If there is
one thought I can take away from this book, it is without out a doubt a famous
quote, “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there
be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded
fear.” You cannot take every word you
hear as truth, the day we cease to question higher powers, is the day they can
walk over us and do what they want. If
you question command, sometimes what you find will be better than what you
would have done.
Now that this
monster of a book has unfortunately/finally come to a close, I have very mixed
feelings. My first feeling is Joy, this
is a result of the pure amount of time that has gone into this minibible. My second feeling is also joy, because I am
tired of having someone elses ideology crammed down my throat in the for of a
story that gives you no option but siding with the “good guys”, this really
aggravated me. And my last feeling is
true fear.
I say fear,
because I can easily mirror Atlas Shrugged with things that are occurring in
society today, the only part that does not mirror it is the hidden society of
“disappeared” business giants that are ready to swoop in and change the day,
no. Instead, society is taking a turn on
a path towards horrible anti-capitalism and will only press on forwards in this
path. In modern day you are even viewed
as evil if you stand in the way of the “progressive” or “liberal” agenda. Ayn Rand makes me afraid of the society that
John Galt is against.
I believe that
Ayn Rand did a horrible job with getting her point across in this book, there
were countless times when I would have to put the book down and stop reading
because I was self-diagnosing death by boredom.
This book had a very powerful point, but would drown that point with
endless romance, or forced summaries in the form of speeches. Which brings me to my next point, why did that John Galt speech occur… I mean,
you cannot make it more obvious that this book is propaganda any other
way. Rand was basically telling us in
that speech, “Hey look here guys, this is what I believe, and this is how I am
going to tell you how to believe it.”
The way this
book was made, did a great job on getting Ayn Rand’s view across and while the
example was a little extreme, she did show what she believes and shows why she
believes it, there was no reason for that speech. This is not your college thesis paper, you
are not writing this to probe a point to someone, unintelligent people are not
going to read this book, if someone is brave enough to read atlas shrugged,
then they are smart enough to get what you are saying to them. But noooo, Rand has the need to directly
summarize every little point that this book has already made. I guess she is far superior to us dumb folk
and we cant understand her philosophy.
I believe the
points made in this book are very solid and concrete; I can not disagree with
them. But this point was already in my
head before, had I not already agreed with her, this book would have done
nothing in changing my mind. Had the
book been shorter, like I suggest it be, Rand’s point would come across much
more strong and powerful. But since this
novel is laced with boring romance and long speeches, it takes away from the
main plot.
All in all, this
book was a very interesting read; many very strong points were made. My suggestion to Rand would have been to cut
down many parts. This had the potential
to be one of the best books I have ever read, if only it were shorter.
All of this
being said, I am very proud to have accomplished reading a book as large Atlas
Shrugged, it felt like reading the bible.
While it was not exactly by choice, I am glad I did read it. It showed me a lot about todays society and
what is had become/what path it is on.
It is scary, but America is taking a turn for the worse. The similarities between America in atlas and
the real America are bone chilling and worry me deeply. We do not have enough John Galt’s in todays
society. But then again, “Who is John
Galt?”.
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