[Scrambler Bob]

Does “On The Beach” fit in there?

It is a Downer; I read it occasionally, with that in mind.

[CaptainK]

Why are Russians so good at vexing American minds? Vladimir Putin’s bewitchment of President Trump continues to frustrate intelligence officials and at times hard-liners in his own administration, while pro- and anti-Russia journalists trade insults as enthusiastically as they did during the 1950s Rosenberg spy trial.

Putin is the only Russian/Soviet leader who hasn't bewitched the NY Times. Funny how that worked out.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Lolita? I don't think so.
 

[Billthedrill]

The Promethean Hank Rearden is a throwback, a metal engineer who helps develop “a motor that would draw static electricity from the atmosphere...

Ugh. Clearly the reviewer has not read the book. Reardon did nothing of the sort, John Galt did. Who would, in the end, take Dagny from Reardon and make him like it.

I gently suggest that of the books mentioned Atlas Shrugged has by far the least literary merit and by far the most real impact. The rest are done; Rand's book gets a fresh start every time some idiot bureaucrat appears on television. Of them, only hers has the grotesque merit of coming true.

[tomkat]

  Who is John Galt ?

[Mrs. Don-o]

for later

[buwaya]

That all was the last gasp of the remarkable Russian literary golden age, from Pushkin to Gorki. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, that whole lot, emerged over a period of less than 90 years. Add to that music and art. A huge achievement for a backwards country at the edge of civilization. It was a brilliant time, right up to 1917.

Rand and Nabokov and Pasternak were products of the last years of that golden age, fleeing when young and making their careers in an alien language, or in Pasternaks case, remarkably, surviving the worst of the troubles.

There has been nothing like that golden age since.

[Publius]

Atlas ping.

[SamAdams76]

I read "Atlas Shrugged" three times during my life. But I liked "Fountainhead" better.

Both books have some rough slogging in places. I never understood why Ayn Rand had to put those borderline rape scenes into those books as they did nothing to advance the plot. But a great many passages were positively brilliant. Though the Galt speech could have been shortened by 40 pages!

[jocon307]

I thought this was a great piece, thanks for posting it. I might not agree with every word, but still quite interesting.

[Ciexyz]

Dr. Zhivago has that wonderful scene where Zhivago comes home from war to find his house full of strangers, courtesy of the local Communist Party.

[Maris Crane]

That’s when there was a modicum of civility, real talent and class by those who wrote books.

What have we read lately?

[Yardstick]

*bump for later*

[NonValueAdded]

Vladimir Putin’s bewitchment of President Trump continues to frustrate intelligence officials and at times hard-liners in his own administration,/i>

BS, 2nd sentence in. Oh, NYT.

[redhead]

Read all three of them. Then. I doubt if I could plow through them now.