Category: Sisyphus Winced

I find myself being tempted by Rand’s philosophy. I do think her obsession specifically with money, though, is too simplistic. Also, anyone who claims to love Atlas Shrugged and then proceeds to praise Bush over Obama has read a different book than I. More after the summary. Chapter summary: Hank’s wife discovers his affair, although…

The man up in the tower was enjoying the show. — Planet P, “Why Me?” Chapter summary: Most of the action of this chapter takes place at Jim Taggert’s wedding reception. The highlight is a monologue by Francisco on money not being the root of all evil. There are also confrontations between Dagny and Jim’s…

It’s not Rand’s fault that the title of this chapter evokes not one but two David Bowie references, both of which come well after Atlas Shrugged and probably neither of which is related. Regardless, though, for the time being when I think of Hank Rearden, my mind sings, “You’re face… to face… with the man…

One reason I wanted to post (if possible) after each chapter was that I figured it would keep me motivated to keep reading if there were evidence of my progress. Another reason is that it keeps me honest, so when I finish the book, I can’t pretend I had different opinions as I progressed than…

I’m not sure if it’s my commitment to try to be more pleasant towards the book, or if this chapter was genuinely better than the previous one. Either way, it was a more positive experience. Chapter summary: Taking up where we left off in the last chapter, Dagny and Hank have an, um, discussion about…

Reflecting on the tenor of my summations of the last few chapters, it occurs to me that perhaps I have been less generous to Atlas Shrugged than I had originally intended to be. It is, after all, merely a book; perhaps Rand had meant it in the same way that Rearden had meant his metal,…

Egocentrism abounds. When the first page of a chapter is an entire dialog, as in, involving two people, and there’s no telephone involved but we only get one person’s words and the other person is identified solely as “the worker,” well, we shouldn’t expect much balance to the perspectives presented. Chapter summary: As the train…

What a whiny chapter. More after the summary. Chapter summary: It’s Dagny and Hank against the world. Dagny oversees the construction of the rail line. There’s a bridge that needs to be remade; her engineer tells her to just fix it for now and replace it later because it would too expensive to replace now,…

Ayn Rand is an odd lover: First she begins to seduce me in chapter 5, then she spits in my face for most of chapter 6, and then she bats her eyelashes coyly at me again. Chapter summary: The Reardens have an anniversary party to which they have invited a rogues gallery of guests, including…

I end my first week’s reading assignment finally feeling a bit like I’m not reading a pig in a poke. However, the first half of the chapter makes me wonder if Rand wouldn’t have been helped with a bit more editing, although she strikes me as the type to not be very enthusiastic about that….