The Blogg

In 25 years I have read very many books. Quite often, a novel left me wishing it were longer. Rarely, I had the wisdom to recognize that one more jot or tittle would have detracted from the mastery of a work. More rarely still, I have wished that a book were significantly shorter. Atlas Shrugged is one such book.

The problem is not the quality of writing. While I would have preferred that it were a bit more challenging, the text was quite readable, particularly for something written half a century ago. Nor was I bored by an uninteresting plot, although the dust jacket’s of its contents as an “action thriller” is laughable.

The problem is simply that so little is said in so large a volume of words. Most of Part I and all of Part III are necessary, but the majority of Part II could be compressed into 50 pages without a significant loss. The entire section consists of vignettes taken from the same template: industrialist encounters challenge, industrialist overcomes challenge, industrialist slowly realizes that challenge was symptomatic of world philosophy. Only the identity of the industrialist and the nature of the challenge vary. The 70 page didactic speech that makes up “This is John Galt Speaking” might be excusable if it had not been stated so clearly so many times earlier in the text.

Rand’s protagonists are likeable and her villains easy to recognize, but few characters are believable. Everyone in Atlas Shrugged is either fully good or fully evil. While they may struggle with how to express those characteristics, no one ever changes.

I did find Rand’s Objectivist philosophy intriguing, but only partially compatible with my own experiences. I am receptive to individualism, rationalism, non-violence, and production and creativity as the highest expression of what it means to be human. Furthermore, I am well aware and critical of corruption becoming the largest factor in decision-making and of the triumph of the inferior over the superior through marketing and “pull”. (In my industry, we call it Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.)

However, Objectivism also seems to declare that charity is evil, that a selfless act is motivated by a desire for destruction, and that unconditional love is neither possible nor desirable. Rand seems to value people based on their ethics rather than their ability, but ultimately only the geniuses are welcomed to Galt’s Gulch while men like Eddie Willers are doomed to die with the rest of the world.

A haven like Galt’s Gulch, a new beginning by a small group of like minded people set apart from the world at large, is a fantasy I’ve had myself. Curiously, in my mind such an enterprise would be highly socialist while Rand’s version is purely anarcho-capitalist.

I am glad to have read this, since it was an entertaining story told with a rather unique viewpoint, and because of its cultural significance. I do not expect, however, that The Fountainhead will make it to the top of my list for some time.

I read the version of this with annotations by Alfred Appel, and found them quite useful. The original text uses a short phrase in French nearly every other page, and to find my own translation of each of them would have been quite frustrating. Most likely, I would have simply glossed over them if I had not had the annotations. His insights into contemporary culture and slang were even more useful, as I am not sure how else I would have found them. However, the annotations occasionally exposed foreshadowing or otherwise gave away “spoilers” to the plot that I would have preferred to not know until I discovered them myself.

As for the actual text, Nabokov’s idea of framing the entire novel as memoir by a narrator who fancies himself a literary expert, complete with a foreword by a fictional editor of the manuscript, is brilliant. Similarly, his ability to cover this material in such detail without delving into the realm of pornography is impressive. With the help of the annotations, I had no difficulty following the entire text and never became bored, which is somewhat unusual for “classic” literature written 50 years ago.

There is no doubt that the material is disturbing, and that Humbert Humbert’s behavior is despicable, but I think most readers can identify with him more easily than they would like. His perversion stems from a need to recapture the unfulfilled delight of his own childhood, and who among us does not long to repeat our youth?

After my abject failure to appreciate Ulysses, I had little hope that I would find the supposed second-greatest novel of the 20th century (according to the board of the Modern Library) to be entertaining. For the most part, I found my fears to be unfounded.

Initially I had difficulty relating to wealthy New Yorkers of the Jazz Age, but found the circumstances to be mostly irrelevant. The meat of the book is the interactions and inner struggles of the characters: infidelity, love, and a helpless longing for that which has forever passed by, all timeless themes.

I generally prefer a plot with more at stake than a few romances, but I found myself drawn in by Fitzgerald’s clear but eloquent writing and the continual mystery of Gatsby’s true identity.

I am sure I missed layers of motifs and allegory that would enrich the work for a literary scholar, but it was a reasonably entertaining story in any case. I would be someone skeptical of calling it the “great American novel”, but I suppose such titles should be conferred based on a much deeper understanding than I have gleaned. Weakly recommended for anyone.

I did not find the main plot of mythology and neuroviruses to be very believable or interesting, but I still found this to be one of the most enjoyable books I have read in several years. Stephenson’s vision of post-modern franchised America is simply outstanding, and his characters are largely believable and sympathetic. To be honest, I would have been perfectly happy to read an entire book about the exploits of the Deliverator and the strange but familiar world in which he works.

Beyond the uncanny setting, I found Stephenson’s writing to be extremely accessible. A work in which significant portions explore the thoughts of the characters can be taxing, but I found that Hiro’s thought processes are quite similar to mine.

I am sure The Metaverse seemed much more interesting when the World Wide Web was virtually unknown outside academic circles than now, but it is remarkable how much Second Life and other multi-user virtual worlds have grown to fulfill the vision of Snow Crash. Some of the other technological advancements in the book, such as Y. T.’s computerized skateboard, still seem as far from reality as when the book was initially published.

The technical jargon is usually explained to the reader in the guise of Hiro discussing it with another character, but someone without any knowledge of computer science might have difficulty understanding some of the details. Fortunately, these should not be necessary to appreciate the novel.

If this is an accurate reflection of the so-called cyberpunk genre, I am sorry that I have been so slow to explore it. Highly recommended for anyone who considers themselves a hacker, and strongly recommended for science fiction fans in general.