Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reviews Reviewed and Critiziced, 10 May 1999
By A Customer
After reading several on-line reviews of Ayn Rand's books at Amazon.com, I come to realise that there are the two usual categories of people doing the reviewing: the one's who love her ideas and the one's that hate them. Fine with me, but why can't the people who hate her give any other arguments that she is 'fascist', 'dangerous' or 'takes a strong grip on her readers'? Fascist - she is not (look up a definition of fascism in any dictionary), dangerous - for whom?, and the 'grip' she delivers is a positive sense of life and that, of course, captures a lot of people. I believe that Mats Landstrom (from Sweden) and others with him should try to ask themselves what it is that they 'hate' about Ayn Rand and when doing so they will hopefully reach an answer about themselves (or of their psyche), and how they see life. Then they (hopefully) could give any reasonable, authentic 'arguments' why they dislike Ayn Rand - instead of all the predictable, untrue, and highly non-personal views. Thanks for listening to my words. Think about them.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An astonishingly clear manual for writers of fiction, 11 May 1999
By A Customer
I'm an aspiring writer. I also like Ayn Rand enough to be considered a "randroid" (love it, and props to whoever came up with it) by some. However, that aside, reading the Romantic Manifesto was truly a life changing experience. Her fiction has inspired me on many levels, but I would not say they have been life altering. However, this book, this manifesto, has shown me, in easy to understand terms, what makes good fiction, and what kind of art I want to participate in. So much of the crap that is held in esteem at my university is utterly nonintelligible. Why? Great ideas can have simple explanations. That is, I think, Rand's greatest gift. Passionate simplicity. The Romantic Manifesto contains within a blueprint for writers, a blueprint that I already carried in my heart and in my head, but lacked the words to put to paper. For the first time, I'm truly proud of what I write, and I know where it will take me. Thanks Ayn. Any aspiring writer of fiction should read this.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A defense of Romanticism, 6 Dec 2008
I came to this book as a new student of Objectivism, having read her novels and having a great interest in the Arts. I found this book to be incredibly good, as it provided a defense of Romanticism in the same way 'Atlas Shrugged' and 'The Fountainhead' were a defense of Man. She provides a philosophically reasoned position for exactly why Romantic art is different from any other kind of art, and why it is the most proper style of art.
The way she can bring together metaphysics, epistemology, morality with Art is astounding. She explains how good art expresses the importance of man's ability to make choices, and the consequences of his choices, and how bad art - such as naturalism - undermines choice, by making man a helpless pawn whose life is merely moved about by external forces. She shows the exact method by which art functions, philosophically, by appealing to the philosophical nature of man - and why, therefore, a man's philosophy is reflected in the art he creates.
I simply cannot do this book justice in a review - I am not a good writer, but Ayn Rand is, and I highly recommend you give this book a read.
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