Review of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957)

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
- Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged, or "The Bible of Selfishness" as it is often referred to, was Rand's main attempt to put the total of her philosophies into novel form. She considered Objectivism to be simply "the philosophy for living on earth... [What] a man must think and act if he is to live the life proper to man." When I started her book, I was interested in what prompted critics to place what seemed to me as such a bold stamp as a bible that revolves around the polar opposite of the bible of which most of us are familiar: selfishness. When actually reading her book, however, the intrigue that initially led me to her book was followed by a stark realization of it's wordiness, and then followed by a daunting feeling of realizing how much wordiness I had yet to go through to the end.

In regards to wordiness , it is one of the longest novels ever written in any European Language according to Wikipedia, and the climactic speech by one character, John Galt, is held within a daunting 56 pages without interruptions after the first paragraph. Following a distaste for feeling overworked with the details of the self-interested views, I found myself putting the book aside for a couple of months at different intervals during the whole of its intercourse to let my mind rest and then eventually mull over the words and works of the characters in the book.

The basic concept of the story deals with great business franchises such as those around the time of 1940's America and the hard working people who have worked to build them up as so. In the unfolding of the plot, though, these people who focus on productivity find themselves in a battle of words against the force used by those who feed on the ideals that allow them to rely on someone else for their living. Taking the stance that man does not need to work hard for better wages eventually drains the common man of value and life, and forces certain work-oriented CEO's to quietly give up all that they have worked for and 'shrug' their responsibilities, many never to be seen again. In short, the characters were black and white, either senseless, lazy, indifferent annoying people with bad hygiene or intellectual, superior beings that seemed to have a mind to make love to one woman and our (almost) beloved main character, Dagny Taggart.

This is where the title of the book comes in, as Atlas, symbolizing the worker with the weight of the world on his shoulders, merely shrugs and gives up the responsibility of everyone else to what Rand alludes to as their self-pitying doom of laziness.

What is unrealistic about the plot is the idea that so many (almost all) would fall into the ideologies and belief system of the 'lazy' or 'evil' side so easily without question. I might add here that the belief system of the lazy side includes religions such as Christianity and Buddhism or pretty much any thought that states that man needs saving due to his/her sinful and selfish nature. The 'good' side quickly retorts that they will not be ruled by a god that doesn't even give them a chance to be good, but claims them bad before they are born, and where they must give up taking care of #1. What was also perplexing about the plot included dead end subplots like a 'death ray' type of invention that was put in place to merely make people more fearful. The all-powerful death ray was demonstrated once, then quickly went by the wayside.

Atlas Shrugged has been a very influential book for many people, including the likes of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who are currently working towards a film version. In the book's first release, it received critical reviews, but later has been rated the number one novel of the 20th century by Modern Library. On the other hand, Rand was rated as #18 on the "list of most overrated, trends or events of the 20th century."

Perhaps it is so highly regarded because once a person gets through a book of that physical weight, it's easy to think that it must have been worth something, all that time spent reading such a thick book. While I found that the Objectivist views of money and work ethic makes sense, I strongly disagree with the loose views on sex and that money is always valued over time (and thus relationships). I suppose with a book that thick, there are bound to be views that a reader disagrees with. Though the philosophical material brought up many good conversations, at the end of the day, I really think that the celebrations of freedom and thought came when the reader just got to the end of the book.