Monthly Review: Atlas Shrugged

    Written in 1957 by author Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged tells the story of a country in turmoil; filled with power-hungry hawks and conspiring looters. Based around the United States during the Industrial Age, Ayn Rand writes about the struggles of workers and the diabolical politics involved in industry. The main story revolves around Dagny Taggart, Vice-President of one of the largest and most well known railway during the time: Taggart Transcontinental. Throughout the book, Rand tells the story of Taggart's role in the economic maelstrom that envelops the nation during the story.

Blood of an angel for your infernal amusement
Innocent blood shed to spare you from judgement
So gorge in your sins, flaunt your jeers, taunt tonight
For tomorrow might never shed her light

    Who is John Galt? Throughout the book, this question plagues the characters of the book, and the reader. Is he just a make-believe person concocted from the imaginations of local citizens? Or is he a economic politician's worst nightmare: A man determined to destroy the world. Granted, the concept makes him seem like a diabolical mastermind bent on world domination and the destruction of humanity, and it's true; but only on a smaller scale. Galt's goal in this fairytale is to stop the engine of the world, quite literally. In Rand's book, Galt is portrayed as a genius, one who could save the nation's economic depression with nothing but his brain. Alas, if Galt were to be so lenient and helpful, there wouldn't be much of a story to read, now would there? Gifted with the ability to create wonders and miracles, John Galt is perhaps the embodiment of Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton in Atlas Shrugged. A man who invented the very first working electric engine/generator (in the story), but instead chose to abandon it to stop it from being capitalized by the greed-driven aristocrats of the economic society. I find this particular character interesting, since he is a symbolic representation of almost everything about economics and politics that I believe. I believe that all governments are corrupt and run by greed and money, and what better representation of my resentment for that other than a man bent on destroying this corrupt world by taking away all the innocent people that depend on? What better to make the world see their own faults by pushing their civilization to the point of collapse by getting rid of everything they need? Granted, if there were such a "John Galt" in this modern day and time, many people will believe it to be presposterous and outrageous.
    The main idea of the story was to show a psychological view upon the industry of our nation. To show the primal savageness of our policies, and to show the human mind how warped and twisted the economic "game" is. Even to this day, the picture that Atlas Shrugged still holds true: Politicians still look out for their own self-interests, businessmen still back stab each other for more wealth and fame, and corporations still screw over the common people in the hopes of making a quick profit.
    One of the things that I liked about this book was the fact that it was so accurate in terms of the theme: Corrupt aristocrats working against each other to preserve themselves. And as always, the commoners are screwed over without a second thought. Perhaps the author had wanted this idea to get through to the reader, and apparently she succeeded. Rand correctly, vividly, and amazingly paints a picture of a country ruled by greedy corporations that control every aspect of the nation, including the government... Hell, they are the government. Many of us fail to recognize it, but anyone with a brain could figure out that the world is ruled by money and the industries that make money.

    A major fault in this book is the fact that it's too long and slow paced. The author takes forever to get a point across, and most of the content of the book is insignificant chatter and side stories between a bunch of unimportant characters plotting on how next to further their wealth and fame. For instance, it took eighty pages of random events happening to some character that wasn't worth naming till something important happened to the main character... And the two events aren't even REMOTELY connected. For some reason, I get a feeling that the author only added hat stuff in as filler to make the book seem bigger. If you took out all the irrelevant things and events from the story, the book would be about one-fourth of it's original size, maybe even smaller. Another major is that the author uses some very confusing context and concepts... Context that you'd expect to find in some high college level book that's three thousand pages long. I myself had to go back a couple pages multiple times during my reading to finally understand what was going on. Hell, once I spent twenty minutes staring at a single page trying to figure out what the hell is was trying to tell me. I know I usually read books and say that they're long and boring, but this one takes the cake. I couldn't, for the life of me, work up the motivation to actually read the whole thing whole-heartedly... And resigned myself to only straight up reading it: no annotating or analysis at all. However, the ending does not disappoint; since it's the only part of the book that got me interested and unable to predict what was going to happen next in the plot line.

    All in all, the book was amazingly well written and interesting, if only at some parts. Perhaps one of the reasons I found it uninteresting and "not of my preference" is probably because it was written about fifty something years ago, thus rendering the possibility that times have changed the tastes and style of writing very reasonable. But still, I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in psychological books and economic thrillers.