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So what's up with this novel? Can't find anything obvious about it - only that it's mighty popular among conservatives (which is usually a red flag)
There are plenty of articles going into great detail- here is one- but essentially it is a showcase for Rand's moronic and hateful Objectivist philosophy and it has such ludicrous ideas in it as suggesting railroads would do great if it wasn't for the pesky government getting in their way and after society collapses, the brilliant industrialists will all live in paradise just as soon as we find a way to create electricity by violating the laws of physics.
For those who are already familiar, this cartoon summarizes the problem with Atlas Shrugged quite succinctly.
I wanted to read this book so I could see what the fuss was all about. I’ve never made it 80% of the way through any other book and then intentionally stopped reading it. Everything about the way it is written is so bad. The characters are all made of cardboard. The situations that arise make no sense. Pretty much everything about the book makes no sense and is just to drive the story towards whatever idiotic conclusion Rand wanted.
When John Galt finally appeared and I realized he was just three incoherent speeches in a trench coat and not an actual attempt at writing a character, I basically abandoned finishing the book in disgust.
Did you get to the part where Galt had a magical machine that generated power from static electricity that would power his entire society? See? All we need for an objectivist paradise is to forget about all that "science" nonsense and make it happen through willpower!
Nah I didn’t make it that far. I couldn’t take too much of that character. It doesn’t surprise me that it gets even more ridiculous though.
Competition is a great idea to these bozos until they realize that it's possible for them to lose.
Even if they had robots they would still need to be tooled ;)
This would have been a welcome addition to the book.
It's just one of those novels that many bookish 17-19 years have read. I think it is worth reading in the sense that I think reading the Bible is worth reading. It is popular enough that you sorta have to have some familiarity with it. Popular because it is popular at this point.
Basic setting is (I am going to steel man it) the world is falling apart from communism and the US is pretty much the last functional country. However instead of slowly drifting down like everyone expects suddenly the US is declining much faster. The reason is all the Jeff Bezoses are going on strike secretly.
The plot follows an heiress to a train company as she tries to hold things together and has an affair with one of her clients.
Eventually everything falls apart and the Jeff Bezoses launch a plan to rebuild but with a new rule that they are running everything.
The end.