Ping! The thread has been posted.
Earlier threads:
Our First Freeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged
FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Theme
FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Chain
FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Top and the Bottom
FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Immovable Movers
FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Climax of the d’Anconias
Can you add me to your ping list, please?
I’m so glad you’re doing this.
— Jane
Please add me to your ping list. Thanks! (don’t know the rules, but I have read the book, just last summer)
Add me to the list, too, please. Thanks
Fabulous job.
In a proper world, I’d have had you as a Literature teacher when I was a freshman instead of the jerk that I actually had.
Wasted a semester reading “important” black authors.. I put fiction down for 15 years and determined never to read another “important” book.
Could you add me to your ping list? Thanks in advance : )
Is this party where Francisco delivers his "money" speech? I think that speech is more important than the much longer speech delivered later in the book.
I believe the basic lack of understanding of money... more precisely wealth... is the root of liberal thinking and their misguided policies.
ping
I'm going to take the wearing of the diamond band in a different way
I'm not so sure it equals sex, but I think it is a symbol for the old society and the unnecessary adornment of greatness. In a society where the outward is prized and true goodness of character is disguised, jewelry, clothing, one's residence become the way to indicate that one is 'better' than another. Reflect back to the significance of the chain Hank created. It wasn't necessarily beautiful or valuable by traditional mores, it was valuable because of what it symbolized -- it symbolized the future.
When Dagny trades her diamond band for Lilian's bracelet of Reardon metal, she makes an important step down her own path - she trades an item of traditional value for one of the new values - the value of hard work.
Hank at this point becomes kinder to Lillian because it is at this point he falls in love with Dagny, but he will feel he is bound by the old ways and will not want to leave Lillian and thus violate his bond to her he made in the past. This internal struggle will have to be reconciled, and this type of struggle is not reconciled cleanly. The society of Altas Shrugged is clearly one in transition.
When Lillian and Dagney trade the diamond band for the Reardon metal, they each seal their own fate. One will remain in the past, one will belong to the future
Unfortunately for the artist, the ultimate patron of the arts is time. In the past, artists had to win patrons. There were some people who knew good stuff when they saw it and others who simply had money and no taste. Now I sit here listening to Mozart, next to a poster of my favorite Van Gogh painting because time kept their work alive. There were probably plenty of not-so-good artists who were popular in eras past, but not good enough to the long haul.
Government sponsorship of art has damaged good art because government has an agenda and everything must be filtered through it. 100 years from now, I can't imagine that anyone will spend a chilly afternoon listening to a symphony inspired by AIDS sufferers next to a poster of the piss Christ. But I bet ol' Mozart and VVG will still be around.
The product of industry has a much shorter path to success than art. A great product can make a near immediate impact on the world. And the government can screw that up just as quickly.
In this chapter, we end up just as baffled over Lillian as Hank was - what does she want? What is she after? I agree that she really does seem to hate her husband. Yet all these people at the party are mostly her friends and she is receiving attention and admiration from her most trendy group of guests.
can you add me as well to this list?
Jenny
Ping to Post #2 that has all the links.
It's now time to increase the priority of bringing Atlas Shrugged to the big screen. In listening to Rush Limbaugh's diatribes, I think he is perfect to play the John Galt character.
I'd like to see a series of political cartoons illustrating how private businesses and entrepeneurs represent the engine of the economy (such as a train engine), with the engine pulling a few passenger cars partially filled with passengers as in a few years ago, and the times today showing thousands of individuals jumping onto the train and the engine bogging down because it can't support the load. Another, where it's a ferry boat, and thousands of individuals jumping onto the boat at the dock, causing it to sink.
That's what's really happening. In my opinion, those who don't acknowledge it are either really ignorant or they must have an agenda to actually make it happen.
Here's what Nikita Khrushchev said: I once said, "We will bury you," and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.
We're well on the way to fulfilling Khrushchev's prophecy.