Ayn Rand has amazed me with her brilliant work. I am
surprised by all the elements she has been able to incorporate into the novel.
Honestly, I was not such a big fan at the beginning of the novel, but starting
around page 600 I have become a huge fan of it.
I
admire how Ayn Rand has made her novel so detailed. One aspect I am most
interested in is the secret society of the intellectuals that resides in the
mountains. I think it is fascinating how Rand has given the reader so much
information in the novel so far through Dagny and then Rand turns it around
almost in a way of mockery to show how much the reader does not know. But at
the same time, the more I got to know, the more I found out I know that there
is so much more to know. This is because Rand is able to keep surprises
constantly coming at the reader through new information.
Rand
makes me wonder if a society like this could actually survive in the world
today. A society where the peoples goals are simply to live a life worth living
where they are not suffocated by those who seek to take the advantages they earned.
The principles that they are set on living upon are ones that I don’t think
could change with the times. Their oath, “I swear by my life and my love of it
that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live
for mine” (670) is strong and would not weaken in time. This quote shows how powerful the
society can be. If everyone were able to live like this than the government
wouldn’t be of much use, but the people would prosper.
The
reason this could not exist in the real world is due to the fact that not
everyone is able to understand this thought, much less live by it. This is what
the world should consider to be moral, but as Rand shows the reader, the
government considers it to be anything but because that would put an end to
them.
This
leads me to the question, how did Ayn Rand introduce this idea into her mind? I
believe Rand to be quite an extraordinary person. This novel not only
challenges the way of thinking, but also allows the reader to understand how
thoughts are being challenged and what the results of those challenges could
be.
I completely agree with you on the interest in the book, up until recently this book was just dragging on forever. But began to pick up in the later stages. In my opinion, a society like this would more than survive in a world like today, it would thrive. I came to this conclusion by doing a comparison. The society in this book, is almost identical to society today. Between the science institute and the large unions getting in the way of business, Rands world is almost the same as ours (at least in the business aspect). I do agree that this novel does challenge the mind, and I hope the results of the challenges could be betterment for our society.
ReplyDelete