Posted on 03/14/2015 8:04:26 PM PDT by don-o
In a letter dated May 31, 1960, Flannery O’Connor, the author best known for her classic story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (listen to her read the story here) penned a letter to her friend, the playwright Maryat Lee. It begins rather abruptly, likely because it’s responding to something Maryat said in a previous letter:
I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.
The letter, which you can read online or find in the book The Habit of Being, then turns to other matters.
O’Connor’s critical appraisal of Ayn Rand’s books is pretty straightforward. But here’s one factoid worth knowing. Mickey Spillane (referenced in O’Connor’s letter) was a hugely popular mystery writer, who sold some 225 million books during his lifetime. According to his Washington Post obit, “his specialty was tight-fisted, sadistic revenge stories, often featuring his alcoholic gumshoe Mike Hammer and a cast of evildoers.” Critics, appalled by the sex and violence in his books, dismissed his writing. But Ayn Rand defended him. In public, she said that Spillane was underrated. In her book The Romantic Manifesto, Rand put Spillane in some unexpected company when she wrote: “[Victor] Hugo gives me the feeling of entering a cathedral–Dostoevsky gives me the feeling of entering a chamber of horrors, but with a powerful guide–Spillane gives me the feeling of listening to a military band in a public park–Tolstoy gives me the feeling of an unsanitary backyard which I do not care to enter.” All of which goes to show that Ayn Rand’s literary taste was no better than her literature.
ping
Too bad the world has grown so ugly, or this would have been a hoot.
Rand ping.
I liked Tolstoy’s “War - What is it Good For?”
The economist Murray Rothbard was a friend of Ayn Rand’s until she chastised him for having a Christian wife.
Rand— Great ideas. Lousy writing....
Totally agree. Rand treated deep concepts with unidimensional characters.
Exactly....
Ayn Rand as serious literature is quite weak, but “Anthem” alone can put as much interest in a young reader as “Ender’s Game” or “Starship Troopers.” “Atlas Shrugged” was a decent read, but not canonical. I did like “The Fountainhead” the most though.
She doesn’t do well with having a voice, but her characters are interesting and have life, and her message is very important. Flannery should consider, however, that Ayn was not born into English. She also was more of a philosopher than a novelist - you ever read Faulkner’s poetry? Nah, I didn’t think so.
In 1960, The Fountainhead was THE book to read on campus. Its popularity would have caused a great deal of concern to those who had so little use for Rand’s philosophy, regardless of her writing style.
“I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail.”
Ho ho ho! Pretty good insult.
“War - What is it Good For?”
You left out the HUH!
"Many who have read the book, or at any rate reviewed it, have found it to be absurd, boring, or contemptible, and I have no reason to complain, since I have a similar opinion of their work, or the kind of writing they evidently prefer."
There is ultimately nothing so juvenile as arguing over taste. Personally, I much prefer Rand's essays to her fiction and find O'Connor genuinely execrable in all her forms.
Yuri Testikov! Now there was a writer!
Jake Jarmel! I see you've finally learned how to use exclamation points appropriately!
Rand ping.
Where did you get those frames??!!
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