I actually found the entire book to be gold. The characters are stark, and yes, almost cartoonish... but in a graphic novel sort of way. I loved the whole thing, though yes too... a couple of the speeches were a bit long. An editor could have helped.
I wouldn't take anything out of Francisco D'Anconia's "Money" speech. I think it works as is. But the Galt speech... yeah... too long.
Regarding your two observations... I disagree there. a.) Rand's atheism to me is totally irrelevant to objectivism. Objectivism does not require one to be an atheist, she just happened to be one. and b.) Children. This is a misunderstanding of what objectivism and "enlightened self-interest" really means.
"Enlightened self-interest" means more than most people give credit. It means long-term interest of one's own values. "Values" only means whatever a person finds ~personally~ valuable. Don't all parents have a "selfish" interest in the well being of their children? Of course they do. Selfishness in this context includes the wider context of all those things we find to be important to us.
A book for the ages. I thoroughly enjoyed it but, yes a few of the soliloquies were too long. John Galt’s radio address. OK, I get it; he didn’t have to speak for 47 pages to convey the message.
Still, I have my families tickets purchased for the 7:00 pm showing Friday night. I can hardly wait!
“Objectivism does not require one to be an atheist, she just happened to be one”
I agree that technically one could be a deist—i.e., believe in a Creator. But I strongly disagree if one’s conception of God is Christian, Jewish or Muslim—all of which are religions that preach the virtue of self-sacrifice and the “evil” of selfishness. Ayn Rand was unblinkingly consistent in railing against creeds that subordinated the individual to either a God or the State. In that regard, Whittaker Chambers was quite correct in recognizing that Atlas Shrugged was antithetical to his Christian beliefs even if Rand was a fellow-traveler when it came to criticizing the liberal welfare state or its evil twin cousins of communism and fascism.
“Don’t all parents have a “selfish” interest in the well being of their children? Of course they do.”
I concur, and so did Rand. She admittedly devoted precious little of the book’s 1100 pages to children, but there is a section in which she says exactly this—that a mother “sacrificing” time, money or even risking her life to rescue her children is not “sacrificing” at all since if she loves them—i.e., attaches a high value to them—it only makes sense she would trade something of lower value for them.