"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."
I love that quote.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how the film can maneuver around the endless diatribes and dialogue contained in the novel, but hey... with CGI, anything is possible.
I probably won't be viewing this one. After all, it is my understanding that it involves rich people going on strike, and the Wisconsin governor has taught me that strikes are bad.
Assuming you've read it in its entirety (all 1168 pages), I can see how you might think that the book Atlas Shrugged is bad. I've read it, and although there are some interesting ideas in it, I certainly don't buy everything that Ayn Rand was selling.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I said back about Atlas Shrugged on July 22, 2009, over at Panhandle Truth Squad:
"In the novel, Rand differentiates between people like Hank Reardon, a workaholic who develops and produces a product (Reardon Metal) that benefits all of society; and Orren Boyle, another steel magnate who makes his fortune not by producing a superior product, but through his connections with top government officials (the "aristocracy of pull" I mentioned earlier). Boyle, and others of his ilk, are the "looters" that expropriate the earnings of producers like Reardon - not unlike today's well-connected class at Goldman Sachs, AIG etc."
"Please bear in mind that Atlas Shrugged hasn't turned me into a dyed in the wool Objectivist, but it's a good summer read (if you can make it through all 1168 pages!) and says a lot about the mess in which we find ourselves in 2009, some 52 years after it was first published."
So what do you say, Ted? Agree? Disagree?
That being said, how can you say the movie is bad, when it won't be released until April 15h? I can't believe you would pass judgment on a movie based solely on a 2 minute and 25 second preview.
P.S. You realize, of course, that Ayn Rand was an atheist.
Come on, CT. Am I really supposed to like someone just because they're an atheist? Do you like everyone that calls themselves christian?
ReplyDeleteAs for judging a movie I haven't seen, don't we all do that? Don't you make a judgement by watching advertisements or short previews about whether a movie will be good enough to pay money to see it?
Curious Texan: I know the comment was directed at Ted and not me, but I think you hit on an interesting point...
ReplyDeleteIt is easy for folks on the Left to slap at Ayn Rand. Her philosophy - which was fairly understandable in light of where she came from - has endured for years, gaining influence in important quarters along the way.
In addition, the book should probably be considered on its own literary merit and not my pre-existing biases against Rand and the Objectivists.
Oh, and it is not (entirely) her fault that the internet Objectivist crowd is so crazy.
That being said, the one GOOD thing about her fiction is that I found it (marginally) more enjoyable than her non-fiction. Her political vision is a pure utopian pipe dream that makes communism look downright practical in comparison.
I'm sure you could come up with examples of me pre-judging, but I generally try not to judge anything I haven't experienced first hand.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Atlas Shrugged is that many people - on the Right as well as the Left - have developed strong opinions about the book without ever having read it. KatyDid is on the right track when she states that it's about people going on strike, but it's not the rich, it's the producers.
Rand draws the line not between rich and poor, but between the producers the one hand, and the moochers and looters on the other. As you can see from my 2009 comment, rich people can either be producers (like Hank Reardon) or looters (like Orren Boyle). I'd think the Left would appreciate the distinction that some of the rich use their wealth to produce things that benefit society (e.g. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs), while others merely loot for their own self interest (e.g. Bernie Madoff, Kenneth Lay).
One area where I part ways with Ayn Rand is her total lack of sympathy for anyone in need. She doesn't seem to make any distinction between the "moochers" (those who play the system for all it's worth) and those who simply cannot fend for themselves (as opposed to those who will not).
Authors like Rand are hard, but not impossible, to transfer to the silver screen. I recently saw the 1949 movie version of Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. Although I've never read the book, I recognized many of her ideas from Atlas Shrugged. I thought the film did justice to Rand's philosophy without getting bogged down.
One can only hope that Atlas Shrugged will be as successful.
P.S. I threw that in at the end of my last comment (about Rand being an atheist) on the off chance that you didn't know. So many of your posts seem so self-congratulatory about how intellectually superior you atheists are to us mere mortals; I just wanted to be sure you acknowledged that you may sometimes disagree with other atheists.
"Her political vision is a pure utopian pipe dream that makes communism look downright practical in comparison."
ReplyDeleteAgreed. From New Harmony, Indiana to the hippy communes of my generation, withdrawing from society to create a utopia has never worked.
That being said, like Marx before her, Rand made some interesting observations about the human condition. (Marx's focus on the means of production as the lynchpin of economics was an astute insight. I wonder what he'd make of the Information Age, where the means of production can be held in the palm of ones hand.)
But describing the problem is one thing; prescribing a viable solution is quite another.
It reminds of the old joke the Poles used to tell during the Communist era: Under capitalism, man exploits man; under communism, it's just the opposite!
made me laugh
ReplyDelete