Posted on 10/02/2006 6:59:27 PM PDT by Rob Larrikin
Lefties commonly say there is something wrong with Rand’s use of fiction as a vehicle for Objectivist beliefs. In a 1957 review of ‘Atlas Shrugged’, Whittaker Chambers, who had no idea how successful Atlas Shrugged would be, said, “The mischief here is that the author, dodging into fiction, nevertheless counts on your reading it as political reality.” Lefties have been using that same approach ever since. Using fiction is ‘mischief’ and ‘dodging’.
Rand was trying to make an otherwise dull subject interesting, and she also wanted to show what might happen in a world where businessmen really did go on strike. Since that hasn’t happened, it would need to be fiction. Duhh...
Rob Larrikin
Ayn Rand ping
And those steamy scenes in "The Fountainhead" too. Hubba. hubba.
Nice post. I like Whittaker Chambers even better than Rand.
Welcome to FreeRepublic. Thanks for posting. Thanks for the ping FreeKeys.
That was one heavy book. I read 3/4 of it but it seemed to be repeating itself. I also read The Fountainhead like every other weenie who wanted to be an Architect. FLLW never looked so good as in that book. And he was screwing everything that moved in real life.
Mark
Can't believe the book is 40 years old already. Rand was way ahead of her time.
Personally I thought it a very enjoyable novel if far too long and in spots impossibly repetitive. I don't think you can really balance polemic and fiction very well and where she restricted herself to plot, character, and pace Atlas Shrugged stands on its own.
I do take issue with Chambers' statement “The mischief here is that the author, dodging into fiction, nevertheless counts on your reading it as political reality.” The novel works best where it does describe political reality - her ability to portray the characters she describes as "looters and moochers" is so incredibly sharp that I swear I know personally each and every one of them. It may be that their presence wasn't quite so obvious in 1957 as it is today, but you could drop any one of their bleatings seamlessly into today's degenerate political discourse and never guess that it was half a century old.
Her protagonists, however, weren't in my opinion quite so finely drawn. Not a one of them had a single character flaw except a self-doubt that was removed by the workings of the Ubermenschen Galt, d'Anconia, etc. The real world isn't actually much like that as I see it, and because of that we are unlikely to see the series of events she postulated. Atlas, such as he is, is likely to remain in chains. All IMHO and subject to furious debate, of course.
You have that right. Witness is a tougn but important read.
I'm totally in awe of what authors like Rand did without the benefit of a word processor. Vonnegut too, with Sirens of Titan.
At the time he wrote this article, he hadn't been a leftie in a long time.
I spent a summer reading "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." I know what you mean. How those authors churned out those massive works - alone - is fantastic.
I discovered it when I was 15. For about a year, it seemed like the most important thing ever written. But that speech by John Galt at the end. Snooooooooze . . . .
Except promiscuity and arrogance.
"If they won't build it my way, then, well, I'll just blow it up. There's a good idea! After all, they just own the building. I am the artiste."
Her protagonists were sociopaths. But as you say, her portraits of the moochers was so right on, it hurt. But then, they were sociopaths too.
leftists use ficticious claims, photos, and voters all the time...
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