[r9etb]

I have never read it before!

Let me boil it down for you:

All the good guys have neat names, are beautiful, smart, and enjoy violent sex (which they consider to be a philosophical statement). They have no apparent sense of humor, but do seem to enjoy venomous discussions of money and cigarettes. Everything they do is perfect. They can and do invent calculus at an early age.

The bad guys have awful-sounding names. They are rather shapeless, stupid, greedy, and envious in nature. They are liver-lipped, have ugly, watery eyes, and if they are female they wear things like knee-socks. Sex (if they have it) is apparently based on mutual loathing. Nothing they do ever works, except somehow they have always been able to outsmart the smart people.

To be honest, I used to think it was a great book. I read it about 10 times. Halfway through #11, however, I realized that it is not a great book at all. It's dull. Its characters are charicatures, and not very good ones, at that. Ayn Rand's ideas about sex are simply ludicrous.

For a classic review of the book by Whittaker Chambers, go here. It's about half-way down the page.

[MeekOneGOP]

I read Atlas Shrugged in late 1971, during my Senior Year in High School.
I read the Whittaker Chambers review linked in #18, and it was pretty unflattering of Atlas Shrugged.
I would say, if given the choice between reading it, or taking the reviewers advise, I would read it.
In fact, being so long since I read it, I probably ought to pick up a copy myself and read it again.....

As you probably already know, Ayn Rand was Russian born, and loathed the communists.
That is why she is so bitter toward them in her writing.

[HairOfTheDog]

You read it 10 times and on the 11th time decided it was dull and shallow? Does that strike you as just a bit funny? - Sounds like a good book... Thanks for letting me know I should stop at 10 times.