

"Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography - andrewpbrett
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books/review/Kirsch-t.html

======
adriand
I purchased and attempted to read Atlas Shrugged a couple of years ago. I
failed, because rarely have I ever come across a more tedious, sermonizing,
simplistic and unconvincing philosophical treatise poorly disguised as a
novel.

She could have distilled her viewpoint into a couple of paragraphs (it doesn't
seem particularly subtle or complex), but that would probably have made it too
easy to argue with her supporters, who can pointedly ask, "well, have you read
it?"

No, I have not. I tried and it was terrible.

For great fiction with a healthy dose of philosophy, I'd recommend reading The
Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco instead.

~~~
xenophanes
Your opinions regarding Rand are not a justification to be insulting.

I enjoyed it as a novel, and find significant parts of the philosophy
convincing, but I'm not going to fill my comment with insults that apply to
you.

What would be better than insults is arguments. You haven't given any argument
that someone who likes the book could find convincing. If you don't want to
debate that's fine, then don't. But if you choose not to converse in a way
that either side could change their mind, then you should at least be nice
about it.

~~~
JCThoughtscream
Hardly an insult, really, when the reviews of Atlas Shrugged of its
publication period got far deeper into the thesaurus to describe how terrible
the writing really is.

Besides, that's his honest reaction to the text. Why throw a fit over somebody
else's aversion to the novel?

~~~
camccann
_Why throw a fit over somebody else's aversion to the novel?_

Because it's often assumed that anyone who complains about the writing
actually dislikes the politics and is bashing the writing as a disingenuous
cover for that; and that anyone who claims to have enjoyed her novels for
their own sake is actually promoting the politics and only talking the novels
up to serve that end.

In short, debating the quality of Ayn Rand's writing as fiction is a proxy
battle for the associated politics, and we all know how _enlightening_
political debates on the internet can be.

~~~
tptacek
Respond to what he wrote, not to what you've inferred him to have thought.

~~~
camccann
To read any text is to attempt to infer its meaning. This is English, not C.

I was mostly trying to suggest that, just _maybe_ , it'd be a good idea to not
turn the whole conversation into one about politics, but apparently that's
inevitable. There seem to be a lot of people on HN whose feelings about
libertarianism (either for or against) are a core part of their self-image,
and that makes discussing anything related perilous.

See also: <http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html> and
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/>

In the future I think I'll just flag any article that mentions Rand and I
encourage others to do the same, regardless of what they think of her ideas.

~~~
xenophanes
Do you also plan to flag every article mentioning Marx, socialism, Chomsky,
environmentalism (for or against), etc, etc?

I don't think flagging is the answer. Just don't read it.

~~~
camccann
Sure, thanks for the suggestions. I guess I might give Chomsky a pass if it
was purely about linguistics and didn't involve his politics at all.

Look, I'm not out to push my politics here, if that's what you're thinking. I
read HN because of the high-quality discussions about _technology_ and related
matters. If I want to see flame wars over libertarianism, environmentalism, or
whatever else there's an entire internet full of that dreck, and the amount of
political content usually has a pretty direct negative correlation to the
quality of discussion at a site.

------
perkoff
"But Cerf offered Rand an alternative: if she gave up 7 cents per copy in
royalties, she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That
she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and
especially her life."

On the contrary, actually. The idea of artistic integrity is a _very_ central
point of her preceding novel, The Fountainhead. The book's main protagonist,
Howard Roark, is constantly refusing to compromise with his artistic vision.

~~~
xenophanes
I think it's even simpler than that. She wanted something (more pages) and she
paid for it. There's nothing even slightly uncapitalist about resolving a
disagreement by paying to get your way. It's the epitome of capitalism.

~~~
andrewpbrett
Agreed. The conclusions from the reviewer in that section didn't make much
sense to me either. I'm also glad to see that some people are actually
focusing on the content of the submission instead of the usual politics. There
are some interesting tidbits in the review (and no doubt the book as well).

------
saturnine
"... if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties, she could have the extra
paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That she agreed is a sign of the great
contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life."

Nonsense. She may just as well have concluded that adulterating her work would
have made it less potent and thus reduced its impact, resulting in fewer
sales.

That the reviewer believes conceding to accept less money in the short term
contradicts capitalism betrays his or her understanding of capitalism.

Disclosure: I've never read any of Rand's writings.

~~~
gaius
Rand's ideas are about maximizing personal freedom, with money only a means to
that end. Most of the characters in Atlas Shrugged give up fortunes that
they've either earned or inherited when they realize that holding onto them
limits their personal freedom. So there is actually no contradiction at all.

------
dgordon
"Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine
capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done. It is the act of an
intellectual, of someone who believes that ideas matter more than lucre."

I don't agree that recognizing that money is a means to an end and is not to
be put before that end disqualifies you from being a genuine capitalist, or
that being a capitalist and an intellectual are mutually exclusive. I also
don't agree with the subtle denigration of capitalism slipped in with the
synonym "lucre."

~~~
neilc
Yeah -- the quoted comment reflects a remarkable ignorance of the intellectual
content of Rand's novels.

------
fdesmet
The NYT's book review of a Rand biography seems to be little more than a
tedious, sermonizing, simplistic, and unconvincing ad hominem against Rand
herself. This is what qualifies as journalism these days?

