Remember Francisco standing up for Hank Rearden at the party of one percenters? His speech seemed to have gone on for 10 pages. No party gets that intense. The author however really got into the subject. It explains why the book is 1100 pages. How many writers are so good that they can keep your attention throughout? I dedicated 2 hours every morning after a 5 mile walk to reading it. Took a month. Determination all around-author + reader.
The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide– as, I think, he will.“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other–and your time is running out.”
Awesome book and I loved Fransisco’s speech. A 10 page lecture I can absorb. 60 pages plus for a single speech I just can’t suspend my disbelief. If I can read a 1100 page novel, it is not the length of the read that bothered me. It was the incoherent rambling and pointlessness of the speech. Make your points already. Tells us what you are going to tell us. Then tell us. Then tell us what you told us. I already knew John Galt’s basic philosophy up to that point. It did not need to be be-labored in a 60 page speech. It was the only BAD thing in the entire novel.