An incredible novel to read. If you like the ideals of brains over brawn, then you will love this book. Ayn Rand has a wonderful ability to interweave philosphy in to a great storyline. Her ideals of free enterprise and mans' righ to selfishness are marvelous. Well painted scenes, wonderfully elaborate characters and brain bending new ideas make this book a must read. In the beginning of Atlas Shrugged, the theme is set. Picture an America, not a light of the world, but rather a shadow of it's former glory. Dark, dank, and destroyed, this is the America of the looters. Where men do not face each other as men, but rather as those who wish to steal, and those who can be stolen from. Dagny Taggart, the Vice-President in Charge of Operations, tho her title shows she is subordinate to the President, is the one who runs Taggart Transcontinental. A railroad that has been in America since the beginning of the rails. Her cold matter-of-fact way of doing things has kept Taggart Transcontinental running smoothly since she was hired. Ms. Taggart, unlike her brother, worked her way from the bottom of the ladder to become the woman behind the lines. John Gault, the man, the legend, the genius. He who would stop the motor of the world, and did. The radical leader of the rebellion of the minds, slowly draining the world of the men of intellect and letting the looters try and survive without those of the mind to produce for them. Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia, the nobleman turned playboy. He was the prodigal student of Doctor Hugh Akston, the world famous philosopher of the human spirit. But when the war came, he took up the sword to help destroy the looters and protect that which he holds dear - the men of mind. Ayn Rand did a brilliant job at painting characters and the future of the world, in her eyes, to warn us of what might become of us if we keep looking for someone else to do our work for us. She had a superb ability to make the characters come alive in your mind and keep you turning the pages until the last chapter. A fabulous story of the survival of the human spirit against those that would see it destroyed. "You take pride in setting no limit to your endurance, Mr. Reardon, because, you think you are doing right. What if you aren't? What if you are placing your virtue in the service of evil and letting it become a tool for the destruction of everything you love, respect and admire? Why don't you uphold your own code of values among men as you do among iron smelters? You who won't allow one percent of impurity into an alloy of metal--what have you allowed into your moral code?" Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia - "Atlas Shrugged" - Ayn Rand
Title: Atlas Shrugged |
2/27/05
