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I recently started Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. From what I understand, in the US the book is viewed as a must-read for students, but it's much less known here i

• mjn 13y ago
  I don't think that one is really read in schools. We did read an Ayn Rand book in my high school (in Texas), but it was Anthem, a much shorter novella, with a more general theme of future-utopia-is-actuallly-dystopia, ending with a paean to individualism. It bears some similarities to a more recent book, The Giver, which is also popular as young-adult literature. I haven't read her other books, but from a literary perspective, Anthem has the same problem that I gather her other works have, just in miniature: there is a core of an actual novel there and it's starting to build an interesting world and characters, but then at some point it degenerates into a pages-and-pages-long non-fiction essay in Ayn Rand's voice pasted into the book, with a pretty flimsy excuse for what these pages of text are doing in a novel (I think in Anthem it's the character thinking out loud or something).
• neilbowers 13y ago
  One of the few titles on my list of books that I tell people not to read (http://neilbowers.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/book-review-atlas-shrugged-by-ayn-rand/ http://neilbowers.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/book-review-atlas...)
• jgg 13y ago
  You are horribly misinformed. Opinions or merits of the book aside, Ayn Rand is viewed as a crackpot and is generally (I'm sure there are exceptions) not taken seriously in academia, and I have never heard of any public highschool that views Atlas Shrugged as critical reading.
  • mdellabitta 13y ago
    We read "The Fountainhead," if that's anything. Doesn't mean the rest of what you said is wrong.
    • jgg 13y ago
      I definitely should have been more clear. I meant that in terms of formal philosophy, she isn't usually ranked up there with Plato, Nietzsche or Kant, and that as far as literature goes, I haven't seen too many highschools advocating Atlas Shrugged. Universities might (I'm not really sure), but even then, I'm not sure it's really regarded as a "classic." I don't think everything she has to say is bad, wrong or unimportant, even if I think she was nutty, verbose and a poor writer, but I was pointing out that she isn't nearly as important, from my perspective, as the OP claimed.
      • 001sky 13y ago
        I have never heard of any public highschool that views Atlas Shrugged as critical reading It's (been) required reading at West Point, amongst other places in the US. High-school reading lists are probably poor indicators: Plato, Nietzche, and Kant would be Atypical if not unheard of (if that is your standard). Atlas shrugged has other interesting reasons to read it, however. Its main theme is actually dealing with assholes at work. Academics are embarrased by it, because its filled with "non-collegial" behaviour. But that just means they don't get out much. Economics as a field which assumes opportunistic and deceitful behaviour are non-events. Atlas Shrugged is a great reminder of the fallacy in that. A typical Economist would consider Rand a "Crackpot", for using opportunistic and deceitful behaviour as basis for an empirical philosophy. But consider that lawyers get paid to write contracts to mitigaet the very dangers that economists assume away. Your Lawyer will tell you...never trust an Economist...theyre all crackpots and live in Ivy towers. =D As a side bar, have you actually read Nietzche? I think academics (and a few of his old landlords) would consider him more of a "crackpot" than Rand. Clearly Rand and Nietzsche have nothing in common? Perhaps other than its the lie that tells the truth.
        • FreakLegion 13y ago
          Plato and Nietzsche are far from atypical. Being two of the West's most literary philosophers, they routinely turn up in high school. Excerpts from Plato's Repulic (e.g. The Allegory of the Cave) and any of Nietzsche's aphoristic works are especially common. Academics are embarrased by it, because its filled with "non-collegial" behaviour. But that just means they don't get out much. Where on earth are you getting this? Academics celebrate texts far less collegial than Rand's. Rand's work, as literature, is dismissed because, as literature, it isn't very good. Her work isn't taken seriously or engaged with philosophically for other reasons, but propriety isn't one of them. To invoke the ancient stereotype of the "stuffy academic" is ludicrous. Academics today are probably the most open-minded, least proprietous group around. I think academics (and a few of his old landlords) would consider him more of a "crackpot" than Rand. I can't speak to the attitudes of his old landlords, but no, modern academics do not consider him a crackpot. For political reasons he was in and out of favor around the times of WW1 and WW2 (due to the misappropriation of his work by various groups, most famously the Nazis), but he's never ceased to be hugely important to continental philosophy, and Walter Kauffmann set the record straight and rehabilitated his image for the English-speaking world decades ago.
• macrael 13y ago
  A fun rebuttal to her work (I've read Atkas Shrigged twice and find her deeply flawed but still interesting in some ways) is Sewer Gas and Electric by Matt Ruff. It's very fun silly sci fi.
• dragonwriter 13y ago
  > From what I understand, in the US the book is viewed as a must-read for students Probably among members of the political faction that identifies with the author's philosophy, but among people outside of that faction not so much. It's certainly not a consensus view in the US; its far from a must-read in any practical sense, though most moderately political aware people with a college education probably are aware of it, even if they haven't read it.