Atlas Shrugged

I tried to read this book like four times. I almost finished it (77 page masturbatory speech totally killed it). At the time, I wanted to like it, but came to realize how poorly written and how flimsy its ideology and characters truly are.

If I could give this book a zero I would. I really did not resonate with a single one of the characters, they’re all annoyingly one dimensional and selfish.

I’ve always said that individualism is the death of community and this whole book is just dense and amoral pseudo philosophizing pretending to be some kind of great magnum opus of ayn rands.

I was seething through the whole book.

I'll include this feat in my resume: Managed to read through the entire 1168-page saga on the great struggle between robots and scarecrows. I sincerely hope to never again see any of the following words and phrases: "cold, impersonate voice," "impractical," "moral purpose," "material greed" or "no consent required." Jesus Harold Christ on rubber crutches, that was tedious. Mind, there is one aspect that brought unbridled joy to my heart - the fact that the only place where Ayn Rand's ideals seemed to work was [SPOILER ALERT!] a nice, classy, fictional blend of the kingdom of heaven and a communist utopia somewhere in Colorado.

Have you ever had one of those books you just couldn’t put down and when it’s over you can’t stop thinking about it? You were sucked in and when you finish now you think, “what do I do now?” This is one of those books! It came highly recommended and has been sitting on my shelf for over a year because “who has time to read a 1100+ page book?” During the Covid19 pandemic, Amazon opened some of their audibles and this was one of them. 63 hours (I finished in 7 days 😳) and I had the time. It was engrossing, intriguing and I had to chuckle in a sad way that a book written in the 1950s is unfolding in our society and will come to fruition if the “thinkers stop thinking.” “It is your mind they want you to sacrifice”. It is a MUST read or grab the Amazon Audible for free. You will not regret it!

“Who is John Galt?” Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, bei irgendeinem Buch schon einmal so lange gezögert zu haben, ob ich es tatsächlich lesen will oder nicht. Nicht nur aufgrund seiner 1000+ Seiten, sondern auch, weil die Autorin mir als Philosophin des Turbokapitalismus und gefeierte Heldin der Tea Party nun nicht unbedingt auf Anhieb mega symphatisch war. Ein Kollege hatte mir das Buch schon vor bestimmt 1,5 – 2 Jahren geliehen und immer wieder gefragt, ob ich es nicht mittlerweile gelesen habe. Hatte ich nicht, wollte ich auch nicht, aber dann las ich ein paar Rezensionen von Leuten, deren Meinung ich durchaus schätze und die durchaus positiv waren. Dadurch wurde meine Neugier dann doch entsprechend geweckt und über Weihnachten habe ich mich in diese Bibel des Eigeninteresses und des Egoismus hineinversenkt und ich muss sagen, ich war überrascht, wie gerne ich es doch gelesen habe. Ayn Rand wurde 1905 in St. Petersburg in Russland geboren. Ihre Eltern waren mittelständische Apotheker, die im Zuge der Oktoberrevolution enteignet wurden. Das sollte ihr Weltbild grundlegend prägen. Sie siedelte mit ihren Eltern in die Krim um, um den Unruhen in der Stadt zu entgehen und studierte an der dortigen High School Amerikanische Geschichte. Ihre Liebe zum Westen wurde durch Filme und Lektüre, wie die Romane des von ihr sehr verehrten Victor Hugo, noch gestärkt. Die komplette Rezension findet ihr hier: http://bingereader.org/2016/01/07/atl...

Rand's more intense novel explaining and outlining Objctivism in a way that you do eventualloy feel it is so far down your throat that you have to discuss it with your friends until they just drown you out. I do love it. My first Rand book that opened my eyes to what the world could and SHOULD be but will probably never will be.

I picked this up at an airport one day a few years ago. My flight had been delayed several hours, and with nothing to do, I headed to the terminal bookstore. I'd never heard of Ayn Rand, had no idea what Objectivism was, and didn't really care. The question, "Who is John Galt?" was enough. The book was hard to put down once I started reading it, and the idea was absolutely brilliant. Atlas - he holds the entire world upon his shoulders. What happens if, one day, he shrugs?

I think society doesn't give this book a chance for a multitude of reasons. One being the length, is it daunting? Of course. Is John Galt's radio speech 60+ pages too long? Yes. But the length is worth the concept of the book. Not to mention, when reading this book, you need to have an open mind. I mean a blank mind, take everything only in the way Ayn writes it. Do I agree with all of Ayn's extreme ideas, no. Rand is from Russia, imagine living in a communist country and moving to a capitalist. I understand where she is coming from. To be frank, the purpose of this book is to tell the world that the mind is something to be used. Value for Value.

This was an intriguing listen. I think the entire book is a rallying cry to oppose infective management across all organizations, in particular withing those in government shaping the policies that impact everyone else. The characters in the book are interesting and complex, however, there is limited variety. The bulk of the characters were either scientific, calculating, and highly productive industrialists OR they were ineffective politicians, moochers and untalented. The industrialists in power that associated with government officials (all untalented and trying to mooch on from the people) were weak and wanted special favors granted by government. There was no room for someone who was concerned with giving talented folks access to opportunity to rise up in the world or rather, there was an assumption that such an individual was unnecessary since the bright would always find a way to move on up only if government got out of the way of the deserving industrialists. One particular example stood out to me as faulty. A character in the book came up with the formula to create a steel far more powerful, stronger and lighter than anything in existence. In the author's mind any profit that could possibly be generated by this still belonged to the man, except for whatever working wages he'd pay to his staff. His idea, apparently, owned nothing to the teachers he had access to, the institutions that made it possible for him to understand the chemical fundamentals of the metal, or chemists before him. Other than unanswered questions such as that one, this story was an intriguing read and an ode to men and women that work hard to improve their thinking and contribute to society. The author explains through a story the concepts of capitalism that are meant to reward the productive.

Formative when I was younger, embarrassing now to have liked so much.

Rand is living in a fantasy world.