Do you have that one book you just can’t seem to get to?
For me, that book was “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. It’s been part of the social and political zeitgeist for decades. Many political leaders claimed it influenced their thinking. I knew I should read it.
Finally, I bought it last year and got to work.
While I’m a fast reader, I’m not monogamous with books. I typically read several at a time and it can take a while to finish an individual book.
With 1,168 pages and nearly 562,000 words, Atlas Shrugged took FOREVER, nearly a year. There were days I shrugged just thinking about picking it up.
However, I stuck to it and am proud to be just the 15th person in the U.S. who has said they read the book to have ACTUALLY read the book.
How was it? Awful.
ALL of the characters are miserable, egotists. The prose meanders. The science fiction twist seems out of place.
Rand’s explanation of her “objectivism” philosophy makes sense. Until it doesn’t. “The concept of man as a heroic being,” she writes, “with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity.” Sounds great if you’re a rabid capitalist with no consideration for others.
The famous “speech” toward the end? Sixty pages long that read like a Trump lecture—a wandering and discursive miasma that left me searching for the Kevorkian button.
Am I happy I read this? Yes. Have I enjoyed reading supplemental pieces about the book? Yes.
Would I recommend you read it, dear listener? No! I respect you too much to do that.
And, after all the letters, words and pages, Rand never really answers that oft-repeated question: who is John Galt?
I’m Wester Wuori, not John Galt, and that’s my Perspective.
