“The worst reading hours of my life... Waste of precious time. She had better be a romantic novelist. She covered only a narrow aspect of society and in a shallow manner. She sounded like a deprived, vengeful, hurt little girl... I just had to finish reading the book for the principle of finishing what I started reading.”
“preposterous... I needed heracles to rescue me from this”
“Is this the book that has a great dialogue on the true value of money?”
“Officer Barbrady: Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read. It seemed exciting and magical, but then I read this Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read every last word, and because of this shit, I am never reading again.”
“He was just being nonchalant.”
“What Rand wrote about—which once seemed unlikely to actually happen—is in fact happening. There was even a story recently about a bank CEO who had not wanted any bailout money but when his bank was forced to accept it, and it turned out that there were too many strings attached, he resigned—shades of John Galt?As to Victor P’s observation that this book is about corporations controlling the government, I think that Rand raises the question of which is controlling which. At some points it seems ambiguous, but near the end of the novel the government takes over. Also, let us not forget that Rand indicts Big Labor along with Big Government and Big Business. The Jimmy Hoffa-like labor leaders in this novel wait until the government takes over business and then Big Labor takes over the government. Today, Big Labor seems like such a junior partner to Big Government and Big Biz that this doesn’t seem so likely, but events might force us to learn whether or not Rand was right about this, too.The comparison and contrast between Rand’s President Thompson and our President Obama is intriguing. Thompson is transparently an empty suit with zero charisma; Obama’s charisma covers the fact that he might be more of an empty suit than voters will ever realize. As our economy collapses, Obama might never be blamed even if his actions can be demonstrably shown to have contributed to it.”
“I thought the characters were great...more like extreme, archetypal representations than real people, but I'm ok with that. It was nice to read a novel where people were actually competent.”
“Can any of you actually identify with any of the characters ... good, bad or evil. I couldnt. Frankly speaking, some times I feel she doesnt give as much importance to real people as she gives to inanimate things produced by man just for the comfort of man.”
“Who is John Galt? Ever since I read this book, that line has been cropping up my mind ever since. I love this book. But I think that The Fountainhead was better. What do you think?”
“Isn't it funny how this book is kind of prophetic? Actually it’s not funny it’s scary. Not that I think one man will stop the world, but what the government can do when it interferes too much. Looking at the economy and the "bail out," government says we’ll bail out this bank but not that bank. Britain has partially nationalized its banks and France and Iceland soon to follow. Yikes! ”
