Chris Winters Final Reaction

I enjoyed reading this novel even tough it might have been a pain trying to keep with the pace of our weekly blogs. Throughout this novel there were several parts that I found to be strange. The third part of this book is a bit off the ordinary. It’s definitely not the actual ending of the book, I’ve decided, but more of a choose-your-own-adventure suggestion. It’s kind of fun that way because any end that you, the reader, come up with will be better than the one Rand suggested. I found it amusing how Rand ends it with John Galt giving the most boring speech possible, and it lasts for an eternity. To make matters worse everyone heard the speech killing their heightened expectations. Galt’s speech was terrible yet the novel says, “The entire world was listening, ears glued to the radios, because Galt’s speech was the most brilliant thing they had ever heard.” Honestly it might have been the worst speech I have ever read, but maybe its merely because I had such high expectations of him.

Even though this was an exception novel, everyone I know, including myself, complain about the length of it. People complain about Rand’s writing, and I always think, “When was the last time you wrote a 1000 page book in a second language and pulled off a reasonably page-turning storyline?”  Also her constant use of diction to help guide the reader of the setting and the tension created by characters is outstanding. There was never one point in the story where I found myself bored except for Galt’s speech. I feel that this constant eagerness to continue reading was most certainly created by her amazing use of descriptions. Also considering how this novel helped me correlate to what is happening in our government today was something that I found incredible. Who would have thought that one of the English books I would be reading this year would have a direct correlation to the governments crash in todays society.

One of the most valuable things I got from this book was the idea that one person being unhappy doesn’t, and shouldn’t, make others happy. I think, in this way, it was particularly important to me that the protagonist was a woman. We constantly see women complain about their lives and families, whether it in movies or real life, but they say it’s all worth it because they’ve been able to devote their lives to making their husbands or children happy. Also people in today’s society constantly want to go to the needy and unfortunate countries of the world and sacrifice themselves to save them.

I can’t really say this with confidence, but for the most part women are raised to believe that the more selfless they are, the better off everyone else will be. I think it’s a pretty typical way that women talk themselves into staying in abusive situations – which their lives are worth less than the lives around them. And I found these characteristics to embody Hank Rearden. I love that Rand sets up characters that destroy this cycle of abuse. Although there might be many other reason to read this book but the main one that I found interesting was about her ideas being dangerous. It most certainly was not difficult to figure out that Rand’s mind set can create for a high amount of controversy. First off she conveniently ignores the very old, very young, and disabled to make a specific and extreme point. She does to express that they at the moment have no impact on how the economy, or well being of one can become enhanced. I don’t think her point is entirely without merit, though (in the sense that our lives are valuable, not in the sense of “kill the weak!”). Rand merely wanted to show that women have just as much value as men and with a cut throat mentality all businesses can and should be.