Started reading Atlas a couple of months ago and put it aside after a third or so. I am used to reading “conventionally boring” stuff but this was such a slog. Super sterile, the characters are stereotypical, the message Rand wants to bring across seems awfully clear very early on. It may be the historical context that makes it more interesting, I didn’t see it, though. Just couldn’t do it.
Reading your comments on this thread is a relief, maybe there is nothing wrong with me after all.
Just wait till you get to the last third, where the ideas that weren’t subtly telegraphed in the first two thirds will be even less subtly shouted in a hundred page long speach.
I’m the guy from above who said I liked the “quantity over quality” she had because it let me get lost. Even I skipped “the speech” lmfao. It just repeats the shitty, not subtle, ideas that have been repeated 100x by that point, and even within itself it repeats the same damn thing over and over and over.
I can see it being a nifty writing technique to basically have an academic paper micro-version of the whole work diogenically within your philosophy tilted book, but the problem is if that was the intent, it’s a paper that no one would publish because it sucks.
I was lucky enough to read it young before I knew it was “a thing”.
I loved the stream punky Sci fi stuff (yes I loved bioschock when it came out).
I enjoyed the rugged individualism stuff, but like, in the same way I enjoy James Bond committing extra judicial killings, Indiana Jones, cheesy ghost movies , or Hell in a Cell.
I was really confused when I found out it’s got a cult. I just enjoyed my nifty train story.
The writing is dry, voluminous but not really good. I personally enjoyed getting lost in that much volume, but that’s not going to be everyone. The philosophy stuff isn’t bad or wrong within it’s own universe, it’s just not really applicable to real life. Basing a world view on it is like reading/watching the silo series and thinking that’s how you should live in present day, rules about going outside and all. The conclusion isn’t totally wrong, but the premise its valid under is so narrow it’s useless, and that’s how it got it’s cult.
Yeah I don’t know, I remember something about extra super steel in the beginning, where it was kind of like “assertive entrepreneur makes eggheads do the impossible”. That is just not how anything in engineering works at all. Was kind of a turn-off for me also.
But I am glad that this stuff made it into a cool train story for you. I like your sentiment.
Haha thanks. There were parts I enjoyed and I don’t get a chance to talk about them much without people thinking I’m crazy, or worse, in the cult.
Re: The super engineer. I also was lucky there that I read it before my technical education, now it would probably bug me. Still, the escapism of being the superman “I CAN do it all!” can be fun, but it is just that: escapist fantasy. Problems arise when people forget that.
Read it when young as well, though I was luckily enough to read a quick bio of her. Escaped Communism, worked in Hollywood.
Felt that this was more a rant about trying to be passionate when stuck in a system, be it the horrible Communist system, or an uncaring bureaucratic one.
Right, like that’s definitely a read of it. That’s kind of what I was getting it in that the philosophy makes sense in the world she created, it just doesn’t have all that much in common with the real world.
That take makes sense, but it’s definitely not what the author intended. She very much wanted it to be applied to modern times. Whether or not you can separate the authors intent from the book itself involves some “death of the author” type conversations that, despite knowing some $5 lit terms, I’m not super versed in. Even then, I think the energy is better spent on more interesting examples, like how “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” kind of changed significance over time.
I’m close with a family that lived through the collapse of the USSR. Based on what I’ve heard alone, Rand’s reaction is really understandable in my opinion. It doesn’t make it correct, but I do get the reaction.
No no…at least get to the rapey bit…then you can solidify your hatred of that wretched wind bag in granite…its just before the speech that takes like 100 pages.
Started reading Atlas a couple of months ago and put it aside after a third or so. I am used to reading “conventionally boring” stuff but this was such a slog. Super sterile, the characters are stereotypical, the message Rand wants to bring across seems awfully clear very early on. It may be the historical context that makes it more interesting, I didn’t see it, though. Just couldn’t do it.
Reading your comments on this thread is a relief, maybe there is nothing wrong with me after all.
Just wait till you get to the last third, where the ideas that weren’t subtly telegraphed in the first two thirds will be even less subtly shouted in a hundred page long speach.
I got to that part, and it was at that point i shruged.
Slow down there, Atlas
Yeah I got that impression from the other comments. I might go back to just that part for the hell of it. Seems to be kind of a meme.
Beware, it’s a 3hr long monologue.
I’m the guy from above who said I liked the “quantity over quality” she had because it let me get lost. Even I skipped “the speech” lmfao. It just repeats the shitty, not subtle, ideas that have been repeated 100x by that point, and even within itself it repeats the same damn thing over and over and over.
I can see it being a nifty writing technique to basically have an academic paper micro-version of the whole work diogenically within your philosophy tilted book, but the problem is if that was the intent, it’s a paper that no one would publish because it sucks.
I was lucky enough to read it young before I knew it was “a thing”.
I loved the stream punky Sci fi stuff (yes I loved bioschock when it came out).
I enjoyed the rugged individualism stuff, but like, in the same way I enjoy James Bond committing extra judicial killings, Indiana Jones, cheesy ghost movies , or Hell in a Cell.
I was really confused when I found out it’s got a cult. I just enjoyed my nifty train story.
The writing is dry, voluminous but not really good. I personally enjoyed getting lost in that much volume, but that’s not going to be everyone. The philosophy stuff isn’t bad or wrong within it’s own universe, it’s just not really applicable to real life. Basing a world view on it is like reading/watching the silo series and thinking that’s how you should live in present day, rules about going outside and all. The conclusion isn’t totally wrong, but the premise its valid under is so narrow it’s useless, and that’s how it got it’s cult.
Yeah I don’t know, I remember something about extra super steel in the beginning, where it was kind of like “assertive entrepreneur makes eggheads do the impossible”. That is just not how anything in engineering works at all. Was kind of a turn-off for me also.
But I am glad that this stuff made it into a cool train story for you. I like your sentiment.
Haha thanks. There were parts I enjoyed and I don’t get a chance to talk about them much without people thinking I’m crazy, or worse, in the cult.
Re: The super engineer. I also was lucky there that I read it before my technical education, now it would probably bug me. Still, the escapism of being the superman “I CAN do it all!” can be fun, but it is just that: escapist fantasy. Problems arise when people forget that.
Read it when young as well, though I was luckily enough to read a quick bio of her. Escaped Communism, worked in Hollywood.
Felt that this was more a rant about trying to be passionate when stuck in a system, be it the horrible Communist system, or an uncaring bureaucratic one.
Right, like that’s definitely a read of it. That’s kind of what I was getting it in that the philosophy makes sense in the world she created, it just doesn’t have all that much in common with the real world.
That take makes sense, but it’s definitely not what the author intended. She very much wanted it to be applied to modern times. Whether or not you can separate the authors intent from the book itself involves some “death of the author” type conversations that, despite knowing some $5 lit terms, I’m not super versed in. Even then, I think the energy is better spent on more interesting examples, like how “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” kind of changed significance over time.
I’m close with a family that lived through the collapse of the USSR. Based on what I’ve heard alone, Rand’s reaction is really understandable in my opinion. It doesn’t make it correct, but I do get the reaction.
“slog” absolutely defines my experience. A really tough read.
No no…at least get to the rapey bit…then you can solidify your hatred of that wretched wind bag in granite…its just before the speech that takes like 100 pages.