“You can’t have your cake and let your neighbor eat it, too.”
–Francisco d’Anconia
Few novels qualify as ‘epic’ – fewer still that were written in the twentieth
century – but after plowing through all 1100+ pages of it, I would submit that
Atlas Shrugged unequivocally qualifies for such a distinction. Although
the book begins slowly, once the plot starts moving along, it never really stops
– so much so that I found myself very drawn to the novel’s protagonists,
cheering their victories and shaking every time a new, seemingly devastating
obstacle was erected in their path.
It is very hard to write a synopsis of this particular work, because its
structure is unlike almost anything I’ve read. It is divided into three parts:
“Non-Contradiction,” “Either/Or,” and “A is A.” Each part has 10 chapters of
various length and relates a particular idea to the overall theme of the book.
The book contains a large volume of Rand’s philosophy, but most of it flows
smoothly from the plot of the book (with the possible exception of a
seventy-page, four-hour, uninterrupted radio speech given by one of the main
characters near the end of the book). In addition, the book’s “true” hero does
not actually appear until the third part of the book; and throughout, the story
is most frequently, though not always, told through the eyes of Dagny Taggart, a
dedicated, hard-working, no-nonsense railroad executive living in New York City
who rose through the family business despite frequent objections from friends
and family that she should do something more “proper” with her life than try to
make money.
Set in the United States in the early twentieth century, the novel follows the
course of the lives of Dagny and various other important players in the world:
Jim Taggart, Dagny’s brother and president of the railroad, Taggart
Transcontinental; Hank Rearden, a Philadelphia inventor and industrialist;
Lillian, Hank’s wife, and Philip, his brother; Orren Boyle, Rearden’s main
economic competitor; Franscisco d’Anconica, Dagny’s childhood friend and
inheritor of a global mining empire; Ragnar Danneskjöld, a mysterious sea
pirate; Ellis Wyatt, an oil tycoon; Richard Halley, a brilliant composer; Dr.
Stadler, the head of the State Science Institute, a government-funded research
institution in New Hampshire; Hugh Akston, the greatest living philosopher; and
several government officials, most notably Dr. Simon Pritchett, Wesley Mouch,
and Dr. Floyd Ferris.
Without giving too much away, I will say that the book takes place on the verge
of a ‘crisis’ moment, in which the world’s best minds start disappearing, one by
one, seemingly succumbing to a seemingly unseen, unknown, invisible force that
Dagny comes to call, perhaps a bit melodramatically, “the destroyer.” Her
struggle with this is central to the theme of the book. Frequently, she will
come across someone who, unable to answer a question, gives up and says, “Oh
well, who is John Galt?” – an expression that people use to say that there is no
use in trying. Dagny, however, refuses to accept such fatalism, and quickly vows
to stand against the destroyer – the mysterious force personified in this
expression by the imaginary “John Galt.” Meanwhile, at the same time, the
government is covertly developing “Project X,” a top-secret endeavor said to be
undertaken to “solve all the country’s problems, once and for all.”
· · · · · · ·
Now, for my evaluation. I’ll be blunt: the first 50 to 100 pages are a little
bit boring – very heavy on mood, descriptions, and thematic overtures – and they
might scare you away. However, after that, it’s smooth sailing for most of the
rest of the book. The plot picks up in the final two thirds of Part I, and by
the time Part II rolled around, I found myself staying up until two or three in
the morning, having told myself “…just one more chapter.” On some occasions, you
will run into a character who gives a two to five page speech; there are
important parts to these speeches, so you do have to pay close attention
sometimes. Finally, I found a few things to be a bit fantastical and
unrealistic, but after reading Leonard Peikoff’s introduction, it did not bother
me as much: Rand explicitly stated that she created the book and characters as
she saw the world, and as she thought it should be.
But aside from those relatively minor complaints, this was everything a book
should be. I found myself immersed in the book’s world, and really relating to
the protagonists like Dagny and Hank. Personally, I found them to be more
interesting than the book’s “ultimate” hero, who was introduced a bit late for
me to care personally about the individual, one way or the other. The book also
presents a clear philosophy, one based on facts and reason rather than feeling
and impulse. It slants libertarian, but even as a libertarian, I have been
walking around in a daze for a week and a half after reaching the conclusion; I
found it that powerful, I found that it made me re-evaluate the way I think and
the way I live life that much. If you can get through it all, it will be
one of the best damn things you ever read.
When you’ve finished the book, there are interesting discussion questions
(CAUTION: QUESTIONS CONTAIN SPOILERS!) here.
But, in case you can’t wait, I will conclude with some non-spoilery samples of
powerful quotes from the book to get you thinking… but I will put most of them
in JavaScript alert boxes just to be on the safe side, because while they do not
discuss the plot at all, they do hint at the book’s theme.
1. Early in this book, you’ll come across the following exchange of dialogue
between Francisco and Dagny:
"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw
that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms
trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his
strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his
shoulders—what would you tell him to do?"
"I…don’t know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?" [said Dagny.]
"To shrug."
Quote
#2 by Midas Mulligan
Quote #3 by Dr. Ferris
Quote #4 by
Francisco d’Anconia
Quote #5 by Hank
Rearden
Quote #6 by Francisco d’Anoconia
