June 18, 2013
Here we go: this one is definitely not a book that I ever planned on reading. For one thing, it is really really long: 1168 pages in the edition that I read, by far the longest book I've ever taken on. I finished it pretty quickly, too, considering how long it took me to read other, not-quite-as-long novels. I have had more free time lately, with summer started. My morning classes prevented me from getting a full-time job this summer, and I'm not working daily at my side jobs (thank God for that end-of-year sub job; haven't even gotten the last paycheck for that one), so that's left quite a bit more reading time in my schedule than before. But also, I kind of just wanted to get this one out of the way.
You see, the length alone wasn't the cause of my hesitation, but rather what my understanding was of the author's political stance. Ayn Rand was discussed a bit during the last round of elections (try and guess who I voted for), as she was cited by Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan as being a major influence, even requiring his staff to read her work. From what I understood, she had endorsed having as little government as possible, and would have been vehemently opposed to the social programs of today. Quite contrary to many of my views. But that's what made me decide to pick it up, I think; I can't really form an argument against something if I don't make an attempt to understand it.
There was a part of me, as I started reading, that wanted to kind of ignore Rand's political views, and just take the story for what it was. But I figured out pretty quickly that Rand's work was a means of communicating her political views. Her "political philosophy" is something called Objectivism, and that's what is promoted through this story. I'll sort of unravel and express my views on my understanding of this philosophy as I go along here. I haven't done any further reading beyond the novel itself, though there is an active institution running today with the goal of spreading her message, I guess. I don't really feel like delving too much more into it; 1168 pages is enough, don't you think?
But behind her political message, there is a very interesting story. It should be understood that the novel is set in some sort of not-too-futuristic America (I found myself thinking of it more as an alternative universe past, since technology had not extended too far beyond what was around in the '50's, besides the fictional innovations from the characters themselves). The world's economy is falling apart; most of the other countries, including all of Europe, have become Communist people's states. Some details are given about the living conditions there; basically, it sounds like what was going on during this time in China, during Mao's "Great Leap Forward"; people being forced to work on communal farms, starving to death, cut off from the rest of the world. America, basically the last country standing, is starting to collapse in on itself. But at the start of the novel (which spans about four years), business is mostly running as usual.
Dagny Taggert is the Vice President of Operations at Taggert Transcontinental, the railroad company founded by her ancestor Nat Taggert, whom she admires for the fact that he was a pioneering businessman, an early industrialist who didn't let anything stand in the way of his goals. Being a woman in power, people are respectful but wary of her. Her brother James, who ineptly runs of the company (though it is really his sister who competently runs the show), is very different from her. He is more eager to save face with his business allies and his buddies in Washington than in actually making decisions that will keep his company running smoothly. Dagny, in contrast, is passionate about the railroad, has been since she was a child, and wants to see it continue to progress. Her common sense manner is a stark contrast to her brother's whining excuses, as at the beginning of the novel, they argue over the fact that she has ordered steel for new rails from a reliable supplier, Hank Rearden, whom James has a grudge against...plus, he's afraid of upsetting his friend, another steel manufacturer named Orren Boyle, though his order for steel through Boyle's company has been stalled for over a year. James is prone to passionate fits of anger when he is asked to explain his reasonings, to have any sort of reason at all. His constant cry through the novel is "I can't help it!"
That seems to be the problem with most people in the country. They don't want to take responsibility for anything. In general, they don't want to think or look for answers to questions. A popular bit of slang, in response to a hopeless question, is the response, "Who is John Galt?" (They all soon find out the answer to that one). People like Dagny and Rearden are forced to shoulder the burden...and are often met with scornful resistance at that. Still, for a while, Dagny and Rearden, and others like them, are able to keep things progressing, even as the country is beginning to fall apart.
The love story between Dagny (who hasn't had a lover since Francisco d'Anconia, her childhood friend and the heir of a huge copper mining company, who seemed to have given up his dreams to become a hard-partying playboy...but instead has been trying to lead a doomed America to its final ruin) and Rearden (who is married to Lillian, a conniving bitch who aims to ruin him) drew me in. I like the character Rearden. He, along with Dagny and Francisco, are basically the three main characters of the first two parts of the text. Unlike the other two, Rearden did not inherit a company (though Dagny and Francisco, in their younger years, both tried to "earn" their places in their respective family companies); he began working as a child in a mine in Minnesota, and worked hard with only one purpose: to make money. Nothing wrong with that, though his family (who live off his fortune) have scorned him. I felt bad for him, during the scenes of him at home with his mother, wife, and brother, who are all tearing into him for doing what he loves and making a lot of money doing it (again, while they live off of his generosity). I found myself wondering: a man of so much power and dignity, why would he put up with that in his own home? I felt like he deserved to find love, and I thought that he and Dagny were a good fit. Together, they introduce his innovative Rearden Metal (some alloy that he and his scientists created, literally a super-metal) to a more-than-reluctant market when they lay it out on a new track in Colorado, which is newly bustling with industry. In defiance of people who scorn progress and don't seek answers, Dagny called the new track the John Galt Line (much to Francisco's understandable horror).
As the people in Washington and the businessmen who are in line with them set strict policies and restrictions on various industries, in blind response to the struggling economy in the country (these policies, being very short-sighted, are only to appease the beneficiaries temporarily and to gain public support), various prominent and competent businessmen (and people in other professions) begin disappearing. In fact, while it's been happening for several years already, it really begins to pick up as conditions worsen and the government's hold on businesses tightens. Dagny is frustrated as she sees men that she deals with and admires slipping away, leaving their various industries abandoned and worsening the conditions in the country. She and Rearden struggle on. She is driven by the hope of keeping her railroad running, though her brother seems to be doing everything in his power to stop it, and even as she loses competent men from the inside. The people in power, those that she was opposing, were just so freaking stupid, she was very easy to cheer on. She's also driven by a mission: first, to discover the inventor of a highly innovative motor that she and Rearden find in an abandoned auto factory in Wisconsin; later, to at least find someone with the skills to figure out how the motor works, as it was left without any of its plans, and was basically a pile of junk at that point (though she knew it for what it was). Her struggle is fascinating, as is Rearden's; first, he can't find a market for his Metal; then, when people finally see how incredible it is, there are so many demands for it that the government makes many attempts to get the rights to it...and finally succeeds by blackmailing Rearden, threatening to expose his affair with Dagny to the public, ruining her reputation. His own scheming wife and Dagny's brother were the ones who gave the government the information.
Dagny is also determined to find "the destroyer," the person who is behind the disappearances of the most important people in the country. Francisco is in on it, but it is the legendary John Galt himself who is running the show. Part two ends with her in hot pursuit of "the destroyer" (whom she had not yet met) as he takes away the competent young man that she'd hired to figure out the secret of the motor. Her plane crashes in wild Colorado, right in the valley where all these prominent people are living happily and hiding out. That's the start of part three.
Now, that's when things get a bit strange in this novel. Up to that point, I was rooting on Dagny and Rearden. Then, John Galt comes onto the scene. Now, I could see for a mile that he was Eddie Willer's silent friend in the terminal cafeteria, and that he was the one who built that miraculous motor. What I was not expecting was Dagny's reaction to meeting him, and I found myself getting very pissed off (to the point that I even gritted my teeth and shook my Kindle Fire as I cried, "What about Hank???"). Here's basically how the whole love-square between Dagny and these men plays out as of part three:
Dagny: John Galt? Whoa...my sworn enemy, but...damn, he's gorgeous! And so smart...baby, you are the man of my dreams. I want to fuck you so bad, I can't even sleep at night knowing you're in the next room. Hank who?
Galt: I've been stalking you for the last decade, Dagny.
Dagny: That's hot.
Galt: But I can't sleep with you until you agree to join our cause. Oh, wait, never mind, let' s just have sex under the Taggert Terminal, I know you like it kinky.
Francisco: Yeah, she does. Oh, yeah, even though I've been wanting Dagny back for the last twelve years and never even slept with any of those other women, I'm gonna let John take this one.
Rearden: By the way, I'm totally cool with this, too. John Galt is damn sexy. Besides, Francisco and I are totally gay for each other.
Francisco: He's the only man I've ever loved.
So Rearden and Francisco aren't exactly gay (that could be interpreted, but Rand was pretty homophobic, so that probably wasn't her intention...unless it was subconscious, of course...), but the rest of it sums it up pretty accurately. I didn't like Dagny very much after that, as she went through the rest of the novel all moony-eyed over Galt. When she returns to New York from the hidden valley of self-righteous greed, she does make attempts to run the railroad (though conditions have gotten extremely bad at this point...so much so that the opposing side looks dangerously ridiculous), but is mostly obsessed with getting back with Galt, though she's not quite ready to join their strike. Galt makes a speech over the airwaves of the country...a fucking speech that goes on for 60+ pages. Yeah, 60+ pages of one guy talking. I can sum up those sixty pages here: Every social view that you've ever been taught in your life is wrong. You are a human being, so you need to use your brain. Don't live off of others; make your own way. And don't let others take advantage of you.
Galt's speech sends the country into chaos. Violence erupts everywhere. The leaders, including the Head of State Mr. Thompson (there is no President mentioned in the novel...also, this "Mr. Thompson" is never given a first name), are eager to get in touch with Galt and have him fix the problems that they have created. Horny Dagny leads them right to his front door, and he is taken prisoner. In the luxurious hotel suite where he is held captive, he refuses to help the country's leaders. They finally resort to torture, but he is saved by Dagny, Franscico, Rearden, and Ragnar Danneskjold (who became an infamous pirate rather than use his brain to serve an oppressive country), and they all flee to the hidden valley to watch the country destroy itself...before returning to rebuild it, their way.
So Rand uses this extreme dystopian setting to get her political points across. And while the ideas of her characters make sense (even though these "Objectivists" do tend to go on and on...I thought Francisco himself was a windbag until I got to that John Galt speech), this is in contrast to their opponents, who contradict themselves constantly, who fly into fits of rage at the drop of a hat (while the Objectivists are always cool, calm, and collected), and who are usually described as being physically ugly (fat, or hunched over, or greasy...what have you; the women on this side are either "tasteless," or fatties without properly supportive bras); on the other hand, those cool Objectivists always get their point across (even if they go on and on and on in doing so...there's something to be said about being succinct), and they're also extremely good-looking. Dagny is beautiful, of course, while her brother is a balding, hunched-over mess; John Galt is literally described as being a bronze-haired Greek god, while Orren Boyle is a big fat turd. It's so simple in Rand's world; what about when the enemy has a handsome face, and when he is a good talker? What then?
That aside, there were points that Rand brought up that I agree with, not just in a political sense, but in a personal sense as well. There was also plenty that I did not agree with. Here's a list of the points valued by Rand, that I happen to agree with:
-People need to be competent in their professions. That's pretty common-sense stuff right there. If you have a job, DO IT.
-Don't spend (or consume) more than you have! That's how debt is created...a major problem in America today.
-The mixing of private industry and politics is dirty business. It was so in the novel, and what scared me most about it was that those sort of dirty dealings are going on constantly in our government today...and none of it means good news for me, I know that much.
-Irresponsible lending (whether by banks or institutions, or from one individual to another) leads to trouble. We saw that very clearly with these bank bail-outs of just a few years ago (and again, this idea that a company is "too big to fail"...says who?). Those kind of bail-outs reminded me exactly of the kind of desperate policy-making going on in the novel. That really spoke to me, for sure.
-Nobody owes you anything. It is each person's responsibility to go out and make his or her own way. That's been a driving idea in my personal life.
-Own up to your responsibilities and your actions! People in the novel were afraid of making important decisions, because they did not want to suffer the consequences. Dagny was not one such person; she was always willing to take the fall, as long as she could get done what needed to be done. I feel like a lot of people today are afraid in this same way; if they act, they'll have to be held responsible for those actions, and wouldn't it be safer just to NOT act and let others take the fall? That's a very dangerous attitude...
-You have a brain...USE IT!
-Be up-front with people. I agreed with that and admired that trait in the protagonists, and found the way that the antagonists avoided actually answering any straight questions to be more than annoying.
-It is moral and necessary for the societies and institutions of man to progress.
But there are just as many things that I do not agree with Rand on:
-Rand's views on public education, as expressed in the novel, are very negative. As an educator, I certainly don't look at education being an evil institution poisoning the minds of youth. I do think that education needs to be reformed, in a progressive way; make the learning in the classrooms, and the way that classrooms are run, reflect the real expectations of the outside world. I feel like traditional classrooms really aren't preparing our children for the 21st century, and major budget cuts on education (which Rand would definitely support, as she was in favor of completely eliminating income taxes) aren't helping in that regard. But evil? That's very extreme.
-As I just mentioned, Rand did not believe in income taxes. She believed that government should be stripped down to courts, police, and army...and that's basically it (as proposed by Galt in the novel). Um...and where did she suppose the money would come from to pay these employees? And what about the other services that the government provides...like road maintenance? She certainly would want to dismantle all other public institutions, like welfare, and would be staunchly opposed to public health care, which, as I wrote in a previous posting, I support. I don't mind putting in my share to make sure I have these things...because I need them! Because I use the roads, and if I'm paying in to public health care, I know that I'll get what I'm paying for when I need it (again, if Canada can make it work...). Her views in this regard was very simplistic, and not even in Galt's 60+ page rant did he explain why this would be a viable form of government.
-Galt and the others on his side support looking out for one's own best interest. I agree, but I also think that we do need to look out for our fellow man. Charity is important, just so long as people remember that charity begins in the home, and that they aren't sacrificing themselves in order to help others...which is what Galt and his friends are really against, anyway.
-Rand's theory seems to simple: if you work hard enough, you'll be as successful as you deserve to be. The people who don't succeed are just whiny little bitches, anyway (and the failures in this novel certainly are). Again, very simplistic. What about minority races (who are not even mentioned in this novel, not at all)? There are many complex sociological factors that keep Indians on the rez, or blacks in the ghetto. What about them? It's not so simple when you stack up her ideas against the real world.
There were times, especially as the Objectivist characters went on and on, that I wanted to roll my eyes and tell them to just shut up. But for the most part, I enjoyed the story (though Part Three got pretty ridiculous). I don't feel that this book was a waste of my time; I'm glad that I read it, but I'm glad that I'm done with it, too. Rand got to be a bit much at times, and I was overloading myself on reading almost every day just to get done with it. A couple of "fun" books are in order...
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| The famous Atlas statue in New York. It is often used as a symbol for people who embrace the philosophy of Objectivism. Francisco's explanation of the novel's title was entirely unnecessary, by the way... |
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| I don't think that the person who created this silly Valentine quite got the essence of Rand's ideas, but it's still silly. |
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