FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Chain

A Publius Essay | 24 January 2009 | Publius

[aynrandfreak]

This is really great that you’re doing this. I missed the initial post. Are you doing this weekly? I haven’t read the book in years, but was planning to pick it up again since it seems very timely right now.

[Publius]

FReeper Book Club

Atlas Shrugged

Part I: Non-Contradiction

Chapter II: The Chain

Ping! The thread has been posted.

Earlier threads:
Our First Freeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged
FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Theme

Our vote on posting frequency has gone as follows:

1. Once a week: 10 votes
2. Twice a week: 6 votes
3. Posting a new thread when the last one has run out of steam: 7 votes

Voting is still open.

[Publius]

Post #3 has all the info you need. I’ve added you to the ping list.

[Radix]

" Lillian’s remark about the bracelet being a chain, the symbol of the family’s bondage to Hank, is rather egregious. Is this just another case of familiarity breeding contempt, or is there something more pernicious at work here?"

I had not before considered that aspect of the bracelet.

I am thinking now that I likely rushed my way through the book last year. I'll make it a point to reread and attempt to stay with the threads.

Thanks!

[TASMANIANRED]

Might want to check your ping list.

I didn't get a notice and had to search for the thread by your name.

You get a glimpse of Reardon’s mom, brother and wife but have no clue about his father.

You just don't get grit, determination and that inner sense of accomplishment from no where. It didn't come from dear old Mom.

You are left wondering if Hank came through the ranks of “the school of hard knocks”, he was working in a mine at age 14... or if his family had previously been in the ranks of the moneyed elite.

Brother Phil and Mom certainly act as if they were reared in the laps of unearned luxury.

[Publius]

My goal in this book club is to get people to look beneath the surface to all the things going on at the different levels of the book. For all the problems with Rand’s prose style, this is a wonderful, thickly textured book.

[ml/nj]

self ping

[I see my hands]

If you are looking for a show of hands.. once a week works here.

Thanks for organizing!

[Publius]

I have your name on the ping list, and I copied and pasted everyone into the little “To:” box. I wonder if there are limitations as to how many people you can ping at one time.

[GOPPachyderm]

ping me

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Please add me to the ping list.

[OldNavyVet]

Bravo! An introduction to John Galt is a timely project in these trying times.

[LucyT]

Please add me to the ping list. Thanx.

[TASMANIANRED]

Probably nothing more than a glitch, I’m assuming every one is having the same issue with slowness in the system.

Timing for me is acting like dial up instead of bb.

[Bombshell]

Please Ping me.

Thanks

[Publius]

I’m going to run a test this afternoon to see if the copy-and-paste brings everyone over. Because the post displays “...” after a certain number of characters, I don’t know if there is a way to make sure everyone is pinged when one hits the “Post” button.

[Atomic Vomit]

This is a worthwhile project. Thank you for your work here.

Can you please add me to your ping list for this?

AV

[mick]

Good post, friend. Boy does this bring back memories.

When I first read about Hank Rearden it motivated me to read a book first published by B.C.Forbes in 1917, “Men Who Are Making America Great”

Here are the first ten names in the Table of Contents:

J.Ogdon Armour
George F. Baker
A.C.Bedford
Alexander Graham Bell
Andrew Carnegie
H.P. Davison
Robert Dollar
W.L.Douglas
James B. Duke
T. Coleman DuPont

How many of us today can even recognize these great men and what they accomplished? I read the book and I can't even remember without looking. And not a politician among them. Do our schools teach anything about them ? Ha!
Today we look to the Barney Franks and B.Obamas to save us...we have become a pitiful people !

To me that is the great enduring value of this great book...to remind us that true heroes can still exist.....but only strong men and women can make it so.

[reformedliberal]

Hope this registers, given the proxy server problem today.

Phillip and Hank's mother seem resentful possibly because they live in a society that is conflicted about success and wealth. They may have to do a lot of fund-raising and support for the *oppressed* in order to justify their existence among the elite of their society. They get to live well, but they have to make it clear that they didn't engage in selfish money-grubbing to get to their position. Phil and Mom are living in the lap of unearned luxury, are insecure because of this, conflicted, as said above and this makes them unbearably passive aggressive. Poor Hank. If only he could pretend to be sensitive to the lower classes, the family could be absolved of their angst.

Lillian is too arch and coy to be borne. She likely could be mollified if Hank spent time at benefits and was a patron of the arts and benefactor of the poor, but Hank is driven, something their society abhors. Evidently, it is all right to *have* wealth, it just isn't seemly to work hard to earn it and one must ostentatiously give back. Both the generationally wealthy and the newly successful struggle with *accomplishment guilt*.

Hank's father does seem absent or perhaps he died from overwork in the mines or a mill. I disagree that grit, et al doesn't arise without DNA, a mentor or example. IMO, these are inborn, but not necessarily inherited, traits. There are plenty of children of the motivated and successful who could not be less interested in emulating their parents or grandparents and others who arise out of mediocrity to attain great heights.

Rand is given to overblown character portrayal, almost charictature. People only sometimes speak normally. Much of the dialog is declamation and that includes the internal dialogues. I do appreciate her physical descriptions of surroundings and the bit players. It is very noir, an apt physical setting for the decline and decay of the society she is illustrating.