This is the book I'm reading for book club this month. It's 1100 pages so it's debatable whether I will finish it on time. It is, apparently, a classic, although I've never heard of it before. Which only means I'm hopelessly uninformed because it absolutely reads like a classic.
The forward, written by some Ayn Rand expert, mentions that she believes strongly in objectivism. I'm not sure what that entails yet, because he also warns that if you continue reading the forward it will ruin the book by revealing its surprises. So I didn't read any more of the forward. But I'm looking forward to reading it in the future because I am interested in what Ayn Rand is getting at in her book. She very obviously has an agenda. She is an excellent writer so her characters are complex enough to be real, and yet they have the box-y feel of an allegory.
So far, I disagree strongly with her seeming premise, which ,as far as I can tell, is that the only real and honest thing is industrialism. Progress. The unabashed quest for money. Her best characters belong in this camp. Her weak and pitiable characters are in the camp of philanthropy and social consciousness. And yet they aren't, because it's apparent that they only give lip service to those ideals. Truly, they desire power and money as much as the strong characters, but they are too weak to be true to the "industrial ideal" and their sin lies in the fact that they hide their jealousy and weakness behind a false "good of society" attitude.
The allegory seems to follow an Adam Smith path. Namely, "by pursuing his own interest, [the individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he intends to promote it."
In other words those who claim to promote the interest of society are hypocrites and will cause harm to society in the end. And those who openly operate on the principle of self-interest ultimately further the good of society and are the better people because they are true to their natures.
However, I am only 100 pages into the book. Which means I still have 10/11 ths of the book to read, which means that I fully expect that Ms. Rand is not so predictable that she would allow me to figure out the whole premise of the book in the first 100 pages and that I will have to change my opinion in the future.
To be continued.......
4 comments:
I can tell I'm tired because I'm having to think too hard to follow your complex and well-written partial book review. =)
I know exactly who Adam Smith is. Also, whenever I think of him, I think of two people trading bananas and coconuts on a tropical island.
wow. I think I would skip out on book club this month. :) I don't have the attention span for a book like that.
Have you read the Hunger Games? Great book. That was our last book club book.
Good luck with the rest of the book. I'm impressed that you're reading it--I think that would be one I'd skip too.
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