A review of “Atlas Shrugged”

Introduction

You have to start somewhere

I have a lot to say about this novel. Because I haven’t gotten as deep into a story as I did with “Atlas Shrugged”.

Did I like it? Yes, very much so.

Did it change my way of seeing things? Not by a long shot!

Is it perfect?

Actually, it is a very good novel, even though it has certain moments that are unbearable. When Rand spouts the endless speeches of liberalism in the mouths of some of her characters. Especially the famous radio speech that pretends to be the climax of the story, made me so bored that I had to skip it. Especially the famous radio speech that pretends to be the climax of the story, made me so bored that I had to skip it.

So, is it a boring novel?

Not at all!

The Atlas Rebellion is a masterful novel. It has a tone of suspense and thriller mixed with romance in the style of Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series. It includes many elements of Orwell’s “1984” and Michael Jhon Beashel’s “Succession”.

How is it possible to cover so much?

For its mammoth size, the novel is over a thousand pages long. Also because of her impeccable writing, Ayn Rand knew her craft. She was a first-class storyteller and way ahead of her time. Published in our times it would have been a Netflix or HBO series.

In fact, in 2012 they released the movie Atlas Shrugged: Part I, which covered the first part of the novel. I don’t know how far, because although it has many chapters, the novel is very extensive.

Unfortunately the movie received a lot of negative reviews because it “didn’t capture the essence of the novel”. But the problem is that it is not easy to determine, what is the damn essence of the novel. It is different if you take it as a dystopian story, as a love story or as a simple liberalist manifesto. It all depends on the literary or ideological side where the reader is and what he has appropriated from the novel.

The controversy

It does not leave you indifferent

Among the most acid criticisms of Rand’s novel is that of the writer, former communist and literary critic, Granville Hicks. “It is written with hatred”, says Hicks, that is true. There is a deep hatred for the values of solidarity, compassion and even Christians, especially Catholics. The novel exhales a hatred of anything that represents collectivism or socialism.

But, other famous theorists praised the novel. One of them was Ludwig Von Mises, who wrote to the author in 1958 admiring her novel, telling her among other things.

“It is a devastating exposure of the “moral cannibals”, the “gigolos of science” and the “academic chatter” of the creators of the “anti-industrial revolution.”

These conflicting opinions are due to the strong ideological charge that the novel carries, since it is a dystopia based on a collectivist world drowning the last liberalist stronghold of the planet, i.e., the United States of America.

Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia. She was an American philosopher and writer known for her Objectivist philosophy and her novels, which advocate individualism, laissez-faire capitalism and the search for rationality in human life.

Rand lived in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution, and later emigrated to the United States in 1926, where she became a naturalized citizen, hating everything the USSR stood for afterwards.

With that alone, passions are unleashed and the legion of liberalists venerate the novel as the greatest thing ever written and on the contrary the hosts of progressives denigrate it as a false and biased piece of capitalist propaganda, of the extreme right.

Very few separate the ideological aspect and focus on the novel and this is what we will try to do in these lines, leave aside the ideological bias and review the novel as a literary work.

The story

With small spoilers

The story is set in the United States of America in an unspecified future but the time is close to being between 1930 and 1950. At that time, the train is vital for industrial and commercial development. Almost all countries in the world have succumbed to collectivism and the “People’s Republics” appear as soap bubbles. Leaving only the reliable United States of America with free enterprise intact, but with a government that increasingly aims to join this nefarious current of “altruists”.

Taggart Transcontinental is a family business run by two brothers, James and Dagni, who represent polar opposites. Jim is the president of the company and Dagni the vice president of operations, but she is the heart of the company. She have a strong, indomitable, entrepreneurial, intelligent, focused and effective spirit. Unlike her brother who is more interested in collectivism and his group of friends close to the government, living at the expense of his inherited company.

Businesses in general, are being harassed by the government, with laws that seek the collectivization of income at the expense of those who generate it, the entrepreneurs, the geniuses of the industry.

The result of this is a slow and irreversible collapse of the economy that leads these indomitable spirits to “go on strike”, putting the whole system in check.

Dagni fights against all odds to keep her company afloat, despite the betrayals, attacks and attempts of looting by the government, even with the approval of her brother Jim, in her struggle shines the figure of Eddie Willers, childhood friend and faithful assistant of the young entrepreneur, for whom the train is his life.

In the midst of this, a story of forbidden love develops between Dagni and another of the great entrepreneurs, Henry Rearden, an engineer, owner and creator of a powerful metallic alloy called “Rearden Metal”, which is the object of the ambition of the “looters”, as all the collectivists of the government are called.

Other characters appear on the scene such as Francisco D’Anconia, John Galt, on the side of the entrepreneurs, Orren Boyle, Floyd Ferris, Fred Kinnan, of the looters, who contribute to the plot, maintaining the suspense and tension.

Characters

Who is who?

Her characters are not deep, but perfectly flat, as they are all archetypes, of the values that Ayn Rand exalted and those she despised, as well as showing a feeling of contempt for the middle class, as good but incapable of getting ahead without the great entrepreneurs.

On the one hand, there are the great entrepreneurs, portrayed as intelligent to the point of genius, morally unimpeachable, courageous, determined, coherent and capable of facing the worst moments with their ingenuity and fortitude to get ahead.

On the other hand, there are the “looters” who are the standard bearers of collectivism, socialism and all those “despicable isms”, as false, cowardly, perverse, useless and dependent characters of the big businessmen, who only seek to appropriate their wealth for themselves, giving the crumbs to the underprivileged.

A third group would be the “underdogs”, parasites of the entrepreneurs, they live at the expense of them and generate nothing, among them are the relatives of Rearden, the people’s republics and many who depend on the state to survive.

A fourth group would be the good workers who depend on the big entrepreneurs, but are honest, hardworking, responsible and dedicated, such as Eddie Willers, Dagni’s assistant or Gwen Ives, Hank Rearden’s assistant, all of them hardworking and efficient, but unable to create like their bosses, they would represent the working middle class.

Critic

What I liked and disliked

Again I repeat, as a dystopia, love story or thriller, I did like the novel, it is very well written and it keeps the interest except for the unbearable liberal speeches that flood it at times.

Despite being written in 1957, Rand was a long time ahead of women’s liberation and Dagni comes to be the graphic representation of the girl that Roque Dalton refers to in the poem “Reflexión ante el espejo” in the book “Taberna y otros lugares”, but I come from a third world and sexist country.

The love story of Dagni Taggart, more than a triangle is a love pentagon, which must have been scandalous at the time, but being at the end of McCarthyism, it was surely forgiven for its ideological and fully anti-socialist content, which was in keeping with the times.

The story is maintained with a fast-paced action and constant suspense, except for the eternal speeches that the protagonists release from time to time, all boring messages, but none like the aforementioned radio speech, I could not read the whole thing, I skipped the first two pages.

Honestly, in order to avoid these perorations, he should have taken Hemingway’s style when it came to lecturing, but he didn’t do it and those horrible and boring speeches are very similar to the hundreds of TikToks that swarm the social network with “The rules of success and power”, “How to be a winner and have others believe you”, “How to seduce women”, etc.

Possibly the exaggerated divinization of their favorite heroes and the excessive demonization of their hated villains robs the novel of any moral weight, yet that’s exactly why liberals love it and progressives hate it.

If there is one thing I hate the end of Eddie Willers, something that is not made clear, but is indicative of the contempt Rand felt for the common but rational man.

Eddie Willers is far more rational even than the superheroes in the novel, but the author doesn’t let him grow, doesn’t believe in him as she does John, Dagni, Francisco or Hank.

In spite of everything, I found it a great novel, with all the elements to make it a classic, taking away the ideological part, I found it an excellent read, but I think it will be all I read from Rand, because “The Spring” surely has more of the same.

If your ideological tendency dear reader is towards the right you will love the novel, but if you are a leftist you will possibly hate it, if you are just a reader beyond ideologies, you will enjoy it.

The ending of Eddie Willers cannot remain in the state Rand imposed on it, so I will soon do it justice with a fan fiction story.