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Just Finished We The Living

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neverborn

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I didn't find it depressing, I found it immensely uplifting and liberating. When you see what destruction is wrought by statism outlined so clearly, it gives you a new appreciation for freedom and a new determination to protect it.

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I didn't find it depressing, I found it immensely uplifting and liberating.  When you see what destruction is wrought by statism outlined so clearly, it gives you a new appreciation for freedom and a new determination to protect it.

Certainly - the horror of statism and the USSR is so clearly portrayed. One of the quotes - simply for its brutal nature, showing what Communism truly is - that I like from WTL is: "One hundred thousand workers died in the civil war. Why - in the face of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - can't one aristocrat die?"

It did make me sad that Andrei and Kira died, and the last exchange between Kira and Leo...

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It did make me sad that Andrei and Kira died, and the last exchange between Kira and Leo...

Those were all the necessary consequences of the philosophy of the society they were trapped inside. The tragedy is not that they died, but in how they were forced to live; trapped in a hellish nightmare of denial and sacrifice. In the end, they were free.

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I didn't find it depressing, I found it immensely uplifting and liberating.  When you see what destruction is wrought by statism outlined so clearly, it gives you a new appreciation for freedom and a new determination to protect it.

Yeah, that's exactly how I felt. I was told it was depressing before I read it, but I didn't find the end depressing. It is the only book that made me cry when I finished it. It was not because I was depressed, but rather because I was so happy at the possibilities freedom holds. I did find Leo's personality shift depressing.

Zak

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I didn't find it depressing, I found it immensely uplifting and liberating.  When you see what destruction is wrought by statism outlined so clearly, it gives you a new appreciation for freedom and a new determination to protect it.

Yeah, that's exactly how I felt. I was told it was depressing before I read it, but I didn't find the end depressing. It is the only book that made me cry when I finished it. It was not because I was depressed, but rather because I was so happy at the possibilities freedom holds. I did find Leo's personality shift depressing.

Zak

Your replies made me realize what AR probably meant when she wrote the book. I myself was very depressed when I finished reading the book because I thought about it realistically, and became very fond of Kira. But maybe Rand, a person with a better sense of life than me, meant it in the way the posts above implied- to show how lucky Americans are to live in their freedom.

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Certainly - the horror of statism and the USSR is so clearly portrayed. One of the quotes - simply for its brutal nature, showing what Communism truly is - that I like from WTL is: "One hundred thousand workers died in the civil war. Why - in the face of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - can't one aristocrat die?"

It did make me sad that Andrei and Kira died, and the last exchange between Kira and Leo...

Of course. And me too. Sadness was precisely the emotion Rand intended. If at novel's end Kira had managed to escape and gone on to success in Hollywood, our sense of horror and outrage at the Soviet system would have been seriously undercut. Imagine how the impact of The Diary of Anne Frank would have been deflated had the story ended with Anne’s triumphant arrival in New York City on VE Day. If our girl survives, what's the problem? Suggesting that there are no unrighted wrongs induces complacency. For this reason, tragedy can be a powerful weapon for change. According to Rand’s only official biography, before Rand left Russia for the United States, she was told by an acquaintance, “If they ask you, in America -- tell them that Russia is a huge cemetery and that we are dying slowly.” The unspeakable crimes of the Soviets had not yet been fully revealed in the West. Ayn Rand’s first novel was one step in setting the record straight. The fact that the heroine is murdered in the end offends our sense of justice and adds an ironic sting to the book’s title. But intentional offense is meant to provoke action. This is Rand’s “getting even” book and is all the more powerful for that.

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Your replies made me realize what AR probably meant when she wrote the book. I myself was very depressed when I finished reading the book because I thought about it realistically, and became very fond of Kira. But maybe Rand, a person with a better sense of life than me, meant it in the way the posts above implied- to show how lucky Americans are to live in their freedom.

Lucky? Those who live in freedom without understanding it are, I suppose, "lucky" in that respect; those who live in freedom without ever needing to defend it might be "lucky". Americans are not "lucky", nor is anyone else on this planet that lives in freedom of any kind; that freedom was wrested from a million tyrants that every day try to take it away.

Freedom, like wealth, is not an accident, not a freak combination of circumstances, it is an edifice that must be built one painstaking brick at a time and then defended with all the bitter power of an uncompromising rectitude.

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Lucky?  Those who live in freedom without understanding it are, I suppose, "lucky" in that respect; those who live in freedom without ever needing to defend it might be "lucky".  Americans are not "lucky", nor is anyone else on this planet that lives in freedom of any kind; that freedom was wrested from a million tyrants that every day try to take it away.

Freedom, like wealth, is not an accident, not a freak combination of circumstances, it is an edifice that must be built one painstaking brick at a time and then defended with all the bitter power of an uncompromising rectitude.

Well, I meant the word "lucky" in a very specific way- the way in which Kira, an individualist who was born in a statist regime, is less lucky than JMeganSnow, an individualist who was born in a free country. Of course, after realizing that you can either look at it as a "present from the sky" and leave it to the anti-freedom people (the "million tyrants" or those who support them without realizing that), or you can fight to keep it; but first you have to be aware of that difference.

But I admit my phrasing was problematic.

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  • 3 months later...

I just finished the book as well, and I too came to tears at the end. Her description of the patrol gaurd, who was essentially a worthless drifter, turned my tears to anger. What right did he have to take her life? She didn't do a damn thing to him. I thought that really added to the effectiveness of the novel's end. We shouldn't just be sad at the loss of Kira's life, but outraged at why it came to pass.

There was one line in the book that I would like somebody to explain. At one point, after coming home from standing in line waiting for a job or from his business (i don't remember which), Leo kisses Kira passionately, and AR describes it by saying, "He was not a lover; he was a slave master." Now why would she describe Leo's kissing Kira in that way? If love is a voluntary relationship based on a mutual appreciation of values, why would she describe Leo as a slave master?

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We the Living was my first Ayn Rand book. I read it last summer. Even if Kira stayed in Russia without going to the Gulag a la Leo Kovalensky, she was still dead.

Andrei's death was inevitable.

P.S. Romantic Warrior, I love your avatar. Return to Forever is great, but personally I think Mahavishnu Orchestra is superior. :)

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  • 4 weeks later...

I also did not find it depressing. While it is unfortunate that those such as Kira often end up dying such horrible death, it is realistic. As WTL clearly shows, life under such a system can be nothing but a tragic struggle doomed to failure sooner rather than later.

What happens to those whom try to live in a soceity whom act on corrupt core beleifs that make life a difficult struggle instead of a joy.

And remember, even though she died, she died knowing that at least she, out of all those around her whom merely wanted to stay alive instead of truly living, tried to live life to its fullest. She had always valued life for what it truly is, instead of what communism makes it. She at least knew what it was she was losing, something those around her did not...

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  • 2 weeks later...

call me overemotional, but I swear I felt like my heart leapt out of my chest when I finished that book. The last two pages alone were heart wrenching for me. Actually, of all of Ayn Rand's writting I have read, which I've read every single one of her books except the one on capitalism, I would say that the last paragraph in "We The Living" is the one that will remain imprinted in my thoughts.

:: sigh:::

The Ayn Rand books have always been so powerful for me, I get consumed by them, and I feel overwhelmed by every sentence. I've tried to express that ever since I started posting here about 2 years ago, but either it never comes out right, or maybe people didn't feel it as intensely as I did. I know someone, somewhere did. Whenever I think of her books I always have to take a deep breath because I know that they always drain so much out of me. It's like nothing I have ever felt before. That's why I knew I had to learn all of the objectivist principles and have now incorporated them into every aspect of my life.

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