Posted on 05/23/2009 7:14:53 AM PDT by Publius
Rand had a couple of influences on her dialogue that make Atlas Shrugged difficult to judge. For one thing, English was not her native language although she spoke it with a fluency that native speakers envy. On the other hand, she was a Hollywood scriptwriter - a very good one, by all accounts, used by no less than Hal Wallis (Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Gunfight At The OK Corral, Becket, Anne of the Thousand Days, etc, etc) as a "script-fixer." Serious lit cred, if you will. So I don't feel too bad applying the highest standards to her dialogue - she earned the right.
But you can tell that AS is a very personal novel to her in that her heroine now and again departs from Dagny-dom into Ayn-hood. And back again, often in the same passage. I mentioned Dagny's use of the word "syllogism" in a rather unlikely context last week - it was actually a minor departure and Rand would have gotten away with it if she hadn't ended the chapter on it, leaving it, and us, twisting in the lexical wind.
Some other minor bitches since I'm on the topic - she is inordinately fond of the word "perish," placing it in nearly everyone's mouth when the simpler "die" would have sufficed. And she is particularly fond of the word "torture," employing it to mean everything from mild psychological annoyance to electrodes...but let's not jump the gun there. That does nothing but remind the prurient among us of her sexual proclivities, and it's usually unjustified. More or less.
Now and then I catch myself thinking "Is this Dagny talking now, or Rand?" That's actually a testament to the strength of her writing - you couldn't do that if Dagny's character hadn't been developed to the point where it displays a high degree of internal consistency. That's a tough thing to maintain over the course of 1100 pages and despite my grumbling I'd be the first to admit that Rand does a pretty doggone good job of it.
Yeah. Doesn't really do much for the story (the ongoing affair with HR at least), but to illustrate something Rand had to say about sexual attraction, perhaps to justify her own legendary promiscuity. Something I believe is an impertinence and a needless distraction. The continuation of that story line might convince me I'm wrong, but I doubt it.
BTW I have caught up and I'm actually a couple chapters ahead. I picked up an audio version, which increases the time I can give to following the story. It is something like 53 hours of audio.
I never expected it to so perfectly illustrate the happenings of today.
Exactly. It's when the dialog is inconsistent with the character (and in the worst examples, inconsistent with any known human) that it feels like painting a house with a crescent wrench.
The parallels to today's events would of course be more precise in something from only 50 years ago, especially with FDR in recent memory at the time.
At the risk of sounding crude, Rand writes about sex as if she’d never gotten any...
The credit union's goal is to become self-sustaining by its fourth year, Kurz says. By definition, credit unions are not for profit, and excess income is returned to members through better interest rates and other services.
The non-profit designation may be construed as a negative but the truth is that they are more of a cooperative with profits being returned to the members. Non-profit doesn't infer giveaways. They are more in line with free market principals than the headline 'A new bank, Express Credit Union, aimed not at making profits but at helping people build financial stability' leads us to believe.
Yeah, I gotta wonder. Personally I never had much luck with the “I’m only interested in your mind, my dear,” approach. I mean, it’s almost like they heard that one before...
Funny thing is, the smart ones get INSULTED if you use that line.
:-)
I did that just to see if you were paying attention :-)
Not sure why I gigged you on it. Don’t normally play spelling police.
At least I know that my random error generator is still functioning.
Hmmm, a bank to serve the poor. Sounds like a great business model.
My wife tells me that I like to write fiction because it gives me the chance to put words into everyone’s mouths!
Bill, you mention her Christian imagery. I don’t know if this is mentioned earlier, but I can’t shake the similarity between the 3 Amigos (Galt, D’Anconia, and Danneskold) and the Holy Trinity (God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, respectively). In this chapter we see Francisco sacrificing/being sacrificed in some sense. The only one of the 3 we really see in the real world working issues is Francisco, and you certainly have the feeling that his love for Dagney is not going to end well in the end. We saw Ragnar once, but the rest of his time is spent “out there”, unseen while doing his deeds. Francisco seems to be the one suffering in a real sense for what they’re doing.
Not exact, but it’s certainly close enough that I noticed it. Kind of ironic for the Objectivist.
Hmmm. And Francisco seems almost worshipful of Galt, where Galt’s attitude toward Francisco seems more affectionate/supportive/generous, but without the abject veneration.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.