Bertonneau contra Rand


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Tom Bertonneau's "Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: from romantic fallacy to holocaustic imagination" is online at:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0354/is_4_46/ai_n8680946/

Of this essay, George H. Smith wrote: "Bertonneau's inflated, pretentious style gives me the literary equivalent of a headache. I don't think I can stomach reading it again, so perhaps someone will serve as an interpreter for me."

Anyone here care to take him up on that offer?

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Hmmm... I have a suspicion that the dislike of the content is masked here as a dislike of the style. I found the piece in fact quite readable.

Regarding George's reaction, I very much doubt that. But, aside from it being readable, what do you think of the content?

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Regarding George's reaction, I very much doubt that. But, aside from it being readable, what do you think of the content?

I just gave it a quick skim, overall it looks snobby, sarcastic, but not insightful. The opening:

NO ACCOUNT OF Ayn Rand's (1905-1982) sprawling, morally incoherent end-of-the-world story Atlas Shrugged (1957) (3) can begin elsewhere than in an acknowledgment of the way in which the novel's fascinating spectacle can draw a reader in despite himself. This spectacle is the book's secret, which the present essay aims to investigate.

A few of the eye roll inducers, randomly chosen:

Rand's Weltanschauung

"Middle Ages" is, finally, a prejudicial coinage of the theosophist-cum-socialist Auguste Comte, which Rand adopts with uncritical insouciance.

Liddy's score "was Halley's melody torn apart, its holes stuffed with hiccoughs." (54) I have italicized the phrase "torn apart" for its archly sacrificial connotation. Think of King Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae.

In their absolute magnification, righteous ego and despicable alter achieve sublime proportion but lose their distinctness in a kind of cosmic anxiety. Eric Gans means just this when he refers, in Signs of Paradox (1996), to "the descent of the absolute into the empirical world" as its "undoing." (69) Rene Girard means just this when he speaks about the overcoming of Promethean desire as the real novelistic achievement.

I think the author tries to overwhelm the reader with analogistic references, no one will be familiar with them all, thus lending the article an illusion of depth. With great caution and trepidation I’m going to invoke the spirit and words of Perigo the foul, and dub this author a pomowanker. I don’t believe I’ve heard of him before, and I’m not impressed. You brought this up in relation to the Whittaker Chambers review, and I don’t see any relationship between this and that older hatchet job. I think there’s basis for doubt whether Chambers even read the book, while the detailed plot summary Bertonneau presents indicates that he has. The Chambers review has a certain historical significance, while this strikes me as some Johnny come lately grinding his butter knife and padding his resume.

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I think it's an interesting read, until the last page when it falls off a cliff and loses any distinct meaning in its own version of cosmic anxiety. I think much of the criticism is invalid. One big invalid criticism: That Rand was indulging herself in a fantasy of killing Sherwood Anderson as part of the tunnel disaster is highly speculative at best. one small invalid criticism : the adverb in "maliciously unkempt" is not needed, whereas it actually conveys a precise point about the philosophical attitude of the young woman in question. And his usual refusal to give Dagny's name started tor rankle with me. And of course it has its share of Ayn the monster anecdotes.

His real plaint seems to be that much of the time the people in AS are merely mouthing the philosophical points predetermined for them by Rand--which I happen to agree with. But the overall assumptions which underlie his article are somewhat suspect: he tries to condemn Rand both as omniscient author and ignorant poseur.

Jeffrey S.

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I just gave it a quick skim, overall it looks snobby, sarcastic, but not insightful. The opening:

NO ACCOUNT OF Ayn Rand's (1905-1982) sprawling, morally incoherent end-of-the-world story Atlas Shrugged (1957) (3) can begin elsewhere than in an acknowledgment of the way in which the novel's fascinating spectacle can draw a reader in despite himself. This spectacle is the book's secret, which the present essay aims to investigate.

A few of the eye roll inducers, randomly chosen:

Rand's Weltanschauung

"Middle Ages" is, finally, a prejudicial coinage of the theosophist-cum-socialist Auguste Comte, which Rand adopts with uncritical insouciance.

George H. Smith commented on this a few years ago on Atlantis_II:

"This is nonsense.

"First, the term "Middle Ages" is not "prejudicial." (Bertonneau may have been thinking of the label "Dark Ages.")

"Second, the term was *not* coined by Auguste Comte. It was in common use during the 18th century (Edward Gibbon used it, for example), and it probably originated during the Renaissance. (Renaissance humanists often spoke of the *medium aevum,* though I'm not sure how this would be literally translated.

"When, it 1818, Henry Hallam published his celebrated work, *A View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages,* a 21 year-old Auguste Comte had not yet published anything.

"If Bertonneau wants to show how much more learned he is than Ayn Rand, he should at least get his facts straight."

It seems to me, George was right here. My guess is Bertonneau was probably not only thinking of "Dark Ages," but also of the fashionable revival of the Middle Ages over the last century or two.

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A few of the eye roll inducers, randomly chosen:

Rand's Weltanschauung

And why, pray tell, is the phrase "Rand's Weltanschauung" an "eye roll inducer"? You think Rand has no Weltanschauung?

JR

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And why, pray tell, is the phrase "Rand's Weltanschauung" an "eye roll inducer"? You think Rand has no Weltanschauung?

I associate the term Weltanshauung with Mein Kampf. The version I read of Hitler’s masterpiece did not translate this term throughout, and he used it a great deal. Why not say “worldview”, when commenting on an English language author? At best it’s merely an example of snobbishness; I can’t say it was meant to invoke Hitler, however it did have that effect on this reader.

Snobbishness is a feature to which I react with, as I wrote originally, an eye roll. Not exclusively, however, there’s also the head shake, the nose curl, the wince, the grunt, and the Bronx cheer. And this is not yet a definitive list.

Now, why don’t you tell us what you thought of the Bertonneau piece?

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And why, pray tell, is the phrase "Rand's Weltanschauung" an "eye roll inducer"? You think Rand has no Weltanschauung?

I associate the term Weltanshauung with Mein Kampf. The version I read of Hitler's masterpiece did not translate this term throughout, and he used it a great deal. Why not say "worldview", when commenting on an English language author? At best it's merely an example of snobbishness; I can't say it was meant to invoke Hitler, however it did have that effect on this reader.

Snobbishness is a feature to which I react with, as I wrote originally, an eye roll. Not exclusively, however, there's also the head shake, the nose curl, the wince, the grunt, and the Bronx cheer. And this is not yet a definitive list.

Now, why don't you tell us what you thought of the Bertonneau piece?

While I do think Bertonneau play highbrow overmuch in his essay -- well, for my taste -- I don't think "Weltanshauung" necessarily connotes Hitler for most people -- just for you.

I also think he spends much of his time engaging in Girardian reductionism (and even seems sympathetic toward lexical reductionism when he cites Walker's word counts from Atlas Shrugged), but that's part of his Weltanshauung. rolleyes.gif

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I think it's an interesting read, until the last page when it falls off a cliff and loses any distinct meaning in its own version of cosmic anxiety. I think much of the criticism is invalid. One big invalid criticism: That Rand was indulging herself in a fantasy of killing Sherwood Anderson as part of the tunnel disaster is highly speculative at best. one small invalid criticism : the adverb in "maliciously unkempt" is not needed, whereas it actually conveys a precise point about the philosophical attitude of the young woman in question. And his usual refusal to give Dagny's name started tor rankle with me. And of course it has its share of Ayn the monster anecdotes.

His real plaint seems to be that much of the time the people in AS are merely mouthing the philosophical points predetermined for them by Rand--which I happen to agree with. But the overall assumptions which underlie his article are somewhat suspect: he tries to condemn Rand both as omniscient author and ignorant poseur.

Jeffrey S.

The problem with his problem with authorial omniscience is this really applies to any novel, doesn't it? I mean the words are on the page in any novel because the author put them there. In some sense, all of it comes from the author and she or he is in control. The only difference I see is some authors are better at hiding that their works are things they made up and some are not. And sometimes authors one might agree with are given more allowances and room for error while those one disagrees with one is likely to nitpick.

What's also kind of funny, if my memory's correct, is he's got many details about Rand wrong. E.g., didn't she write the screenplay for "The Fountainhead"? I recently listened to the audiobook version of Ayn Rand and the World She Made and seem to remember that she wrote the screenplay and had a lot of other input into the movie. If this is true, then Bertonneau was just sloppy here. And, as George pointed out, if he's going to attack her for playing fast and loose with history, it seems a little strange that he's not holding up anyone else, including himself to that standard. (Of course, the pot can call the kettle black here -- after all, the kettle might actually be black regardless of what the pot is. And this is just a case of that, but one wonders what else, in his rush to convict Rand of having a "holocaustic imagination," he got completely wrong.)

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While I do think Bertonneau play highbrow overmuch in his essay -- well, for my taste -- I don't think "Weltanshauung" necessarily connotes Hitler for most people -- just for you.

It is "Weltanschauung", not "Weltanshauung". It has nothing to do with Hitler, it's just one of those German words that have become part of the English language, like "Angst", "Zeitgeist" or "verboten". Perhaps some of them due to the influence of German philosophers who used such words extensively.

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I think the author tries to overwhelm the reader with analogistic references, no one will be familiar with them all, thus lending the article an illusion of depth. With great caution and trepidation I'm going to invoke the spirit and words of Perigo the foul, and dub this author a pomowanker. I don't believe I've heard of him before, and I'm not impressed. You brought this up in relation to the Whittaker Chambers review, and I don't see any relationship between this and that older hatchet job. I think there's basis for doubt whether Chambers even read the book, while the detailed plot summary Bertonneau presents indicates that he has. The Chambers review has a certain historical significance, while this strikes me as some Johnny come lately grinding his butter knife and padding his resume.

Regarding "padding his resume," I doubt that. Bertonneau has written on many other topics and taking a shot at Rand appears to be just another facet of his culture critique of our times. It might score him some special points among conservatives because Rand is someone who's had obvious influence on their movement and, in my mind, explicity ranted on many of the contradictions in American conservatism -- specifically things like praising free markets while adopting a basically Christian worldview or praising individualism while supporting all means of stifling individual initiative and expression. (Jeff Riggenbach and Herbert Spencer might have some insights into why this is so. I believe their explanation can be boilded down to classical liberals losing a home among the Left, which turned ever more statist during the 19th century in Europe and the 20th in America, and, sadly, making an unwitting Faustian pact with the Right. which always being anti-Left mouthed some support for limits to the state. Fortunately, Jeff participates here, so he can tell me if I've recalled his view correctly.) I think the fact that Rand has influence among them and also criticized them means conservatives will likely always have to deal with her. She's kind of the ideological elephant in the parlor for them...

Seen in that light, Chambers, Bertonneau, and other conservative attacks on Rand seem almost like a rite of passage for conservatives.

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While I do think Bertonneau play highbrow overmuch in his essay -- well, for my taste -- I don't think "Weltanshauung" necessarily connotes Hitler for most people -- just for you.

It is "Weltanschauung", not "Weltanshauung". It has nothing to do with Hitler, it's just one of those German words that have become part of the English language, like "Angst", "Zeitgeist" or "verboten". Perhaps some of them due to the influence of German philosophers who used such words extensively.

My typo, but, in my defense, I was directly quoting Ninth Doctor. mellow.gif

Also, Ninth Doctor, not me, was making the claim about Hitler here.

Edited by Dan Ust
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As George H. Smith pointed out, Comte didn't coin the term the "Middle Ages." Also, Rand, while no fan of the Middle Ages, she seemed aware that all was not wrong in the world then, as her own admitted admiration for Thomas Aquinas for re-introducing Aristotle to the West shows. To be sure, Rand didn't present a coherent, detailed view of the Late Middle Ages. One can cite her both ways here -- as a simplistic follower of the Renaissance dismissal of all things between the Ancients and the Renaissance or as praising at least Aquinas and hence have a more sophisticated view of those times -- even if it's still simplistic to, say, a scholar of Medieval history or to the aspiring pedant.

The same can be said of his hints about Plato. Rand here, as Smith would argue and I would agree, mostly called it right. Plato did, after all, write that manual for total statism, The Republic. His desire for a Spartan-style state and to socially re-engineer society actually should make him the target of anyone writing an essay on the "holocaustic imagination." Regardless of one's stance on Rand and her big fat novel, one would expect The Republic to be on the short list here.

Yet Bertonneau seems to think Rand got it wrong and hints that she's found a villain where there is none. And as far as Rand's talk of Plato's latest heir being "incompetent little professor," one should remember that aside from projecting an ideal state -- one we would today recognize as closer to the totalitarian experiments in Cambodia and North Korea than to anything worthy of praise by descendants of classical liberals or Western civilization -- actually tried his hand at bringing it about in Syracusa. It's puzzling Bertonneau seems unaware of this and, what's more, would attack Rand for noting it.

He also fails to distinguish, as Smith pointed out, the difference, too, between Plato and Socrates. No doubt, we'll never completely know the difference, but the depiction of Socrates in Crito and Apology is far different than the philosopher potrayed in The Republic -- with the former being a victim of the state and of -- as Bertonneau puts it, adopting a Girardian mantle -- "group-resentment" while the latter seems bent on proposing a total state. (For those who don't know, Girard is literary critic who reduces all art to envy and resentment. No doubt, envy and resentment can explain much, but I doubt they're the elemental powers of all art and life and believe Girardians, like many reductivists, is merely forcing everything into one mold whether it fits or not.) But Bertonneau does bring up a valid point: Rearden, in a way, looks like Rand's version of the Socrates of the early dialogues and Rearden's change here can be seen as a critique of Socratic morality in so far as it's self-sacrificial. (Nietzsche's attacks on Socrates are a bit different. He attacked him in some places for being a pessimist -- in Nietzsche's view -- and in others for being a rationalist. Certainly, on the latter, Rand, at least the Rand who wrote Atlas Shrugged, would've sided with Socrates.) Others have pointed out that Rand often used the symbols of her enemies to critique them -- though she's hardly the first to do this. (Girardians should recognize this because many of them seem to see Christianity as a reformulation and radical critique of scapegoating. I haven't studied them closely enough to see if they see that this radical critique -- if that's what that religion is supposed to be -- has its roots in pre-Christian Judaism and, hence, is not a Christian innovation. Or so it seems to me.)

The point here is not that Rand got all of this right either, but that Bertonneau's attempt to find her wrong at every turn often makes him play fast and loose with the very intellectual history he's trying to condemn her of either not knowing or distorting for her ends.

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The following is from one of several posts for Atlantis II that I wrote about Bertonneau's article. It appeared on March 9, 2005. Dan quoted a brief passage from this post earlier.

I wrote:

"I don't know if "Modern Age" publishes letters or not, but a relatively minor point like this would be suitable only for a letter."

Dan Ust replied:

"I believe there are many more points in the essay worth commenting on..."

I will leave this to someone who can figure out what the hell Bertonneau's point is supposed to be. My eyes glaze over whenever I read this sort of literary criticism, if that's what it is supposed to be, but I'm flabbergasted by his claim that *Atlas Shrugged* "is primarily...a sacrificial narrative," and that "the novel's borrowed premise is sacrifice." Illustrating the point by referring to the disaster in the Taggart Tunnel only compounds the problem. Bertonneau's exegetical skills are dubious, to say the least, and his description of AS as "a strenuous pontification" applies more to him than to Rand.

My correction (about the origin of "middle ages") is admittedly a minor one, but it becomes more important when viewed in the context of Bertonneau's intellectual posturing and his claim that Rand and her followers have "a naive attitude towards history and philosophy that at times can only be described as sophomoric."

Another obvious error is Bertonneau's claim that Rand "never achieved a significant screen-credit; Warner Studios even farmed out the screenplay for The Fountainhead to someone else." In fact, Rand wrote the screenplays to both "The Fountainhead" and "Love Letters."

Btw, the title of Bertonneau's article (which refers to Rand's "Holocaustic Imagination") and the preliminary quotation from Gans (which refers to "the SS torturer" and "Nazi cinema") seem to revive the old charge of Whittaker Chambers that Rand was a neo-Nazi of sorts. Am I reading too much into this?

Bertonneau's inflated, pretentious style gives me the literary equivalent of a headache. I don't think I can stomach reading it again, so perhaps someone will serve as an interpreter for me.

Rand, whatever her faults, knew how to write clear, concise prose. Bertonneau should give this a try....

Ghs

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I will leave this to someone who can figure out what the hell Bertonneau's point is supposed to be. My eyes glaze over whenever I read this sort of literary criticism, if that's what it is supposed to be, but I'm flabbergasted by his claim that *Atlas Shrugged* "is primarily...a sacrificial narrative," and that "the novel's borrowed premise is sacrifice." Illustrating the point by referring to the disaster in the Taggart Tunnel only compounds the problem. Bertonneau's exegetical skills are dubious, to say the least, and his description of AS as "a strenuous pontification" applies more to him than to Rand.

My correction (about the origin of "middle ages") is admittedly a minor one, but it becomes more important when viewed in the context of Bertonneau's intellectual posturing and his claim that Rand and her followers have "a naive attitude towards history and philosophy that at times can only be described as sophomoric."

With all due respect George, Bertonneau's prose may contain more than a hint of smug snobbishness, but his basic take on Rand's writing is accurate.

"strenuous pontification" and ""a naive attitude towards history and philosophy that at times can only be described as sophomoric." are accurate assessments. I feel the same way when I read her work, fiction and non-fiction alike.

Edited by Bob_Mac
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The following is from one of several posts for Atlantis II that I wrote about Bertonneau's article. It appeared on March 9, 2005. Dan quoted a brief passage from this post earlier.

I wrote:

"I don't know if "Modern Age" publishes letters or not, but a relatively minor point like this would be suitable only for a letter."

Dan Ust replied:

"I believe there are many more points in the essay worth commenting on..."

I will leave this to someone who can figure out what the hell Bertonneau's point is supposed to be. My eyes glaze over whenever I read this sort of literary criticism, if that's what it is supposed to be, but I'm flabbergasted by his claim that *Atlas Shrugged* "is primarily...a sacrificial narrative," and that "the novel's borrowed premise is sacrifice." Illustrating the point by referring to the disaster in the Taggart Tunnel only compounds the problem. Bertonneau's exegetical skills are dubious, to say the least, and his description of AS as "a strenuous pontification" applies more to him than to Rand.

I've corresponded with Bertonneau and believe this "sacrificial narrative" view of Atlas Shrugged comes by way of Girard. From my reading of Girard and Girardians, of which it seems Bertonneau is one, it looks like he and they see just about everything as a "sacrificial narrative" or evincing envy and resentment (or even ressentiment).

My correction (about the origin of "middle ages") is admittedly a minor one, but it becomes more important when viewed in the context of Bertonneau's intellectual posturing and his claim that Rand and her followers have "a naive attitude towards history and philosophy that at times can only be described as sophomoric."

Agreed.

Another obvious error is Bertonneau's claim that Rand "never achieved a significant screen-credit; Warner Studios even farmed out the screenplay for The Fountainhead to someone else." In fact, Rand wrote the screenplays to both "The Fountainhead" and "Love Letters."

Btw, the title of Bertonneau's article (which refers to Rand's "Holocaustic Imagination") and the preliminary quotation from Gans (which refers to "the SS torturer" and "Nazi cinema") seem to revive the old charge of Whittaker Chambers that Rand was a neo-Nazi of sorts. Am I reading too much into this?

Bertonneau's inflated, pretentious style gives me the literary equivalent of a headache. I don't think I can stomach reading it again, so perhaps someone will serve as an interpreter for me.

Rand, whatever her faults, knew how to write clear, concise prose. Bertonneau should give this a try....

Ghs

And therein was the reason for me comparing his to Chambers' review on another topic here: they both ultimately equate Rand's views with those of the Nazis. This is funnier or sadder, in my mind, with Bertonneau because he seems to praise Plato -- all the while ignoring any influence his [Plato's] philosophy might have had on the course of history, especially Plato's extolling the kind of social control Nazis would surely admire and imitate.

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With all due respect George, Bertonneau's prose may contain more than a hint of smug snobbishness, but his basic take on Rand's writing is accurate.

"strenuous pontification" and ""a naive attitude towards history and philosophy that at times can only be described as sophomoric." are accurate assessments. I feel the same way when I read her work, fiction and non-fiction alike.

Of course, both Bertonneau and Rand can be sophomoric, but there's a special problem here with Bertonneau saying so. If he's blundering around making these kinds of errors, he might make many more regarding Rand's novel and other things he cares to write about.

Still, it's funny, don't you agree, to see someone being hoisted on his own pitard? rolleyes.gif

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With all due respect George, Bertonneau's prose may contain more than a hint of smug snobbishness, but his basic take on Rand's writing is accurate.

"strenuous pontification" and ""a naive attitude towards history and philosophy that at times can only be described as sophomoric." are accurate assessments. I feel the same way when I read her work, fiction and non-fiction alike.

Of course, both Bertonneau and Rand can be sophomoric, but there's a special problem here with Bertonneau saying so. If he's blundering around making these kinds of errors, he might make many more regarding Rand's novel and other things he cares to write about.

Still, it's funny, don't you agree, to see someone being hoisted on his own pitard? rolleyes.gif

Yes, I suppose so.

But it's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison, he's not making grand philosophical pronouncements.

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I've said I believe Bertonneau has embraced a form of Girardian reductionism. I also think flirts with another form of reductionism: a crude count of the Atlas Shrugged's vocabulary as if the word counts reveal, again, the "holocaustic imagination" he wants so desperately to warn us of. He tells us, citing Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult, "Destroy or destruction occurs 278 times," "evil ... is deployed a staggering 220 times," and "sacrifice" or "sacrificial" 135 times. What's staggering about this is that the novel is over 500,000 words long. Were I into this form of reductivism -- believing I could somehowarrive at a novel's deeper meaning from the number of times certain words appear in it -- I might be given pause here: the most these words appear is about once every 2000 other words. One can imagine, though, that because Rand is depicting the destructiveness of a moral code she views as evil that she would call it like she sees it -- in other words, that she'd name that code -- one of the ones touting "sacrifice" as morally ideal -- and name what she believes to be its true nature and its ultimate fruits.

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With all due respect George, Bertonneau's prose may contain more than a hint of smug snobbishness, but his basic take on Rand's writing is accurate.

"strenuous pontification" and ""a naive attitude towards history and philosophy that at times can only be described as sophomoric." are accurate assessments. I feel the same way when I read her work, fiction and non-fiction alike.

Of course, both Bertonneau and Rand can be sophomoric, but there's a special problem here with Bertonneau saying so. If he's blundering around making these kinds of errors, he might make many more regarding Rand's novel and other things he cares to write about.

Still, it's funny, don't you agree, to see someone being hoisted on his own pitard? rolleyes.gif

Yes, I suppose so.

But it's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison, he's not making grand philosophical pronouncements.

I think he is making grand pronouncements of a sort, but I must agree George here: he's not making clearly and concisely. It's fairly easy to grasp what Rand means in most cases. Yes, there are places where she is confusing and contradictory. But this seems to be most of Bertonneau's essay.

The grand pronouncement he's making is that the novel -- and probably all novels and all art -- can be reduced to some form of sacrifice or scapegoating. (And, though not directly relevant here, if you read his other writings, you'll find he's not shy of diagnosing or prognosing on a grand scale. See, e.g., his '“The Catastrophe” - Part 1: What the End of Bronze-Age Civilization Means for Modern Times' at: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4095 )

Side note: re-reading the essay, he also manages to never not take a jab at Rand for something -- as if the sheer number of charges he can throw at her will win over any jury -- and slips in many more errors, including the one about her not writing "The Fountainhead" screenplay and that she and her heroes are materialists.

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