Ayn Rand was born 100 years ago today, on February 2, 1905 in St Petersburg, Russia. As the daughter of a Jewish shopkeeper, young Ayn and family were pretty fortunate to have escaped straight up extermination during the communist revolution.
As it was, as a young adult she was determined to escape to America- and she did it. In the sense of really appreciating the things that made America great, articulating and defending them, she may have been the greatest American ever.
Specifically, she wrote perhaps the greatest book of the 20th century, Atlas Shrugged. This and the preceding novel The Fountainhead did more intellectually than any one other person to cut the legs out from under all forms of collectivism and cheap altruism.
This is not to say that she didn't have some personal flaws or issues, nor to say that everything that ever came out of her mouth was automatically right. I'd give her about 90%, but she definitely had some serious blindspots. "For all have sinned and fell short of the glory of God." Being a staunch atheist however, I suspect she would not have appreciated that Biblical invocation.
For being so opposed to religion though, she struck a distinctly Biblical figure. With her rough accent, and her hardline judgmental nature, she certainly had a Yahweh thing going on.
The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged definitely work as old and new testaments. Her world could be thought of as BG and AG- Before Galt and After Galt. The Fountainhead describes the fall of man through socialism, altruism and Nietzchean resentment. Then John Galt comes along in Atlas Shrugged as the savior resurrecting the very soul of mankind.
She had a lot of heart, and she fought harder and better than any other intellectual of the century. She is a truly historic figure. Here's hoping she's enjoying Valhalla.
PS Ayn Rand is #1 among the voices in my head. Specifically, she sent me a message for the anniversary of 9/11.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mike Kole
I really like the re-issues for her 100th, using the original dust cover art. I was surprised to see these in the airport bookstores last week.
2 - Nick Jones
Atlas Shrugged "perhaps the greatest book of the 20th century"? Instead of Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegans Wake? Please.
3 - Al Barger
Nick, "please" does not constitute an argument. Please elaborate on why Joyce is significant. I've never been able to read him, though I suppose I just haven't tried hard enough. What makes him important? What difference have any of his books made in the world?
4 - Mike Kole
Al- the difference between Rand and Joyce is this: people buy and read Rand and are willing to criticize her. Nobody reads Joyce, but they claim to and are willing to so vaguely praise him.
5 - Al Barger
I know that all thinking people recognize that Joyce was a great genius, a titan of literature, and pity be unto the neanderthals that could never get more than 10 or 20 pages into one of his books without snoozing.
It seems like we're supposed to take the unreadability of his "stream of conscious" schtick as proof of his genius.
6 - wally bangs
I'll leap into this greatest novel argument with this caveat - there's no arguing taste and also at some point it becomes next to impossible to differentiate between great works of art. I could easily say that Mario Puzo's Godfather is the greatest novel of the 20th century - a well written book that inspired an Academy Award winning movie and also has influenced American's views on Italian-Americans to this day (Soprano's anyone?. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is another easily namedropped epic of literature that easily trancended its fantasy genre. Al's method of claiming that Atlas Shrugged is "perhaps the greatest book of the 20th century" is entirely believable to my ears even if Ayn Rand isn't about to make any of my top ten lists, although I give her mad respect - after all; South Park even made fun of Atlas Shrugged on one episode (or maybe it was The Fountainhead).
7 - Shark
Al: "Please elaborate on why Joyce is significant."
Back atcha, babe.
Al, you marked the Centennial of your favorite author with a less than satisfactory bio and an even less satisfactory explanation of her significance!
I found THREE sentences that tried.
She "cut the legs out from under all forms of collectivism and cheap altruism" --
and "...The Fountainhead describes the fall of man through socialism, altruism and Nietzchean resentment. Then John Galt comes along in Atlas Shrugged as the savior resurrecting the very soul of mankind."
If this were a high school paper writing assignment that was to "include a short bio on Rand and a brief description of her significance to literature of the 20th century," it would probably rate a "D".
Seriously, man, have your actually read your loving homage to your favorite writer?
Surely you owe her more than this.
PS: Al, I ain't 'stalkin' you and your writing abilities, but I couldn't let your response to Nick pass without comment.
Hugs,
Shark
8 - Mark Saleski
from the cheat-sheet type things i've read about alysses, joyce didn't write in stream of consciousness so much as he made extreme use of indirect references...everything means something else, or refers to something else.
that said, i've read the first three pages about twenty times...and then i get to the part where i can no longer make sense of what's going on.
i prefer Ulysses For Dummies.
9 - Eric Olsen
I believe Joyce's strength is on a the meta level: turning language back upon itself, writing prose in the style of cubism, deconstructing narrative and replacing the objective with the subjective. I also find him virtually unreadable, however. Too much work is too much work: I'd rather sift through the layers of translated Chinese
10 - Shark
Mark, for a better version, see "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou".
It's even got great music!
11 - Mark Saleski
i thought "Oh Brother..." was the iliad or odyssey or something like that?
12 - Eric Olsen
yes, that was Homer, not Slim James
13 - JR
I thought Ulysses was the Odyssey too.
14 - Rodney Welch
It's kind of a useless argument, defending Joyce or Ulysses.
I think I might bore myself to sleep if I tried, because the arguments in its favor are almost as old and hoary as the cliches launched against it. I could give reasons why Joyce is the greatest English writer of the 20th Century and Ulysses the greatest book, but the fact of the matter is that there are truths in life you can't know until you take the plunge. You can't persuade people a book is great just by saying it is; you have to argue that case out in front of people who have at least read the damn thing. People who hate Joyce and bristle at the notion that he's a great writer tend not to have read him (although I suppose some have.) They argue from ignorance, and from an understandable distaste for the received wisom of academia. So they dismiss it based on whatever cliches they've heard, such as that no one actually ever reads Ulysses -- which is profoundly untrue -- or they refer to it as having a "`stream of consciousness' schtick," which is only part of a very large picture (as anyone who reads the first chapter will realize). Does it matter if I say the book pushes the novel further than any novel before or since, or that it employs an extraordinary multiplicity of styles, or that it imagines a great sprawling sea of humanity, or that it's constructed with an absolutely meticulous eye for physical and emotional detail? No, of course not. People say shit like that all the time. But if you read it, or re-read it, or find yourself irresistably drawn to certain immaculate chapters -- like the penultimate one, my own favorite -- you may find that these reasons and a million others will practically jostle each other as they race to the front of your brain.
15 - Mark Saleski
i've heard similar discussions about Gravity's Rainbow...which was the last book i ever forced myself to complete.
16 - Shark
Good stuff, Rodney.
Proust, anyone??
17 - Eric Olsen
I find Proust vastly more engaging than Joyce, although it has been many years for each
18 - Aaman
Proust thanks you
19 - Al Barger
Shark, your criticisms in comment #7 are duly noted and acknowledged. I liked it somewhat better than you did, but I grant that this does not amount to a particularly good introduction to Rand. I probably did a little better at this last year. I would have put more effort into it if it were for a grade.
I didn't have the inspiration for anything particularly original to say, nor the time to look for it. I mostly had in mind for this just to be a quick reminder for people who were already familiar with her. I couldn't very well let her centennial go by without some basic acknowledgement.
20 - Eric Olsen
I think Marcel could go out of his way a little more to express his appreciation
21 - Shark
Fair enough, Al.
re: Proust - an editor rejected his first manuscript, saying something like:
"I'm not sure people want to read thirty pages describing how the narrator shifted his position in bed."
Ouch.
22 - Eric Berlin
Al - Nice but brief tribute to your hero -- one gets the feeling that you rushed this one if but slightly.
Eric - Brilliant take on Joyce; it should be added to his Encyclopedia Britannica entry.
Nick - Finnegan's Wake? I think even Joyce scholars get brain-shock from that one.
My choices for #1/#2 novels of the 20th Century:
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - Stephen King
There, I've said it!
23 - Rodney Welch
"I'm not sure people want to read thirty pages describing how the narrator shifted his position in bed."
Boy was he ever wrong. The "Overture" has to be one of the most influential passages of literature ever written.
24 - SFC SKI
Cathy Young at "Reason" online did a good article on Rand, the majority of the issue in fact is devoted to Rand. It is a good look at Rand. I think "The Fountainhead" is much better than "Atlas Shrugged". I think Rand's individualistic bent also trended a bit toward elitism, as well.
25 - Shark
Rodney, I agree. As I've said elsewhere around here, Proust takes a great deal of concentration and patience -- but he's very rewarding.
Sadly, he's probably not gonna be widely read in a world saddled with an increasing ADD epidemic.