There are very few books that have left me with a “This is the face of evil” impression. I tried to give it a fair shake, but this one did, alongside the fact that it devolves into stimulant-addled ranting.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not inherently opposed to stimulant-addled ranting - I like On the Road, for instance - but it just left an awful taste in my mouth.
On the other hand, I enjoyed the Fountainhead, but I was young, usually stoned, and took away an ‘integrity of artistic vision’ interpretation that resonated. I do not know if this would survive a re-read.
I had the same experience with the Fountainhead. I read it when I was young going to an art school and saw the commitment to Roark’s artistic vision as heroic, despite hating brutalism and his general architecture style as described in the book haha. It was way too long but at the time I was ok with it enough to finish it. Then I found out more about the author…
I thought it was kind of interesting until the 50 page long rant that John Galt has where he explains why greed and selfishness is good, but all his arguments only work within the bubble of the made up, fantasy society that Rand created. I don’t know how anyone could read that and come away thinking “Boy, this sure is relative to modern society. I better base my whole ideology off of it!”
Atlas Shrugged.
There are very few books that have left me with a “This is the face of evil” impression. I tried to give it a fair shake, but this one did, alongside the fact that it devolves into stimulant-addled ranting.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not inherently opposed to stimulant-addled ranting - I like On the Road, for instance - but it just left an awful taste in my mouth.
On the other hand, I enjoyed the Fountainhead, but I was young, usually stoned, and took away an ‘integrity of artistic vision’ interpretation that resonated. I do not know if this would survive a re-read.
I had the same experience with the Fountainhead. I read it when I was young going to an art school and saw the commitment to Roark’s artistic vision as heroic, despite hating brutalism and his general architecture style as described in the book haha. It was way too long but at the time I was ok with it enough to finish it. Then I found out more about the author…
I thought it was kind of interesting until the 50 page long rant that John Galt has where he explains why greed and selfishness is good, but all his arguments only work within the bubble of the made up, fantasy society that Rand created. I don’t know how anyone could read that and come away thinking “Boy, this sure is relative to modern society. I better base my whole ideology off of it!”
For anyone that didn’t know, Ayn Rand was a welfare queen 💅