Saturday, September 28, 2013

Atlas Shrugged Book Club

At The Atlantic - I'm sorry I missed this when it first came out.

Interesting that in the first installment I agree most with a self-described conservative:
As I began reading, my first thought was that Atlas Shrugged was quite like a comic book. The characters were broadly and boldly drawn. They gave you their essence almost immediately. Virtuous characters and things are described as being angular, made of straight lines, tall, and long. The "shape of" Dagny's "mouth clear cut, a sensual mouth." Unvirtuous characters, like her brother, have "shapeless apprehension" or "muscles evading the responsibility of a shape." But by the end of the fourth chapter I had the disturbing thought that I had been reading a parody of an Ayn Rand novel. I double-checked.
I think its similarity to a comic book is exactly what keeps it popular. It's just as simplistic a tale of good and evil as any super-hero comic books, but the super-heros don't fly around (unaided) or have super strength, just super business competence, which makes it seem realistic to many.