Pynchon, Rand, school reading lists

[Chris Pinner]

My personal favorite part of Atlas Shrugged is how ripe the last third of
the book is for comedy.  Honestly, once John Galt grabs the mic and busts
his speech out, the whole book goes to heell in a very funny handbasket.
People who previously gave lectures on never forcing someone to decide at
the point of a gun shoot people when they won't decide.  Men who claim to
value human life swing through windows and shoot guy begfore they can
react.  The entire nation of overrun in rioting and chaos, and the rich guys
go to their mountain hideaway and laugh at it all, and those same rich men
are the heroes of the book.  Oh, yeah, good stuff.

He underlying idea of the individual working hardest and using all his
abilities to get to the top isn't that bad, per se, which isn't to say I
agree with it.  It is just that the places she takes it (it's ok, to rape
and opress people, as long as they are willing to let you; if you don't want
to struggle to be the best around, you are worthless; if you actually want
to help people, you are also worthless if it comes at any cost to you) is
pretty damn troubling.

Also, it is at one in the same time one of the most sexist and homoerotic
books I have ever read.  Everyone wants to fuck John Galt, especially his
male friends, and women, even thouhg sometimes in a position of power, are
all protrayed as weak to their emotions and lusts for men.

Yeah, fun book.


On 3/27/06, Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Mar 27, 2006, at 12:39 PM, jd wrote:
>
> > http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?
> > pagename=education_contests_atlas
> >
> > This is my only motivation to read Atlast Shrugged.  I get the feeling
> > that anything I would write on it would be so cynical about its
> > message that I wouldn't stand a chance but I haven't read it yet so
> > therefore can't state that for certain.
>
>
> A tack you might take would be a comparative study of Rand and some
> other prominent conservative thinker. E.g., Francis Fukuyama's
> Hegelian approach to the Ideal society is much in the news these days.
>
> Many interesting contrasts between them.
>
> Rand might be considered an anarchist, while FF deplores the  idea of
> anarchy.
>
> Rand would find the excitement of the struggle to excel an end in
> itself. FF thinks that the end of  History constitutes a very boring
> (though of course ideal) existence.
>
> We probably can't surmise as to how Rand might feel about the  Iraq
> war. FF is against.
>
> Or similarities. Both thinkers had/have quite negative views of
> religion.  Rand called herself a convinced atheist, but not a
> militant one.
>
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