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36 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, but better to wait for the movie., 23 April 2007
Atlas Shrugged is a 1100 page(small print!) novel in which 4 or 5 people stride about like nationalistic heroes building railroads, inventing things, and being proud of it; while the rest of the world mooches off them and complain that the industrialists have too much money.
Even though I'm a liberal, I have to admit this book was interesting. It's like a dystopian novel for capitalists (God knows how many there are for socialists). The ideas are challenging and thought-provoking whoever you are, and the writing is pretty nice, Rand obviously put a lot of energy into the book.
But it's pretty clunky, the plot goes on so many boring tangents, the love scenes are ridiculous, the characters are uninteresting, and most of all it's too repetitive. A quarter of the way through the book I was already familiar with all aspects of Rand's philosophy, and I could tell precisely where the book was going, so reading it felt like a bit of a chore, especially since I never skim pages.
If you're an anti-union, hardcore capitalist then buy the book and revel in it, but if you're not, then wait for the expected movie, with Angelina Jolie coming out in 2008.
I gave this a 4 because the people who would like this would love it, and it's quite a novelty to read a writer who isn't a liberal/socialist/hedonist/romantic/bum.
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
you haven't lived if you haven't read this book, 24 Jul 2008
movie-schmovie. Read Atlas Shrugged when you're in college, when you're starting your first firm, when you're escaping the corporate world later in life... you'll get a very different experience each time. But read it you must.. sure it's long and, at times, very heavy handed. Many of the characters seem to be charachtiures to me, 30 years since my first exposure. But you haven't lived, or exercised your brain in sufficient dimenions, unless you've read Atlas Shrugged. THEN hate it or love it or simply respect it--great compelling reading, interesting philosophy and ultimately as bedrock classic 20th century literature as it comes.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good and insightful read, 15 Jul 2004
As can be seen from the reviews this is not really a book which people tend to be luke warm about (I am surprised that those who so intensely disliked it had the energy to read the whole thing). I have decided to be controversial and give this a four star rating rather than either a one or a five. The rational for my choice of rating is that although this book contains a lot of controversial and powerful ideas, it is at the expense of the book as literature. Although an interesting read the characters are very one dimensional. This is a necessary evil if one is serious about hammering home a message of what values a good person has and what values (or lack of them) a bad person has,and reinforces the books political message, but does not leave much space for character exploration. The story is interesting, and at times thrilling, and certainly I felt that I was interested in what was going to happen next. However, it is very repetitive, and in truth Ayn Rand would have done well to trim her book by a full two thirds. This would not have impaired the book's ability to convey its capitalist gospel (not a good term - I much prefer libertarian - although this is not a term favoured by Ayn Rand), would have immensely improved its literary value, and would have done us capitalists and libertarians a very great favour by expanding the potential readership circle (this hefty volume is likely to scare off all but those with an abundance of time)and thus delivering its insights to more people.One note to all those left leaning people who are not inclined to read the book on the basis that it will annoy them no end. Although this book is an unabashed endorsement of 'capitalism' in a pure form there is much else in this book which is worth thinking about. To my mind, Rand's thinking on integrity, pride, and independence are particulary powerful. Although Rand herself was scornful of anybody who would pick and choose the bits they liked of her philosophy (arguing, to my mind erroneously, that they were a unified whole) she can hardly stop us. Her writings will also tell us a great deal of the elementary basics of a market economy, and especially how, in contradiction to some of the leftwing comments on this book, pure capitalism does not lead to an anarchistic dog eat dog world, but rather to a positive sum game (assuming that we are happy with the initial distribution of capital and that nobody is forced into transactions a capitalist system will never be a zero sum game, indeed not even one 'move' in the game will have a negative sum). To see that this is the true you need only note that even in our imperfect welfare states where the free market is regulated and taxed heavily our income has grown. All in all, this is an important book and a good read, although far too long for its own good. If you are vaguely interested in the message or are curious about what all the fuss is about, but feel daunted by book's length then try 'the Fountainhead' instead. This will give you a good idea about the general thrust of 'Atlas Shrugged'.
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