FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, White Blackmail

A Publius Essay | 11 April 2009 | Publius

[Sundog]

See the videos at this thread; I found them very enlightening. They constitute an interview with Ayn, and what is so surprising is that the interview takes on a surreal form as if the interviewer, Mike Wallace, were a character straight from Atlas Shrugged interviewing Dagny.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2172674/posts

Rest assured, the twists in the plot ahead will quite eclipse any thought of a particular currency used in a particular place.

[woodnboats]

That is a really tough question. I'll speculate but it isn't much more than that. The difficulty is that Rand tends to make the same point several different ways, each of which is pretty good. From the point of view of the author, for whom each of the different ways might be the only one that turns a light bulb on for the reader, there is a resistance to cutting any of them. For the editor, who has to sell the thing in a package that book stores will buy, it simply has to be smaller. In fact, AS almost didn't get published for that very reason - the editor who finally bought it had to threaten to quit in order to convince his superiors to go through with it. And for the reader contemplating an 1100-page brick it's pretty intimidating. What I'd cut at this point might be some of the unneccessarily (IMHO) repetitive descriptions of Hank and Lillian's married life and perhaps the irritatingly theoretical explanations for why Dagny and Hank wind up sharing a bed. And some of the speeches seem artificially long - did Francisco really need upwards of five pages to make his Root Of Money point? And does anyone really think that a crowd at a wedding party would listen to it? The real problem, I think, is that Rand was trying to balance a flow of logic with a flow of narrative and the two aren't always compatible. What the heck, I might change my mind a few chapters hence...

Bill, you have brought so much valuable insight to this discussion that I look forward most of all each week to your essays. And while I can certainly understand objectively (thanks, Ayn;-)) the criticisms of so many of her writing style, for myself, I wouldn't cut a word. Not even the somehow tawdry sex scenes.

You see, I look on this book as a novel first, which surely conveys hugely important moral, economic and political ideas, but is first and foremost an entertainment. Otherwise it would consist of carefully terse statements of each of her points, with lots of boring footnotes to back her up. But it's a novel, meant to be enjoyed for the reading of it, and as such I can't get enough. Perhaps that is why I've read it so many times, even though I know what she has to say, know how it turns out. The very fact that she finds so many different ways to say what she says, that sometimes she says things which seem at first to be contradictory (Francisco as a character, for instance), provides me with a huge measurement of plain entertainment. I find myself sub-vocalizing Francisco's Money speech each time I read it, as if rehearsing it to present to other people as an explanation for what they don't understand. So if others would like it cut, or edited, I say fine, but leave me my copy of the original!

Kirk

[Publius]

In watching those old tapes, I saw Mike Wallace as Bertram Scudder.

[Publius]

Bill, you have brought so much valuable insight to this discussion that I look forward most of all each week to your essays.

Well gosh and golly, Boats. Now you're making me jealous.

[Billthedrill]

Many thanks for the kind words - and thanks too for telling me that I'm not the only one who subvocalizes this stuff. :-)

One difficult thing about this is separating fictional events from formal propositions in philosophy, of which there are an abundance, and about which Rand was very serious indeed. Even at this late date her *close* acquaintance Nathaniel Branden, who is in his late 70's, finds Rand's ethics well-founded. He's had half a century to look them over and he's a pretty bright guy. It's just a little jarring, though, to be following a character through the dramatic narrative and suddenly have him or her step in front of a podium, where the rules of criticism change. I'm going to get caught time and again for not being agile enough to change with them.

Great stuff. Next week d'Artagnan takes the Holy Grail to the very crack of Mount Doom...if I'm reading the right book. Publius? Throw me a bone here...

[woodnboats]

Now you're making me jealous.

Is that why you took me off the ping list? ;-)

I didn't get this week's notice. :-(

Kirk

[Publius]

I just checked the ping list, and you’re on it. I wonder what’s going on.

[Publius]

Next week d'Artagnan takes the Holy Grail to the very crack of Mount Doom...

I thought that Parsifal took the Ring of Power to Versailles.

[Billthedrill]

Parsi’s a FReeper. LOL!

[woodnboats]

I just checked the ping list, and you’re on it. I wonder what’s going on.

Dunno...but no prob. "We know where you live."

Kirk

[patton]

“Rand is attempting something bold and ambitious (some would say arrogant as well) by literally rewriting philosophy from first principles. “

How many maths exist, that do not depend on I Euclid 5?

(Parallel lines never meet)

Ain’t philosophy fun?

[Betis70]

>>”This is John Galt Speaking”

I finished the book, except for that chapter.

Too dense, I’d start nodding off every other page. I’m going to force myself to sit with a couple cups of coffee and get through it.

[Explorer89]

Or, you could just read it 3 or 4 pages at a sitting. That way you can really digest it, and not just start reading “words”.

[Publius]

In the chapter preceding Galt's speech, I'll be posting advice on how to read it. One recommendation is to read it a few pages at a time out loud. This will force you to work within the syntax of the speech, take it slowly and work on comprehension.

Considering the speech's size, this is something that could be spread out over a week.

[Still Thinking]

“I am John Galt, and I’m VERY long winded.”

I just started the speech, about four pages in, and if you want to FreepMail me those suggestions, I’d be obliged.

[woodnboats]

That and selective enforcement compose an exercise of power that is the basis for every police state ever devised. It is the ability of those in power arbitrarily to designate a non-cooperative citizen a criminal, to silence, to imprison. It is raw, sanctioned coercion.

Or worse, an insane person, in need of "re-education" in a gulag somewhere, until he sees the light. Might not even need the gulag; constant haranguing for political correctness and raising of consciousness might do the trick.

Thanks again Bill and Pub.

Kirk

[r-q-tek86]

Part II, Chapter IV: The Sanction of the Victim