Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

I started reading Atlas Shrugged last week, but have only seriously begun committing time to the novel in the past two days or so; I hope to plow through a decent chunk of it before classes begin demanding the majority of my time.  So far, it’s easy to see the similarities between Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, though so far I’d say that Rand’s earlier novel did a better job of espousing philosophy through the characters.  Atlas Shrugged is certainly more overt and heavy-handed, and no one really has the appeal of Howard Roark.

I wish I had the memory and the penchant for philosophy to really remember and totally understand everything Ayn Rand has to say.  She’s a hell of a writer, even if objectivism is…well, a little crazy.  Her portrayal of society in Atlas Shrugged is already contemptuous and fucking frightening — the endless obsession with the “common good” at the expense of individualism is presented perfectly, and even though I’m perfectly aware of what a caricature it is, it succeeds perfectly in making me loathe the weaklings of society.

And I’m barely 200 pages in.  Let’s see how deep this rabbit hole goes.