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/lit/ - Literature

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4638125 No.4638125[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

In addition to being a terrible writer in general, does Rand also have the absolute worst character names in history?

Seriously
>Dagny Taggart
>Gail Wynand
>Ellsworth Toohey
>Balph Eubank
>Cuffy Meigs

This is just going by the Wiki list for Atlas Shurgged and Fountainhead.

>> No.4638149

These names sound like she something that would come out if i slapped my dick on the keyboard

>> No.4638153

No joke I used to think Dagny Taggart was the name of a character from Song of Ice and Fire

>> No.4638156

What the fuck

>> No.4638160

Fantasy writers have the worst character names. No fucking name should have an apostrophe in it unless you come from the ghetto.

>> No.4638164

>>4638160
Or you're uh Dutch

>> No.4638168

Howard Roark is a pretty cool name.

>> No.4638175

Seems like she took names of people she knew and changed one letter.

>> No.4638230

>>4638125

what the fuck kind of name is Balph

>> No.4638250

>>4638230
A pretty decently damned fine one.

>> No.4638254

Indeed she was a horrible writer and philosopher, however there is one thing in Atlas Shrugged which I think is amazing.
"They kept their secret from the knowledge of others, not as a shameful guilt, but as a thing that was immaculately theirs, beyond anyone's right of debate or appraisal. She knew the general doctrine on sex, held by people in one form or another, the doctrine that sex was an ugly weakness of man's lower nature, to be condoned regretfully. She experienced an emotion of chastity that made her shrink not from the desires of her body, but from any contact with the minds who held this doctrine."
I guess it's true even a broken clock is right twice a day.

>> No.4638258

>>4638254
Do you mean right twice a day or capable of writing an interesting paragraph

>> No.4638262

>>4638258
I used one as a metaphor for the other.

>> No.4638282

Dagny is a pretty cool name. But Balph? Wynard? top lel

>> No.4638291

>>4638282
I know I've read somewhere that she chose feminine or androgynous names for the weak/immoral/irrational characters and masculine names for the good ones. Howard Roark (hard and roar) and Dominique Francon in contrast with Gail Wynand, Ellsworth Toohey etc.

I've only read The Fountainhead so I wouldn't know about Atlas Shrugged.

>> No.4638464

>>4638125
>"terrible writer"
>has to get names of characters from wiki
you even read her shit you faggot

>> No.4638567

>>4638464
The first rule of Ayn Rand criticism is you do not read Ayn Rand.

>> No.4638600

>>4638464
>having actually read ayn rand

>> No.4638603

I found Atlas Shrugged to be enjoyable, even though I wasn't wowed or won over by the philosophy. I think that people who say it's shit are people who take politics and philosophy too seriously. People in general take abstract and symbolic things too seriously. If people would stop caring about those things so much, they might at the very least enjoy Atlas Shrugged.

But any book with any hint of politics in it will get slammed by at least one person. It's kind of disappointing engaging forums like this because most discussion is just endless posturing between random people. It's an especially ridiculous state of affairs on 4chan, since most people here are anonymous. Who do these politically minded people think they are posturing for, when they, anonymous posters, challenge Rand or Tolkien or Vonnegut on the politics of their books? It's just such a stupid and pointless thing. I do not understand what the cause is, but I strongly suspect it is stupidity.

>> No.4638604

>>4638567
I tried to read Atlas Shrugged. I honestly couldn't finish it. It. Dragged. On. And it was horrible.

>> No.4638608

>>4638125
Her books of of the few I would of been happy never reading.

>> No.4638622

>>4638604
The trick is to skip the discursive sermons, and just follow the narrative. Cuts out like 240 pages. If her editor had any balls he would have insisted. Her great flaw is really cowardice. She was afraid the fiction wouldn't hold up by itself. She just had to stuff all those under grad essays in there. Rearden and Eddie Willers, the scheming K street crowd, that's all compelling stuff. That's why we're still talking about it.

>> No.4638631

>>4638603
I thought that it was a philosophical novel. If I don't agree with its philosophies and how it inevitably ties into politics, why would I even consider reading the book?

>> No.4638648

>>4638604
Come on, how could any book drag on worse than the ones penned by Stephen King that go past 300 pages?

>> No.4638666

>>4638125

This is what autistic people think your name sounds like.

Durt Moorey
Sim Jemsen
Jaff Levold

>> No.4638692
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4638692

>>4638125
>>4638149


>In addition to being a terrible writer in general

OP confirmed for faggot and pleb.

>Gail Wynand

It's a play off Gale and Wind considering the man was a news paper publisher and his opinion and life just went where the wing blows.

>Howard Roark

Roark like a rock. Steady, unmoving, indestructible.

There is rationale like that for most of the names. You'd know this if it you took five seconds to look it up rather than

>"HERP DERP IM AN ASSUMPTION OF THINGS!"

>> No.4638701

>>4638692
Fuck, you're awful

>> No.4638703

>>4638603
It's interesting that you dislike political‐minded readers but you don't mind a political book. I dislike both.

>> No.4638704

>>4638603
Rand's first objective is politics. To read her non-politically, is like reading Animal Farm non-politically.

>> No.4638894

>>4638704
I did enjoy Animal Farm non-politically.

I enjoyed it as a story, the analogy was clever and enhanced the story, but I looked at it from an entertainment standpoint, not as an argument about communism.

Same with Atlas Shrugged. There are legitimate criticisms about Atlas being overstuffed and repetitive, which I agree with, but on the whole I found it entertaining, and while I acknowledge it's politics, I see it as part of the story, not as an essay that could persuade me in some way.

I don't see any point in looking at stories from anything but an entertainment standpoint. If I was looking for a serious presentation of an idea, I would read non-fiction. Fiction is an inferior way of explaining serious ideas, so there is no reason to resort to it. I like the way political ideas can enhance stories. I don't consider them valid sources of enlightenment, however. Given my views, it makes no sense for me to care whether the ideas presented by the author match up with my own world view. And lets be serious, it doesn't matter one fucking bit what I or anyone else here thinks about the free market, or communism, or existentialism, or whatever. It's really narcissistic of some people to think that it's up to them to champion some ideology by trashing Rand (or any other novelist).

I think that people are overly critical of entertainment products in general. Bad enough as the posturing gets on /lit/, it's much worse with video games and movies. Peoples values are all screwed up.

>> No.4639015

>>4638604
>>4638600
>>4638282
>>4638125
Being critical of a work you have not read or skipped huge swathes of. That sounds rational right? M sure you think your opinion on stuff you obviously do not know is valid. Ayn is a great writer and the names worked well for the characters they were used for.

>> No.4639187
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4639187

>>4639015
Yeah, cause reading Ayn Rand is loads more rational.

>> No.4639196

Just dropping in as someone who has never read Ayn Rand and finds her audience disconcerting and alienating to the point that they've actively avoided her; not to mention the fact that George Saunders totally paid lip service to her and dissed her hard in the same interview and that, as damaged and flawed a writer as Saunders is, seems like letters writ clear on the warning sign.

I think her character names are pretty cool. I bet you think Pynchon and Gaddis have bad character names too.

>> No.4639199

If you listen to conservatives, you'll hear that the government is made up of amoral idiots trying to rob them.

If you listen to poor people, you'll hear that the rich are amoral idiots trying to rob them.

The truth is in the middle. Everyone is shit.

>> No.4639211

>>4638604
There's an 80 page speech at the end, and that's where I gave up. I was so close, but I just couldn't do it.

>> No.4639284

>>4639015
The fact that so many people who attempt to read the book are so put off by it's dull repetitiveness they cannot bring themselves to finish it says quite a bit. Great on you for liking her, but as quick visit to any literature website will reveal most people find her insufferable, and they don't have to trudge through the entirety of her bibliography to reach that conclusion. If I had published a book that was just the word fuck repeated over and over for 1,000 pages, I couldn't in earnest tell people they aren't allowed to have an opinion on it until they had carefully looked over every single instance of the word.

>> No.4639291

>>4638894
It's true that is all they are is entertainment, but there's simple entertainment and then there's complex entertainment. Complex entertainment requires reader interaction in order to fully savor.

>> No.4639316

>>4638692
>pleb
>he thinks Rand is patrician

Get a load of this faggot

>> No.4639482

>>4639015
Giving opinions on things you genuinly do not know is crazy.
>>4639187
Taking your opinions from literary web sites instead of forming your own? Your example of using fuck over and over is invalid. She does not use the same word over and over. Ideas get repeated and explored from other angles or characters, not as dumb as pages of the same word.

>> No.4639730

>>4639284
literary websites are full of retards

for every person who dislikes Atlas, there is a person who likes Atlas, but their views mean nothing because most of them are retards

opinions don't have inherent value ... the value depends on how they are expressed. the only valuable literary opinions I've come across I've found in books, not on the internet. i repeat (or, maybe I'm saying this for the first time, w/e): the internet is full of retards andd no one is not-lazy enough and not-stupid enough to write anything really meaningful. at best you find smarmy fedora posts ... at worst you find this type of post, which I have not bothered to put any effort into, and which I have purposefully written in a bad way, for ironynn

internet is shit ... peoples opinions are shit ... only intelligent stuff is found in books and maybe lectures by good speakers (I could list a few but I don't feel like it)

Ayn Rand is GOd tier compared to most writers ... of course most writers are really bad

i would not say her stuff is as good as some Russian guys stuff, but its the tops when it comes to depicting socialist breakdown of American/world economy, pseudo rape, cool names (Dagny Taggart is the best female name I can think of, so good!)

>> No.4639766

>>4638604
When I realized the whole plot was just a shitty excuse for the speechs and monologues I simply gave up and read The Virtue of Selfishness instead.

>> No.4639767

i nominate pynchon and james thurber

>> No.4639769

ugh shakespeare

what ever happened to good ol american names

>> No.4639783

>>4639767
>pynchon
Nothing better than stumbling over Inverarity every fucking time I come across the name in Lot 49

>> No.4639788

>>4638125
She picked un-cultural names to avoid cultural bias (you can associate english names with protestantism, etc)

not that a faggot like you would understand that there is culture in literally everything we say

>> No.4640072

>open up /lit/
>people seriously defending rand
>spinning_corpses.jpg

>> No.4640484

>>4638125
>dem pr0n names
No, just no.

>>4638254
>I guess it's true even a broken clock is right twice a day.
:D

>> No.4640553

>>4639788
>t there is culture in literally everything we say
le tautology face

>> No.4640603

>>4640553
>yfw you realize that 2/3rds of sociology is restating tautologies in technical terms so that they sound new and subversive

>> No.4640606

>>4639788

>there is culture in literally everything we say

big call

>> No.4640609

>someone named Balph

Jesus fuck, really?

>> No.4642459

>>4638160

Or Irish, like O'Brien.

>> No.4642866

FWIW, I've only read the Fountainhead and Anthem.

I was 17 when I read Fountainhead and although it dragged like hell I was mesmerized by the closing speech. For a while I was a believer (to a rational extent). Then my philosophical... tastes (if that's the word) changed gradually, and I found her philosophy didn't really mesh with mine. I haven't picked up Atlas Shrugged because from what I've seen it's more of the same, except longer and more obnoxiously sermonizing. I downloaded Anthem for my Kindle a while ago, and found it tolerable.

Maybe my experience is typical of a Rand reader. Maybe it isn't. I'm just pointing out that names like Balph Eubank or Wesley Mouch, as those of literary characters, are bound to raise a few eyebrows.

>> No.4643041

>>4638291
I've never seen a woman hate her vagina more than Ayn Rand. She was either trans or Freud's dreams come true.

>> No.4643054

>>4638622
I'm glad that, after Atlas Shrugged, she decided to stick with non-fiction, which always seemed more up her alley.

>> No.4643129

>tfw I genuinely like Atlas Shrugged
Sure it gets a little preachy sometimes and drags on too long, but I can appreciate her philosophy and the mystery she creates. There were countless times throughout reading it where I was flipping through pages fast as possible trying to figure out "who dun it" and generally there was always some kind of mystery or conflict that kept me reading.
I don't necessarily prescribe to everything she preaches in the book, some of it's pretty farfetched and idealistic, but I can appreciate it as a philosophy. Just because you disagree with Objectivism doesn't mean you should immediately discredit it as a school of thought, to me thats just a different shade of zealotry.
I wouldn't call it a masterpiece or anything too crazy, but It's a pretty good read for the most part.

All that being said I think there are a lot of people that blatantly misunderstand the concepts of the book. Some of the conversations I've held with people about the book are really mindnumbing. Someone tried to give me a pro-socialism interpretation of the book before.

>> No.4643137
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4643137

>Tyrone Slothrop
>Roger Mexico
>Pirate Prentice
>Lazslo Jamf