Posted on 06/13/2009 7:47:47 AM PDT by Publius
Synopsis
John finds Dagny awake and tells her he needs to re-calibrate the cloaking device. Dagny asks for her cane and tells him she will have his breakfast ready by the time he returns. While Dagny works in the kitchen, she is interrupted by a blonde Norseman, who upon John’s return, is introduced as Ragnar Danneskjøld.
Dagny serves breakfast, making sure that John does not help. She discovers that she is Francisco’s stand-in at the annual June 1st breakfast at Galt’s Gulch; Francisco hasn’t arrived, and no one knows why. Ragnar says he came very close to recruiting Hank Rearden, but John tells him to shut up in Dagny’s presence. She wants to know, but Ragnar follows orders. Ragnar tells of a flight carrying a huge amount of gold to the Mulligan Bank, to include gold credited to Dagny, and she hears a long lecture on the logic and methods used to calculate her golden refund. She is astonished to find that Ragnar is married to Kay Ludlow.
Upon Ragnar’s departure, Dagny decides not to accept the gold, but John tells her that a certain small portion of it will be deducted for her room and board. In staying for a month until her injuries heal, Dagny decides to work for her room and board by becoming John’s maid and cook.
Owen Kellogg arrives three days later and is shocked to see Dagny. He tells her that the world thinks her plane has crashed and that she is dead. He honored his pledge to find a job for Jeff Allen, who is now working for the railroad. He had also called Hank Rearden to give him the bad news.
Francisco arrives but says he has to leave almost immediately to search for Dagny. John suggests he go to the guestroom to meet a scab, and when he sees Dagny, he rushes to embrace her. He admits that he still loves her and that this valley should help her understand everything that was at stake. He tells her the story of the past twelve years, of pledging his life to John Galt, the disguise of the worthless playboy, and the plan to stop the motor of the world. He still loves her, even if she will only give herself to another. Returning to the living room, Francisco says he will not have to leave after all. The question arises of somehow letting people know that Dagny is alive, but John can’t permit it.
Visiting Francisco at his house, Dagny finds that he is anxious for the final collapse of d’Anconia Copper because then he can rebuild the company from the mine he has dug in the hills around Galt’s Gulch. Once she is healed, he will take her to see it. There is a momentary sense of desire, but they both let it lie.
Dagny discovers that John spends his evenings lecturing on physics. She tries to find where John spends the rest of the year, but he refuses to divulge. As he is out lecturing, Dagny finds herself wanting John to return; she yearns for his presence.
One night he comes home as she is resting and mentions the way she looked in her office. She wonders how he would have seen her there, but he still won’t talk about it. He admits he saw her for the first time ten years earlier in the underground warren of the Taggart Terminal. He had seen Dagny in formal evening dress giving orders in the tunnels, and he knew then that the abandonment of his motor was not the hardest price he would have to pay. Dagny remembers the event, a mess created by a new terminal manager. John admits that he had recruited the previous manager and every other critical person on the railroad; his goal was to make the railroad collapse.
As John goes to bed, Dagny tosses and turns. Francisco? Hank? No, she yearns for John Galt to come to her room and take her, but he doesn’t. However, she hears him pace the floor and light a cigarette. He can’t sleep either.
Richard Halley finishes a private recital for Dagny, and she is overcome with joy. Not many people have the same feeling for his music as Dagny, and that is payment enough for him. He appreciates the fact that she understands his music, that it is not simply a matter of feeling, but of feeling what he wanted her to feel. Dagny is sad that Halley’s music never leaves the valley, but Halley rejoices in the concerts he has played there; it is enough. Halley gives a profanity-laced lecture on why he is happier among businessmen than among other artists.
There is a reunion dinner of Hugh Akston’s star students, to include Ragnar’s wife Kay. Akston talks of their years at Patrick Henry University and how the penniless John Galt fit in with the other two men from the aristocracy. The first question that the young freshman John Galt had asked in a special class for postgraduates was one he would have been pleased to hear from a graduate student, a question Plato had forgotten to ask. They had majored in both physics and philosophy, and he and Robert Stadler had competed for them. Stadler had taken a fatal short cut in life by sanctioning the rule of the looters. Akston is proud that his “sons” made no concessions and that they became what they are.
Dagny and John explore Francisco’s mine in the hills above the valley. Becoming the consummate railroad professional, she suggests that Francisco stop using mule power and build a railroad to get his copper out. She asks for a pencil and paper and draws what she has in mind: a short narrow-gauge line with a tunnel and some trestles. But she stops in midstream as she realizes that she can’t give up her transcontinental railroad for this. John warns her that her commitment must be total; if she stays, she will have to hear about every wreck and disaster on her railroad as it dies. Dagny wonders how Francisco found her at her mountain cabin; he says that John had told him. Francisco asks Dagny to move in with him for her last week, but at Dagny’s request, John vetoes it; she has a job.
While shopping at Hammond’s, she and Hammond notice that a plane is trying to buzz the valley. Dagny runs to the airfield, looks into a telescope and discovers that the plane belongs to Hank Rearden. She runs onto the field and frantically signals to Hank, only to realize that he can’t see her.
Following dinner at Mulligan’s, Dagny is asked for her decision, but she asks for one more day. Mulligan says that only ten men are going back into the world, mostly to convert what they own and come back to Galt’s Gulch permanently. John shocks the men present when he says he may return to New York for one more year; the outside world is nearing open violence, and they don’t want John out there for the grand finale. Mulligan reminds him of failing infrastructure and of New York falling into starvation. When he mentions the coming collapse of the Taggart bridge over the Mississippi River, Dagny makes her decision: she is going back. She believes that men cannot be so blind as to abandon everything to destruction. The men think she’ll be back soon enough once she sees that her premises are faulty. John lists the conditions of her departure: secrecy as to the valley’s existence and no attempt to find it again.
At John’s house, Dagny confronts him about his decision. He is going back because Dagny will be there – and because he wants to be there when she decides to join the strikers. Dagny is not sure that day will ever come, but John is. She is to leave early the next morning.
Blindfolded, she rides in John’s plane as they depart Galt’s Gulch. They land on a deserted highway a mile outside a small town where there is a Taggart station. John tells her he’ll be the easiest man to find when she needs him. He takes off and flies away.
The Real Life Richard Halley
The model for Halley may have been the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, as suggested by some. But Halley’s profanity-laced lecture points more to the brilliant and irascible American composer Charles Ives, who had finally reached acclaim before his death in 1954 at age 79.
During the Thirties, Ives attended a concert of modern classical music in New York when he sat in front of a man who complained during the intermission that the music didn’t have any melodies he could hum. Ives turned around and hissed, “You goddamn sissy!” One can almost hear the voice of Richard Halley.
Discussion Topics
And Billthedrill have been breaking our backs on that chapter.
Oh, yeah. The Speech. I can’t wait to find out what the Book Club thinks of our takes on it. I threw out at least twice what I sent you, probably more. If I get a collective razzing over it I’ll take it like a man... ;-)
Midas owns it, or created it?
I’ll bet you have. I can’t wait to see what you two come up with. Didn’t it take Rand two years to write it? And you guys have only a few weeks.
And there is no sex in it.
When I first read AS I was a young woman still in my teens, and I could not understand how Dagny could drop Reardon for Galt. He left me cold. Now that I’m a middle aged woman, I still can’t understand it.
Francisco has made more of an impression on me this reading, and I can certainly understand why Dagny might have returned to him. But we can’t recapture our youth. And their relationship really is history. Francisco outgrew Dagny. As much as he still loves her (and to some degree, she still loves him), I fully understand why they can’t go back. And it’s bittersweet.
But Reardon? He’s been with her through the long haul, through the hardships, through the triumphs. They have unwittingly built a life together. As a woman, I cannot understand how Dagny can toss Reardon aside for some Johnny (Galt) Come Lately.
As for earning the right to love and be loved by someone, I think Dagny did that long ago. Yet in her time of need (oh, what a nasty word), all Galt could offer her was the desperate patter of footsteps outside her window. Reardon, on the other hand, was there for her. They have a shared, ongoing give-and-take relationship. Doesn’t that count for anything?
Maybe I will enjoy THE SPEECH this time around because it spares the reader of Rand’s very strange thoughts of love and romance.
Wow. Potent and dead on, Bill. I was just talking about how the vapid Dixie upChucks whine about being "censored" when people stop buying their dreck in response to their outrageous statements. They had the right to speak their mind, as well they should, but they're more worried about whether or not people buy their "art" than the possession of the right they just used! Maddening.
I don’t have my copy of AS here, but I’m pretty sure that he bought the land and sells portions to the newcomers.
If not for him, would Galt’s Gulch even exist?
I feel oddly disinclined to read this next chapter. It can’t be it’s length - all 50 pgs. or whatever it is of his radio address. I am very much looking forward to the distinguished gentlemen’s work on this and am flirting with the possibility of skipping the speech altogether.
The next chapter doesn’t contain The Speech. That’s Chapter 7 of Part 3.
I agree with your take here. This is my second reading and I like Francisco much better this time around. I also think that Hank Reardon has earned the right to better treatment than he is getting from Dagny. I understand that, for all intents and purposes, they are “Friends with Benefits” but a bit more than that. I think from a real person’s point of view, Hank would be by far the better choice for a lifetime together than either Francisco or Galt.
Francisco gave her up and I’ve found that it’s really hard to revisit a relationship like that after one or both of the parties have moved on for any length of time.
I’m guessing that if we fast forward, Hank and Francisco will eventually move on and find people who are not quite so rigid in terms of being “selfish”. And my sense is that with Galt and Dagny, the wanting might be much better than the ultimate having. I don’t recall if this is dealt with in the book or not. My guess is it isn’t.
For all the talk of individuality here, Galt’s Gulch was certainly a group endeavor. Midas Mulligan buying the land and Galt having a great deal to do with setting it up. I’m a bit perplexed with Galt, however. I understand that he invented the motor and had the dramatic walkout at 20th Century Motors, but the others have actually built up businesses and succeeded at enterprises in the real world, such as it is. All except for Galt and Danneskold among the main characters, I suppose.
Maybe that’s why I think more highly of Reardon than I do of Galt, at least at this juncture. Reardon invented his metal which, although maybe not as spectacular as Galt’s motor, was done while building and running his businesses.
I view Reardon as more of a leader, but then I fall back on the first thing a good leader does is get the best people as part of his endeavor. And Galt has certainly done that! I’m feeling right now that the near Galt worship is a bit overdone.
“ultimate having”? I’m not going near that spoiler! I’ll bet it doesn’t give BilltheDrill as much trouble as the speech.
I think Dagny and Reardon were much more than “Friends with Benefits.” Theirs is the love story of Atlas Shrugged. He gave her jewels (not just that industrial strength bracelet) and that awesome fur coat. He gave up his metal for her. They survived a road trip together. He divorced his wife. They brought joy to each others’ dreary lives, and they shared the same values. They comforted each other. They had hot sex. This be love — not friendship. And it was mutual.
Dagny could relax with Reardon. But Galt? My gosh! That would be an exhausting relationship! I mean, when could you kick back in sweats with dirty hair and without makeup with this guy? You’d have to always be ON. No “honey, let’s just order a pizza tonight” in their home. Didn’t you notice there wasn’t a pizza place in Galt’s Gulch?
Reardon would let her have a pizza.
Civilization collapsing will create two classes of citizens: Those who go on about the business of living, even if only in survival mode, and those who sit around waiting for help from someone else.
If government collapses, all of those who depend on government for survival will have it the toughest. Once people are taught to depend on government, it creates a whole swath of society doomed to death, should government fail, because they’ve never learned how to take care of themselves.
Sounds like New Orleans and Katrina.
Good example, yes, nothing like a little recent history to provide an example of just how badly government can muck things up.
What I find frustrating about those who think government is wonderful is that they conveniently ignore the collapse of the USSR.
Government ran everything in the USSR, killed 20 million plus of it’s citizens, and collapsed after a mere seventy years of existence.
Yet, rather than the USSR being a cautionary tale about government run amok, instead, they say “Oh, it will never happen here.”
Yeah, okay, so, what came after the Weimar Republic in Germany?
OK - more than FWB, but Dagny always wanted to meet the man who invented the motor and was looking for her ultimate love while still bedding Reardon. I think the relationship meant much more to him than it did to her.
And, yes, you said what I was thinking. I could see Dagny and Reardon hanging around, downing a pizza, maybe even watching a ball game. If Galt and Reardon’s situations were reversed, I can’t see Galt flying over the Rockies for a month looking for her. I can see both Francisco and Hank doing that.
One correction, John doesn’t own the valley; Midas Mulligan does. As Midas put it, “...he just works here.” I don’t suspect Midas would be the type of man who would submit to anybody. And certainly not Judge Narragansett. Ragnar probably listens to John because he’s known John far longer than Dagney, whom he just met. You’re right, John would never force his will on anybody. The Strikers listen to him because he is the first person to speak truth to them.
I was about to say — Hitler outdid the USSR, and it only took 12 years.
“Oh, it will never happen here.”
Indeed?
Obozo seems to be following the LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist playbook quickly and with no little success, at this juncture.
Even worse, they point to faults of our own, such as slavery, and claim that therefore we have no right to criticize the Marxists for their "excesses".
Kirk
This paragraph is noteworthy...
And it is a fundamental error. For example, every time a gun control zealot sneers, “Why do you need a firearm?” he or she is trying to force a faulty premise, that the determinative factor in the sanctity of one’s personal possessions is some else’s perception of need.
I would suggest, for use in an actual conversation, an answer of "why do you need to ask?"
Dagny's stay would have occurred even if Galt had not been present. I recall how she spent time in her youth working at a remote train station in order to learn how the business operated. She may, at first, consider it an opportunity to 'know your enemy'. As readers we want to think otherwise due to having knowledge of what is coming but at this point, she is in the midst of the destroyers.
What is greed, after all, but the desire for more of something than one needs?
and
The debasement of art in our age is that it no longer seeks truth, but celebrity.
...Seem at first to be similar and upon further thought I see that “needs as measured by whom?”turns the whole idea into a pretzel. If an artist creates art, is it really art if it isn't experienced by others, thus an artist 'needs' others? Would an artist be greedy if they create art for enjoyment of others? Is a mere thought in an artists mind art before it is made into something to be experienced by others? Your post has made me consider the needs aspect beyond the monetary association. It will take time to unwind this pretzel.
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