It took me a long time to read Atlas Shrugged- no surprise, since Wikipedia counts it at 645,000 words. It also took awhile for me to shake out of the polarized morality of Ayn Rand's world and get a grip on what I'd read.
Atlas Shrugged is a romance novel. Set aside what you've heard about Rand's philosophical masterpiece and look at the protagonist's path. Our beautiful young heroine, Dagny Taggart, is torn between her ardent lovers. All three men want her desperately. But when Dagny first encounters the man of her dreams, she swoons, and he holds her in his arms and gently carries her to his bed.
The difference between Atlas Shrugged and the typical Harlequin romance, is that Dagney runs a railroad. Dagney's profession isn't just a way to get our heroine into a demure gray suit that she sheds to show her stunning sexuality in a black party dress (although that does happen). And her profession is not meant to later attest to what's "really important" to her (ie., her femininity and role as a lover and wife). In fact, Dagney's profession is so intrinsically bound to her personality, her character, her essence, that Dagney is her profession. What's more, the men who fall at her feet, one by one, are in love with her precisely because she embodies the spirit of competence and professionalism.
Turns out Dagney embodies one more important ideal, the ideal beyond Objectivism that lies at the heart of the book: Dagney represents the potential of the individual to love herself.
The magic of Atlas Shrugged is the fact that Rand was able to embody her ideal in her main character, and at the same time, make that protagonist so human, so real, so worthy of the reader's understanding and compassion. Dagney's journey is the journey of coming to embrace the ideal of self-love, and at the same time, she has always been the ideal. It's beautiful and skillful writing.
Unfortunately, as Rand builds to the climax of the novel, she devolves into droning, boring exposition, in which Galt gives a speech to extemporize Rand's philosophy (Wikipedia counts this dreadful speech at 56 pages long, and though Wikipedia mentioned Atlas Shrugged is one of the longest novels ever written, it fails to mention this is one of the longest chunks of exposition anyone has ever been forced to read). Rand's attempt to explain her philosophy in prose deadens the innate feeling of "rightness" she had cultivated in the reader by simply following Dagney's journey. This made the ending of the book resonate a bit less for me. But the self-discovery journey in which Dagney learns what she is truly worth, learns that she is Love, was intense and captivating.
2 comments:
Ayn Rand didn't write a love story. She wrote a novel crammed with new ideas for people who weren't afraid to think for themselves--something you ought to try.
I'm not afraid to think for myself, or to express myself.
Post a Comment