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You Guys Might Find This Funny.

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Styles2112

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I agree, when I get to the end of a great book such as Atlas Shrugged, I find myself wishing it was longer. I am not sure if it would actually be a good thing, though. Especially in the case of AS I doubt there are many, if any, important points Miss Rand didn't enter into the novel, and I don't think it would be a better book if she had included more information, like what would happen after the scene where the book ended, for example.

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In all honesty, I found many of the speeches at the beginning of AS long and repetative. I thought the first 500 pages could've been shrunk down a bit, and the end expanded upon...but in the end, it would've been the same length. I mean, honestly, Fransisco's 20 page speech was just obnoxious. :) It took me three years to get through the beginning of the book, and two hours to read through the end. :D

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  • 4 months later...
I mean, honestly, Fransisco's 20 page speech was just obnoxious.

The longest speech Francisco makes in AS is the "Money" speech, and it's three pages long; I know, I typed it up to quote it for a friend that wanted an example of AR's writing.

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The longest speech Francisco makes in AS is the "Money" speech, and it's three pages long; I know, I typed it up to quote it for a friend that wanted an example of AR's writing.

Ahh, I thought twenty seemed abit long...however three seems more like it.

Personally I agree that AS could have gotten away with being longer, I would have liked it anyway. It was so good that even as long as it is I wanted at least a few dozen more pages or so.

Franciscos money speech was almost exactly the right length I think, I cannot think of anything off the top of my head that might have made it any more effective/interesting. It could easily have been more than three pages, so you should be glad Ayn Rand was good at condensing things somewhat while still conveying often a fairly complex series of ideas, Styles.

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Repetition in art is often a means of emphasis, too . . . ever read "Julius Caesar"? How many times does Marc Antony say "And Brutus is an honorable man"? But that speech is great, possibly one of Shakespeare's best.

Reminds me of some idiot reviewer I read a while back, comparing AS to books like Ulysses and Catcher in the Rye, the latter two supposedly "at least having literary values" . . . wtf does that mean?! "Literary Values". Pfaugh. In context I have to believe it means something like "was impenetrable so my sad little mind shut down and my inferiority complex took over and assumed it was great because I didn't understand it." Here's a tip: undefined smears do not turn you into an authority.

I don't get it. Why is that comic strip funny?

Well, in theory, it's because the kid is claiming he wants to "warm up" for the test, but his teacher correctly construes that he is, in fact, stalling, and the kid gets defensive over it. However, I subscribe to the Scott Adams theory of humor: it's not funny if I have to explain it.

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People who say that Atlas Shrugged has speeches that are too long remind me of the guy in Amadeus who said that Mozart's works have "too many notes."

I've noticed over the years that people who say they understood what Rand was trying to say in Atlas Shrugged without reading the speeches almost invariably did not.

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  • 7 months later...

I suppose, to my own defense, the speeches felt long because I ALREADY agreed with the premise, and I, being of lesser patience than others, wanted to get moving onto the plot. Regardless, the cartoon was not really meant as some kind of snotty intellectual humor. Just funny as a quick quip about the length of AS. I apologize to those who found no humor in it.

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  • 1 year later...

Here is one from a few years ago:

Zits.gif

I personally find them both to not be very funny.. but hey, they reference Ayn Rand, which I guess is good. But I think that they both do so in a barely-audible negative light, as if they are being referenced because they are so long ("tedious") instead of amazing and inspiring literature.

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  • 1 month later...
I've noticed over the years that people who say they understood what Rand was trying to say in Atlas Shrugged without reading the speeches almost invariably did not.

Though I have to admit that I skipped most of Galt's speech just to get to the end. But yeah, I did go back to read it in its entirety.

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  • 6 months later...
And then there's that thing Officer Barbrady says in South Park. "After reading every page of this garbage i have decided to never read again"

Now here's something I personally found rather confusing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B4pgo9Db6w

Why did they do that?

-PKD

Presumably because they are too barbaric to actually engage her ideas. "I can destroy it, therefore it is unimportant."

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