Enjoying the Read - Atlas Shrugged
 

I finally broke down and bought a Kindle this past Christmas. I had always thought they were rather silly things, until a friend let me try hers. I was hooked. Love to down-load a book for a long plane ride. On my trip back from Alaska this week, I down-loaded a book that has been very well recommended here on the Pelican site. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I've never read anything of hers, and other than Pelican recommendations, had never seen even a review.

I read a couple of books a week. Easy fodder, more of an escape than something truly worth reading. Like potato chips, I enjoy them but none are memorable nor even particularly worth sharing. This book is something else entirely. Ayn Rand can write. Really write. Not the hog-wash that passes for literary success now, nor the pathetic drivel churned out by by what seems to be people simply trying to impress other people with their grasp of the thesaurus, but real writing. The kind that takes to a place so graphically painted with the text that you can touch it in your minds eye and full of characters that you grow to know as intimately as you know yourself.

Just wanted to thank you guys for the recommendation!

angela

Atlas Shrugged has a ton of character development.

Yep, you're not going to read a "couple of" Atlas Shrugged's a week, though.

There is one speech (Galt) over 50 pages long...


I also really, really enjoyed Rand's "The Fountainhead". Actually have read it twice. Movie's good, too.

A good short one to read is Anthem.

She is one of the most verbose, least subtle, most heavy-handed, most-in-need-of-a-good-editor writers. That said, it is probably on the "1,000 books you should read on your life" list. Somewhere on the list.

JYL, I agree, I'm about 250 pages into the first book of 800 or so pages. It kind of drags on, and I read it when I'm sitting in airports (on my iPad) waiting for the next flight.

+1

I'm 200 pages in and bored to tears.

Anthem was more enjoyable.

She sure does give her point of view, but really - we could have skipped a few hundred pages somewhere in there.

The reader says "yeah, I got it... Ow! Quit whacking me over the head! I got it..."

Doesn't sound like anything I would want to read...Being shot by Sniper sounds even more enjoyable than reading Rand.

sorry, laneco. you have really stepped in it here. or i did.

The first third of Atlas Shrugged is tedious, parts 2 and three are where it gets good.

+1 Lousy writer. Interesting ideas.

It is the 2nd most read book behind the Bible. For a very good reason.

Nobody gets through the door of the powerhouse unless they can say, and mean the following "I swear by my life and by my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man nor allow another to live for mine."

Oh, I don't mind, I've stepped in far worse things! :D

When I finish the book, I might decide it is too long. Right now, I'm simply reveling in full, rich character development. The idea that the writer must constantly explain the actions of a character is simply tedious. They must do this because their character development is weak. It is a crutch for poor writing. If the character is well developed, the reader does not need the writer to explain the actions. The reader should already understand their actions because the writer has properly taken them inside the head of the character.

Is it too long? A bit early for me to determine that. Right now, through my eyes, saying this book is too long is like saying the Sistine Chapel has too much paint on the ceiling.

Now with THAT hurled gauntlet, I have most definately stepped in it! ;)

angela

What do the downloads run, costwise?

Wow! That sounds insulting for Michaelangelo. You say the writer is weak and has major writing flaws and yet you proclaim it a masterpiece like the Sistine Chapel?

IIRC,

around 3/4 of the way through, you will come to a passage that goes on and on, long after the thickest-skulled of readers has long since gotten the point, indeed has gotten him or herself to the temple of Ayn and is worshiping there regularly, yet the passage will go on and on, pounding the writer's message into the bloody fragments of her reader's cranium, through the quivering brain begging for mercy, driving on and on to the very spine, for after suffering painfully through this passage of pain, the reader is to emerge with not just a new brain, but a new spine! of all things holy and capitalist and Rand-ian, uncompromising and piercing, stiff and free (market), or - or - for the weak and wooly-minded, the tweedy and academic, the liberal and soft, after this passage that goes on and on St. Ayn will leave them deskulled and unspined, like the Pathetic INVERTEBRATES they ARE!!! and are, and are.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305387034.jpg

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I will admit that I skipped many pages of her ramblings and continued when the dialogue picked back up. A condensed version would be perfect.

Her character development for both 'good' and 'bad' sides ultimately fails because the characters have no inner conflict - except for Dagny - I still think that Dagny is one of the best characters of mid century literature.

And if you really read Galt's 80 page speech near the end of the book - congrats - you are made of stern stuff....

jyl :)

I want one of those things.
I'm getting kind of bored scratching my nuts the old fashioned way.

Alot of things are free, some are as cheap as 50 cents. This was the most expensive one I've ever bought at $18. Seems like most of the newer releases are $7-8.

This probably sounds a bit odd, but I think it's better for the environment to buy the book this way. I don't go to a store and pick one out (saves fuel/pollution) and the version that I am reading obviously required much less raw materials and transportation than a paper version.

For this book, it came with a preface that I really hated. In fact, I stopped reading the preface and just skipped ahead to the book itself. I noticed that there was a Cliffs Notes version available as well. Based on the suggestions here and in other threads for this author, I think I'll read Fountainhead next.

Or maybe I'll just pick up a cheap historical romance. Nothing like seduction and torn bodices to get the girl hormones going! :)


angela