Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Good news (after a fashion)
On the day we remember Friedrich Hayek because of his 110th birthday, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit reminds us that his book sales are also getting a boost from President Obama and his Administration. This is probably becoming true in Britain as well, though we always lag behind our cousins over the Pond. As for Ayn Rand's novels and, in particular, "Atlas Shrugged", its growing popularity is beginning to be attested by anecdotal evidence as well as sales figures.
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What anecdotal evidence do you speak of?
ReplyDelete-Roberto Sarrionandia
The usual kind: conversations with people, overheard remarks and so on. The real evidence is presented by numbers of books sold and position on Amazon but I always find it of some interest when people start talking about particular books or writers.
ReplyDeleteThank you for responding. I too find it interesting, I aim to prolong it.
ReplyDeletewww.prometheusinitiative.org.uk
-Roberto Sarrionandia
Sounds a great initiative. I shall check back periodically and link to interesting stories. While I agree with Rand's analysis of what is going on, I find her writing rather heavy going. I wish you luck and hope you will spread the word far and wide.
ReplyDeleteThank you Helen.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious, if you don't mind me asking, about what you find heavy going, Rand's fiction or her non-fiction?
I can get through the non-fiction, though after the third essay I usually realize that she is repeating herself. But the fiction is hard going. That's not to say she is wrong, especially in her analysis - the solutions I may have problems with.
ReplyDeleteInteresting - I find that the fiction flows, and I've never integrated so much in so short a time than when I first read Atlas Shrugged.
ReplyDeleteI am unsure what you mean by solutions. Do you refer to her political conclusions, as outlined in "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"?
Don't think I've read that. I was thinking more of the rather dubious worship of the strong that is so obvious in "Atlas Shrugged". I am afraid Chambers was right.
ReplyDeleteReally? I'm not completely convinced that Chambers read the novel. If he did - his review was merely a terrified stab in the dark.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5069
Michael Berliner sets the record straight.
As for hero worship - I hold that it is a profound good. However, it is important to stress that the hero worship in Atlas Shrugged is a literary device, a contextual concretisation of an abstract concept- not a set of one-liners and actions to intrinsically emulate.
Rand wrote:
"The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man’s highest potential and strive to actualize it. . . . [Man-worshipers are] those dedicated to the exaltation of man’s self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth."
Ayn Rand, Introduction to The Fountainhead, The Objectivist, March 1968, 4.
It has been very easy for Rand's opponents to take a scene from her fiction, such as the infamous sex scene in The Fountainhead, and portray her as somehow cultist, or dogmatic. All such opponents are guilty of context dropping.
I love the way all Randoids change the language as soon as the Heroine is even slightly criticized. :)
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