her life and its respective philosophical maturation.

>>18455546
Her characters practice charity, noticeably in Atlas Shrugged. The way Dagny Taggart finds out about who is John Galt is by helping a penniless man who ends up telling his story to her. What Rand means by 'altruism' in this criticism is the doctrine of Self-Sacrifice.

>>18448712
protip: every time you use the word based all the adults in the room laugh at you

>>18455546
Ironically behind each altruistic motive lies a selfishness that her smug face would find appealing.

>>18447844
It’s okay porn.
It is poor philosophy.

>>18447963
>At one point, a train crashes and explodes, killing everyone inside. Ayn Rand goes through a list of every single person riding on the train and explains that, because they support income tax and the minimum wage, they all deserve to die. When the heroine of the novel, Dagny, learns about the tragedy, she screams--because the explosion caused her favorite tunnel to collapse.
>At the end of the novel, when society is collapsing and Ayn Rand's gospel is spreading throughout America, Ayn Rand proudly tell us that a mother was punched in the face, giving her a fractured jaw, because someone saw her telling her son to share his toys with other children.

>>18455606
He technically bought the information from the man, it wasn't charity.

>>18455654
go back

>>18455552
Says noted philosopher John Rogers, writer of the movie 'Transformers'

>>18455606
>The way Dagny Taggart finds out about who is John Galt is by helping a penniless man
Rand is explicitly against giving money to homeless people. From The Fountainhead:
>One day a reporter felt sorry for him and, walking down the stairs, threw a nickel into Wynand's lap, saying: "Go buy yourself a bowl of stew, kid." Wynand had a dime left in his pocket. He took the dime and threw it at the reporter, saying: "Go buy yourself a screw." The man swore and went on down. The nickel and the dime remained lying on the steps. Wynand would not touch them.

>>18455654
based...

oh no!

>>18447963
Based as FUCK