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Warning: this link leads to a forum on a comedy site. The site is highly popular, and for the most part, the forum crowd is of average-decent intellect. This thread will make you sick. It's a kid asking if he should bother to finish reading AS, and a whole lot of replies saying no.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthrea...40&pagenumber=1

This seems to be a very, very popular public sentiment. Why? Are these people just so stupid that they can't comprehend, or are they afraid?

Also, a common opinion seems to be that Atlas Shrugged is a bad book, with flat characters. What?? For a week and a half, AS owned my life, I never put it down.

I'm just bewildered :rolleyes:

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I have to say, i trudged thru a.s.

i loved the ideas rand espoused, and began to search the internet for info about her ideas, then finding links for objectivism and then to this site, it helped to me to learn more and put my thoughts and ideas into words...

but as a peice of enjoyable fiction, its not among my favorites. thats my opinion tho.

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As for her characters being "flat"...

I think the average reader just won't understand where most of her characters are coming from. I never enjoyed any of the required reading in high school or college because I found 1.) the stories and ideas to be of no interest and 2.) the characters to be complete retards.

When Hank Reardon gave his wife that bracelet of Reardon metal I really identified with the character. For once I thought "here is someone I can relate to" and was pulled into the book. Of course at the time I didn't realize that Hank and his wife didn't love each other because you don't really find that out until later. I understood that he gave her the bracelet as a part of himself; it was something I would do and was shocked to actually see a character in a novel (or anywhere) actually do something I myself would do.

However, most 'normal' people identify with the retards of regular literature. They watch shows like "Friends" and say "hey, that's me!" and relate. Another thread on this board talks about what MBTI type you are; I think this has a lot to do with relating to Rand. The NT "rationals" are an odd bunch by most people's standards, so it's natural that most people would think a book full of them would be "flat."

Of course, there is also the angle that most human beings don't have the self-confidence to actually be an ethical-egoist; but that's another post entirely.

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Warning: this link leads to a forum on a comedy site. The site is highly popular, and for the most part, the forum crowd is of average-decent intellect. This thread will make you sick. It's a kid asking if he should bother to finish reading AS, and a whole lot of replies saying no.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthrea...40&pagenumber=1

This seems to be a very, very popular public sentiment. Why? Are these people just so stupid that they can't comprehend, or are they afraid?

Also, a common opinion seems to be that Atlas Shrugged is a bad book, with flat characters. What?? For a week and a half, AS owned my life, I never put it down.

I'm just bewildered :rolleyes:

Well, of course that guy hates Atlas; he's a libertarian! For God's sake, I have a Sparta-loving communist friend who is reality-oriented enough to love Atlas as fiction.

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I've read in some writer's book before that contradictions and inconsistencies (in thoughts, in actions, and in words) of characters make them "3-dimensional".  So I'm not surprised many people think that the heroic characters of Ayn Rand are "flat"--they are all consistent, complete, integrated.

That explains part of it, but one still might wonder why such people forget that Dagny makes the mistake of fighting Galt, that Rearden accepts one set of premises in dealing with nature and another set when dealing with men, that Galt has to struggle not to enter Dagny's office at the John Galt line, etc. The heroes ARE perfect, but they're not cardboard cutouts, as is commonly asserted.

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I don't know how anyone could "trudge" through AS. I read that book faster than any book of any length I've ever read. I was under the delusion it was written just for me!

I disagree with the "flat" character description, and do not consider it even a valid opinion. I think the people that say that are reading it like it is any other book, they don't expect to have anything demanded of them. AS demands a lot of you, and I think a lot of people are just too lazy to divy up.

One of the leading characters is a person riddled with internal inconsistencies and conflict, Hank Rearden. I view AS as largely the story of the redemption of Hank Rearden. It (and his entire struggle) is central to the whole theme of the story.

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When I began reading The Fountainhead and read the first passage, I knew that AR was describing a character which isn't just another character in just another book. As Howard went back into the town he lived in with Peter (from the lake he swam in), I've already regarded him as an ideal. After I finished The Fountainhead, it's been a while before I began with Atlas Shrugged. It was a big change from The Fountainhead and my first task was establishing who is who.

Did I have problems with that? NO! Why? Because characters are so carefully outlined that you don't even have to bother remembering their names - they just STAY in your head. I've read lots of really big books after AS and noticed that the plot goes forward and is based on some characters which I simply don't know. And then I turn a few pages back and notice that the name of that character was mentioned there... In such books you have to make an effort to remember the characters because they just come and go and then come back and it's really hard to tell them apart or remember who they are. They have no trait worthy of remembering.

Ayn Rand's characters are not like that. Not at all. How can anyone say about them that they are flat? Only because THEY are flat and can't see the third dimension.

Now as I remember the books I read since The Fountainhead, I find it that, even though I've read both The Fountainhead and AS only once (and only re-read a few scenes), I can name even those characters that played the smallest part in the novels, while I can't even name the main character of the books I read afterwards, which weren't written by AR.

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I have a Sparta-loving communist friend

;)

Is your "friend" truly a Communist? Or, is this Communist truly your "friend"?

I can't imagine befriending a true, dedicated Communist. If it was some foolish kid merely trying it on for size, I could understand that and tolerate it (for a while).

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;)

Is your "friend" truly a Communist?  Or, is this Communist truly your "friend"?

I can't imagine befriending a true, dedicated Communist.  If it was some foolish kid merely trying it on for size, I could understand that and tolerate it (for a while).

She's not a Marxist. As I said, she's more of an admirer of Sparta and thinks that the ideal society is one in which everyone voluntarily shares his property. That's not too different from Aristotle's politics, really.

And yes, we are really friends. And since she is a college student, I give her more leeway than I would give an older person.

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Warning: this link leads to a forum on a comedy site. The site is highly popular, and for the most part, the forum crowd is of average-decent intellect. This thread will make you sick. It's a kid asking if he should bother to finish reading AS, and a whole lot of replies saying no.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthrea...40&pagenumber=1

I wouldn't expect anything less from the forums at Something Awful. How many people who responded to that thread do you think actually read AS?

This seems to be a very, very popular public sentiment. Why? Are these people just so stupid that they can't comprehend, or are they afraid?
I've had the same experiences with people when discussing Ayn Rand. I coworker got visibly upset when he saw me reading The Voice of Reason and told me, "My political views are the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of hers!" I just smirked at him but didn't bother responding. I don't know why people feel the way they do about her, I suspect a lot of it is due to the treatment she gets from the left wing intellectuals in the liberal arts departments on college campuses.

For a week and a half, AS owned my life, I never put it down.

I felt the exact same way the first time I read it ;)

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She's not a Marxist... And yes, we are really friends. And since she is a college student, I give her more leeway than I would give an older person.

She? ;)

Her being your "friend" has nothing to do with the fact that maybe she's a hottie? I know how men can be when it comes to a pretty face. :P:)

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Did I have problems with that? NO! Why? Because characters are so carefully outlined that you don't even have to bother remembering their names - they just STAY in your head. I've read lots of really big books after AS and noticed that the plot goes forward and is based on some characters which I simply don't know. And then I turn a few pages back and notice that the name of that character was mentioned there... In such books you have to make an effort to remember the characters because they just come and go and then come back and it's really hard to tell them apart or remember who they are. They have no trait worthy of remembering.

I had trouble remembering the anti-heros in The Fountainhead and Atlas the first time through each of these books. Evil Guy #1, Evil Guy # 2, Evil Guy #3, etc. It was difficult to keep all of their names straight. It was definately easier the seccond time through when I knew more about the nature of the particular evil each character was engaging in.

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I had trouble remembering the anti-heros in The Fountainhead and Atlas the first time through each of these books.  Evil Guy #1, Evil Guy # 2, Evil Guy #3, etc.  It was difficult to keep all of their names straight.  It was definately easier the seccond time through when I knew more about the nature of the particular evil each character was engaging in.

In the case of evil characters, that could be intentional. Here's a quote by Ayn Rand from the Art of Fiction:

"I describe my characters at their first appearance. Since I want the reader to perceive the scene as if he were there, I indicate as soon as possible what the characters look like. Sometimes I depart from this deliberately. In Atlas Shrugged, Wesley Mouch is not described in his introductory scene; I give him a few insipid lines and nothing more. The next time he is mentioned, as the new economic dictator of the country, I cash in on the fact that the reader, if he remembers him at all, remembers a total nonentity."

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"Sometimes I depart from this deliberately. In Atlas Shrugged, Wesley Mouch is not described in his introductory scene; I give him a few insipid lines and nothing more. The next time he is mentioned, as the new economic dictator of the country, I cash in on the fact that the reader, if he remembers him at all, remembers a total nonentity."

That.....Is.....Brilliant

I'll admit, Mouch was absolutely nothing to me until the government issued the directive.

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I'll admit, Mouch was absolutely nothing to me until the government issued the directive.

To be honest, I don't even remember him before that directive. When was he mentioned first?

Anyway, looks like she managed to do what she planned.

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To be honest, I don't even remember him before that directive. When was he mentioned first?

Anyway, looks like she managed to do what she planned.

Wesley Mouch starts the novel as Rearden's man in Washington who is supposed to protect him from the government. His first actual scene is in a dark restaurant on the top floor of a building in which he just says, "That's true" to everything Taggart and Boyle say.

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