The first emotion that came through my mind after finishing the book is a sense of victor. As if running through the finish line of marathon, even though I didn't finish with a good timing and tired and all but satisfying.
If you need a quick summary of the book, the name of the book gives you very much the whole idea. Atlas, a Titan in Greek mythology, choosing the losing side during the war between the Titans and the Olympians and thus condemned to carry the burden of the sky on his shoulder forever. So how if Atlas doesn't want to obey anymore? How if he rebels against the punishment and runs away? Will the sky fall? This book gives us the answer : yes, the sky will fall hard, fall hard upon everyone of us.
Of course the title is just a metaphor. The story takes place in United States. The setting doesn't feel like any period of human history. After some research, 'timeless' is perfect to describe it. "The pattern of industrial organisation appears to be that of the late 1800s; the mood seems to be close to that of the depression era 1930s; both the social customs and the level of technolgy remind one of the 1950s." to quote Wikipedia.
Like what Ayn Rand herself had said, this is THE masterpiece of hers. Reading this after the Fountainhead, I can't help myslef but to compare this book to Fountainhead. Personally I prefer Atlas Shrugged. First of all, both of them focus on Objectivism. Even though Objectivism appeared more than half a decade ago, it is still a very new idea to many people and to me too. In Atlas Shrugged, the idea of Objectivism is more well explained, thus makes more sense to me. I would say to those would like to try out on her books, Fountainhead could be skipped and start off with Atlas Shrugged straight away.
Ayn Rand is really good in writing speeches. It is very true when you read her books. Let's take this book as example. There is a 70 pages speech from John Galt explaining Objectivism but only a few pages of action scenes. I don't remember I have read a speech of 70 pages long before in my life. It is said in the book that the speech took John Galt 3 hours to convey. Long speeches is really common in her book. It is also true in the Fountainhead where Howard Roark gave his epic speech near the ending of the book to defend his point of view.
What I enjoy the most in this book is the suspense of all the missing people, mostly people who have great impact on the economy like tycoons and industrialists, they all went missing one by one and leaving absolutely no trace and their properties and assets were destroyed all together. So Dagny the heroin of this book had to search for clues and search for them. She also found this power generator, or at least I should say she found the ruin of it. It is supposed to be the greatest invention of all time that can generate power with unprecedented efficiency. Since it was destroyed too, so she wanted to reassemble it and at the same time find the inventor.
The most intriguing thing is not the missing people though. It is the question : Who is John Galt? He doesn't appear in person until the last third of the book. But his name appears here and there throughout the book, and rumours about him from many people. The phrase "Who is John Galt!" even became an expression that means many things but a question.
If I can choose to be one of the characters of the book, it would certainly be Ragnar Danneskjold. He is a brilliant student majoring in philosophy and becomes a pirate later on. To quote himself, Ragnar says in the book that he is like the Robin Hood, but Robin Hood steals from the rich and gives to the poor, he does the opposite. Don't get me wrong when I say I admire a guy who steals from the poor and gives to the rich. Everything needs a context and it makes more sense when he said so in the book. I can't say I agree with his philosophy but how cool is that to be a philosophic pirate.
In the end, I would say I enjoy this book, but it really feels too long and too elaborate to me. Perhaps all the elaborations are needed to make the story a whole, since the story is about an entire society and not just focus on a single character. One thing is for sure : this book is not to be taken lightly. It is a serious book and demands a certain level of insight to be able to understand the motive behind. So I don't think it is a book for everybody.
Ayn Rand is really good in writing speeches. It is very true when you read her books. Let's take this book as example. There is a 70 pages speech from John Galt explaining Objectivism but only a few pages of action scenes. I don't remember I have read a speech of 70 pages long before in my life. It is said in the book that the speech took John Galt 3 hours to convey. Long speeches is really common in her book. It is also true in the Fountainhead where Howard Roark gave his epic speech near the ending of the book to defend his point of view.
What I enjoy the most in this book is the suspense of all the missing people, mostly people who have great impact on the economy like tycoons and industrialists, they all went missing one by one and leaving absolutely no trace and their properties and assets were destroyed all together. So Dagny the heroin of this book had to search for clues and search for them. She also found this power generator, or at least I should say she found the ruin of it. It is supposed to be the greatest invention of all time that can generate power with unprecedented efficiency. Since it was destroyed too, so she wanted to reassemble it and at the same time find the inventor.
The most intriguing thing is not the missing people though. It is the question : Who is John Galt? He doesn't appear in person until the last third of the book. But his name appears here and there throughout the book, and rumours about him from many people. The phrase "Who is John Galt!" even became an expression that means many things but a question.
If I can choose to be one of the characters of the book, it would certainly be Ragnar Danneskjold. He is a brilliant student majoring in philosophy and becomes a pirate later on. To quote himself, Ragnar says in the book that he is like the Robin Hood, but Robin Hood steals from the rich and gives to the poor, he does the opposite. Don't get me wrong when I say I admire a guy who steals from the poor and gives to the rich. Everything needs a context and it makes more sense when he said so in the book. I can't say I agree with his philosophy but how cool is that to be a philosophic pirate.
In the end, I would say I enjoy this book, but it really feels too long and too elaborate to me. Perhaps all the elaborations are needed to make the story a whole, since the story is about an entire society and not just focus on a single character. One thing is for sure : this book is not to be taken lightly. It is a serious book and demands a certain level of insight to be able to understand the motive behind. So I don't think it is a book for everybody.
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