I once dumped a guy because he told me that The Fountainhead was his favorite book. That’s what I think of Ayn Rand.
I like to think of myself as not shallow or anything, but would also dump a guy if anything by Ayn Rand was a favorite book. I wonder if all the Rand fans have really read her stuff or if they jump on the bandwagon because it’s trendy. Like the HST or Kerouac (am not a fan of either and will admit it) groupies who think they’re one of the two reincarnated or something.
(via maxistentialist)
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
I devoured The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as a teenager. (OK, I elided over the 35 page monologue or whatever at the heart of AS, but still.) As a drama student, I proposed staging her play, The Night of January 16th.
But then I also read the entire Robert Ludlum oeuvre and at 17 tried to join the Army as a prelude to working for the CIA (luckily thwarted by parents who refused to sign the consent form).
Eventually, though, I ended up studying Philosophy at UC Santa Cruz. So, you know, hopefully they’ll grow out of it.
Who are we kidding. No one has ever finished Atlas Shrugged.
