Ayn Rand

[Paul Mackin]

Elainemmbell at aol.com wrote:

> Thank you so much for that explanation...I was really beginning to 
> wonder if I had missed the (invisible?) thread that told everyone 
> except me that we were now an Ayn Rand list rather than a Pynchon 
> list.  Ayn Rand broke my heart when I was 15 and my best friend, dear 
> beloved Diane, decided to interpret "objectivism" as a philosophy 
> requiring her to drop all friends and family and generally behave in 
> the most obnoxious, self-conscious, arrogant, and unattractive ways 
> within her command (and her command was extensive indeed!).  I read 
> everything I could, thinking I could counter her interpretation of the 
> Great Rand's execrable (I thought) writing and thus save our long 
> relationship, but Diane thought faster and argued louder so I lost 
> both the debate and the friendship.  It has been very spooky to see 
> Ms. Rand resurfa! cing, unwelcome, in my cyberlife...whew!  glad it's 
> almost over!   PLEASE don't start talking about Louise Gluck anybody, 
> okay? (or Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath or maybe any female writer later 
> than the Bronte sisters)
>
> as always...emmb
>
> Elaine M.M. Bell, Writer
> (860) 523-9225


Meant to post my reply earlier but couldn't find my copy of Mary 
Gaitskill's Two Girls, Fat and Thin.

My roommate returned at about two o'clock that morning to find me pacing 
our shared unit, playing classical music on the radio, and devouring 
donuts in a state of exaltation.

The days during which I read The Gods Disdained were different from the 
days before. My life was not longer organized around the meaningless 
nightmare of dinner in the dorm cafeteria, the walk from class to class, 
or the classes themselves with their inadequate intellectual content on 
which I'd vainly tried to ground my flying psyche. Instaed, it was the 
stuggles and triumphs of Solitaire, Skip, Bus Taggart, and an arrany of 
other characters who now served as the support and metaphor of my 
existence. Sure, I know they weren't real people, but they had sprung 
from the mind of a real person and thus, accordidng to an argument I'd 
heard in philosophy class, were possible. There people were possible!

I finished reading at about four in the morning in a state of such 
poignant excitation that I want out and walked about Blythetown for 
hours, sweating, smiling. almost in tears, loving even the sight of 
brutish boys weaving heavily out of late-closing bars and vomiting in 
the street. The world, previously an incomprehenible prison, was now an 
orderly place where I could live with dignity. Even what my father had 
done to me--as a reult of his denial of reality--was not too horrible to 
look at, could be explained and then rejected. I could determine my own 
world and reject anything that made it an unhappy place.

I skipped school the next day, went to a bookstaore and bought 
everything written by Granite, and stayed home reading. I read like this 
for days, oblivious to the histrionic comings and goings of my roommate. 
When I finished the last of the books, I started over again with The 
Gods Disdained. Between readings I went to classes and walked around the 
tiny toy campus, delirious with ideas.

(it goes on for some time like this)