Ayn Rand And The End Of Love

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

59 minutes ago, anthony said:

"Roark" is a concept, not to mold oneself to, nor 'perfect', but to abstract his qualities for one's own good.

Tony,

Abstracting his qualities for your own good is molding yourself to his model.

You just said the equivalent of cherries are for consuming through the mouth while chewing, they are not for eating.

 

Michael

[anthony]

Michael, It could be I am wary of the word "molding". You and I have been around the block a few times, and I know what you mean and you, likewise. First, a slight contradiction arises when a young reader admires Roark's independent mind and goes about it by trying to emulate *him*, and possibly his words and actions, too. (That is, dependence on an image of independence). Being independent for real, is going to need a gradual building and a lot of conscious effort, moreso, as things stand in society now, and it won't always be easy; it will at times, make him feel alienated from others. Two ways this can go when he sees that things aren't coming about quite so gloriously plotted as Rand did for Roark (and 'perfection' eludes him): he may give up in cynical disillusionment, or he may go further into Objectivism, except maybe (I wonder at the connection) with rationalist ideas.  

I am perturbed about the chance that really fine young people could relinquish or suppress their own personality even partly, to acquire that of a fictional character. (Even and especially, of a great one).

Of course - independence and rational selfishness is perfectly possible to all 'types'. Further, after all, in the Romantic-Realist tradition, Roark's is a stripped-down character of which we see mainly the bare essentials.

How potent Rand's characters can be to young minds. There was a poster ( can't recall his name) on OL I still remember years back who wrote enthusiastic screeds and screeds and many fashion designs of his, about his plans and ambitions. He had discovered The Fountainhead and was struggling to make up his mind between dress design and architecture. A really decent and most appealing guy (I think he alluded to an unhappy upbringing and breaking from his parents), who asked advice from the forum, and often referred back to Roark quite worshipfully. What can one say? Your life and life generally won't be like Roark's, but it very much can be - in your own way? Curb your enthusiasm? Never.  Perhaps - only channel it more thoughtfully. I still wish I could have given him better advice and often wonder how he's doing.

Anyway, I didn't mean to beat this to death. I know what you mean. And there is a shift of abstraction level. And an individualist is able to refer at times to the 'Roark-concept', in order to self-create it and sustain it for his life, and that's its permanent value.

[regi]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

First, a slight contradiction arises when a young reader admires Roark's independent mind and goes about it by trying to emulate *him*, and possibly his words and actions, too.

A truly moral individual does not emulate anyone, but I have to admit I have used Roark's words, "But I don’t think of you," on more than one occassion.

Randy

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

6 hours ago, anthony said:

I am perturbed about the chance that really fine young people could relinquish or suppress their own personality even partly, to acquire that of a fictional character.

Tony,

Then the quote below from "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art" by Rand probably perturbs you a lot (my bold):

Quote

Observe that every religion has a mythology-a dramatized concretization of its moral code embodied in the figures of men who are its ultimate product. (The fact that some of these figures are more convincing than others depends on the comparative rationality or irrationality of the moral theory they exemplify.)

This does not mean that art is a substitute for philosophical thought: without a conceptual theory of ethics, an artist would not be able successfully to concretize an image of the ideal. But without the assistance of art, ethics remains in the position of theoretical engineering: art is the model-builder.

Many readers of The Fountainhead have told me that the character of Howard Roark helped them to make a decision when they faced a moral dilemma. They asked themselves: "What would Roark do in this situation?"-and, faster than their mind could identify the proper application of all the complex principles involved, the image of Roark gave them the answer. They sensed, almost instantly, what he would or would not do-and this helped them to isolate and to identify the reasons, the moral principles that would have guided him. Such is the psycho-epistemological function of a personified (concretized) human ideal.

It is important to stress, however, that even though moral values are inextricably involved in art, they are involved only as a consequence, not as a causal determinant: the primary focus of art is metaphysical, not ethical. Art is not the "handmaiden" of morality, its basic purpose is not to educate, to reform or to advocate anything. The concretization of a moral ideal is not a textbook on how to become one. The basic purpose of art is not to teach, but to show-to hold up to man a concretized image of his nature and his place in the universe.

There you have it from the horse's mouth: the model and the molding.

Notice that Rand is very specific. She says that art is not a self-help step-by-step how-to system. An art work is a model--a complete moral mold so to speak--and the way to use it properly is to fit your own mind into the model when you don't know what to do. If that is not molding yourself to a model, I don't know what is.

btw - I take issue with Rand's first statement in this quote. She defines mythology as: "A dramatized concretization of its moral code embodied in the figures of men who are its ultimate product." Actually, that is a minor characteristic of SOME myths only, not even the majority.

Myths are stories (ALL of them) and they are used to peg unknown reality (and seemingly unknowable at the time the myths arose) to some kind of framework that the human mind can understand. For example, for ancient Greeks, why does lightening exist or where does lightening come from? Well... Zeus throws lightening bolts down from the sky to destroy stuff when he is pissed off.

(I can imagine Zeus saying: "Done. Satisfied? Now go back to living your life and see if you can survive and reproduce rather than melt your brain with anxiety over stuff you can't understand right now."  )

That has nothing to do with morality.

Myths get really interesting when the unknown (or unknowable) reality they portray is the lower part of the human mind. (This is beyond the scope here, but worth pursuing--well worth pursuing...)

On another point, I have a beef with Rand's notion on the self-help angle. I don't know what could be more of a step-by-step method of how to achieve and integrate transcendence or a higher stage of growth (especially when coming of age) than the hero's journey, which is the storytelling frame for countless myths.

I'm not saying that an art work cannot be a fully-formed model for the future à la Rand's notion. I am saying that this model is not all that art is--not by a long shot.

Finally, let me get a real nasty one off my chest since I care about young people and their minds. The whole context of Objectivism originated in an environment of "us against them." People were encouraged to use their independent minds, but only if they accepted Objectivism and the conclusions therein as their prechosen model for the truth. But how does one know what the truth is if one is still questioning and thinking it through? Nobody can, but the structure was set up so that everybody had to, that is if they wanted to hang around and keep discussing it.

Notice that in the early days, people could not even call themselves Objectivists if they identified with the ideas and got excited by them. They had to call themselves "students of Objectivism" until... (Until... Well... that part is vague in O-Land history. Approval from on high is in there somewhere.)

Even today, if you hang around ortho-Objectivists, what is the penalty if you, as a young person, insist on using your independent thinking and keep asking inconvenient questions when traditional Objectivist answers don't make sense to you? You get peer pressure and total rejection like you would not believe. What's worse, people start accusing you of attacking Rand. Like I said, this environment--this context--is pure "us against them." Ironically, that is a collectivist approach...

(Rand's constant metaphors that involve fighting and war for ideas and discussions don't help, either. But that is a tangential issue.)

In other words, in this pressurized climate where ignorance of the truth and seeking the truth are punishable sins unless they come in a preapproved form, you--if you are a young person--suddenly find a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. There is art. Romantic art. You see that you are supposed to use Roark (or some other Randian hero or figure approved by Rand) as your moral role model when you don't know what to do.

Whew!

Saved by the gong...

But what is the practical result? Well... this turns into a gigantic booby-trap to induce guilt in the young for not conforming. After all, you cannot use your mind and submit your mind to intellectual conformity to avoid punishment at the same time. That contradiction alone comes with guilt. It feels like selling out (maybe because it is). And the ugly part is that this sold to the young as "using reason" and "independent thinking."

What a bait and switch...

I have seen that guilt trap sprung over and over on people who bounce into Objectivism and right back out. And worse, on a huge number of people who stay in Objectivism and become massive underachievers. These poor souls tend to become snarky over time to hide their guilt feelings and resulting paralysis on pursuing their dreams.

Note, I bash this part of the Objectivist experience (and, man, does it deserve bashing--this crap has allowed some rotten people to become Objectivist leaders), but I support the foundation of Rand's ideas.

That's why I'm still around.  

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

15 hours ago, anthony said:

That lends to what I was saying about the error of over-derivation. "Roark" is a concept, not to mold oneself to, nor 'perfect', but to abstract his qualities for one's own good. His independent mind displaying the 'universal' of a volitional consciousness. Isolate the Roark-virtues, there are men like him, and women.

Seriously doubt it. Talent is rare.

 

[regi]

44 minutes ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

16 hours ago, anthony said:

That lends to what I was saying about the error of over-derivation. "Roark" is a concept, not to mold oneself to, nor 'perfect', but to abstract his qualities for one's own good. His independent mind displaying the 'universal' of a volitional consciousness. Isolate the Roark-virtues, there are men like him, and women.

Seriously doubt it. Talent is rare.

So is discernment.

It has nothing to do with innate talent. Roarke was an example of an independent individualist which anyone can be if they choose to be. It's just that most people do not choose to be.

"Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man." [For the New Intellectual,—The Fountainhead, "The Soul Of An Individualist"]

"But if you wonder how I look at Roark in relation to men as we see them around us—I'll say that any man who has an innate sense of independence and self-respect, and a spark of the creative mind, has that much of Roark in him. Any man can follow Roark's principles—if he has intelligence, integrity and courage. He may not have Roark's genius, but he can function in the same manner and live by the same morality—within the limits of his own ability. He must live by the same morality—the morality of individualism—if he wants to survive at all. [The Letters of Ayn Rand, We The Living to The Fountainhead (1931-1943), November 30, 1945]

You may not agree with Rand, but Anthony's view certainly does.

Randy

[regi]

9 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Objectivist leaders

Oxymoron!

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Seriously doubt it. Talent is rare.

 

Frank Lloyd Wright's SC Johnson office building. Each pillar is a load carrier.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

3 hours ago, regi said:

"He may not have Roark's genius, but he can function in the same manner and live by the same morality—within the limits of his own ability. He must live by the same morality—the morality of individualism—if he wants to survive at all."

People say nice things, smile at children, turn on the porch light on Halloween. She was being nice, conventional, good ol' American individualism, freedom of religion and free markets, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, er, survival. "You're a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark, I can see that in your buildings," Stoddard was coached to say with a knowing smile. "I'm going to make him famous," Toohey foreshadowed. On the Monadnock project, Mallory frets that it's another Stoddard Temple. At every turn his genius is shunned and punished, his survival as an artist choked, his love for Dominique dashed, not just wasted years, wasted decades and then the threat of prison for dynamiting a public housing project. Shall we be honest? Acquittal 12-0 by jury nullification was preposterous. Rand gave Dominique a cookie for stabbing Wynand in the heart, after killing Keating. Howard Roark the benevolent moron wanted to save both of them.

I don't wish to contradict Rand on core principles, like A is A and evil requires the sanction of the victim, both of which are implicit in The Fountainhead. But let's agree that she paid a heavy price for being Ayn Rand, genius or not. She was mocked, rejected, lost every battle she undertook to fight. Her legacy was looted and turned into bloody cinematic toilet paper, the fatal dagger held by David Kelley in celebration of fiction that he could not have created and without which he would have had nothing. Every one of Rand's inner circle survived nicely, prospered, became famous public figures like Alan Greenspan. The next generation of secondhanders achieved great things as well, like Paul Ryan.

Listen carefully. There was no new fiction produced by any of them.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

23 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Listen carefully. There was no new fiction produced by any of them.

Wolf,

There's an underbelly to this.

Rand wrote wonderfully as a fiction writer. She sucked as a fiction writing teacher.

In Hollywood, where she learned the bulk of her craft, everyone knew how to tell a story. There was a lot of schlock, but everybody could tell a shaggy dog story and get away with entertaining someone. That's what they all did. That's how they invented an entire industry.

I think Rand took this storytelling ability for granted in the young folks around her as she squeezed their souls with fear of being wrong. And this squeezing squeezed the storytelling right out of them. 

That sounds like a quip, but I'm serious. Fear of being wrong will do that.

I know this because my journey in fiction writing has included identifying what she did that smothered creative storytelling in those who are still learning and rediscovering basic storytelling principles.

 

Villains and Serenity

Here's a good example. Look around at the few fiction writers who emerged from Rand's philosophy. In general, they can't write a decent villain. You know why? Rand claimed that evil was impotent and the best stories were the good against the good. So a villain is OK, but she implied it's second best. And a suboptimal second-best at that. How's that for a straight-jacket for a beginner? He never even gets his first story done. And if he does, man does it suck.

(There's a reason for villains in stories and it has to do with the way the mind works. But a discussion of that is for another day.)

Or how about the transcendent state of serenity, of being without pain or fear or guilt as given in Dagny's first impression of John Galt's face when she regained consciousness from her plane crash? How do you make a hero like that if you are a beginner? Easy. You make a sucky two-dimension cardboard character that is so unbelievable, nobody wants to read about him. And you suffer and wonder why your story doesn't work.

I'm going through the James Bond books in order right now with an eye to probing Fleming's literary technique. (I just finished Thunderball. Thank God it's not the last. This project has been a most delightful task.  ) I recall fully Rand's outrage at the later movie versions. Her writing and rhetoric branded that outrage in my memory. But from the way she portrayed Bond's character in Fleming's books, I, myself, got a totally wrong impression of him.

For instance, did you know that Bond screamed when he was tortured? He did that several times so far. Or that he felt guilt on sleeping with a woman knowing he was going to have to tell her that her brother had been killed? Or that he feared death? And so on...

There you have it. Pain and fear and guilt. James Bond...

 

Two-Dimensional Characters

It is true that Bond's character arcs are minimal in Fleming's books. He's what is called a "steadfast" character by the Dramatica people and I find this term useful. (Dramatica is a theory of story popular in Hollywood with its own method and software.)

But even as a steadfast character, Bond suffered. And boy did he suffer. And thank God he did. If a hero doesn't suffer, he can't overcome suffering. Duh...  

And if he can't overcome suffering, the story sucks. It's that simple. If you want to see a Bond that has very little suffering in him, Roger Moore's smarmy Bond of the movies fits the bill perfectly. The reason those particular movies worked with the public had more to do with spectacle than drama or even basic storytelling. They are more like a jazzed up circus mixed with a video game than a captivating thriller. 

In Rand-derived fiction, I often see that kind of bland two-dimensional character--but without the spectacle (exotic locations, cool devices, outlandish chase scenes, etc.) and without the low-level emotions like Moore's constant ogling of tits and ass. And, of course, there are generally way too many philosophy arguments thrown in at random.

 

Rand's Fiction Writing Teaching and How to Get Around the Downside

Notice, so far I only talked about Rand's hammering of good against good and no pain or fear or guilt. It would be fair to say she did not teach these ideas as fiction-writing techniques. But she did set them up as high points for stories based on her ideas. She extolled them as the best way to integrate her philosophy to fiction. So it's only natural for aspiring Rand-oriented writers to try to emulate them. And, from my experience and observations, you have to know how to tell a plain old vanilla good guy against bad guy story, preferably where the good guy gets the girl in the end, in order to even attempt Rand's ideas.

She wanted to present the perfect man as the goal of her writing. She said so. That's religion, not Storytelling 101.

Now, when we get to her formal fiction writing teaching, we get odd things like a discussion of Aristotle's theory of final causation. And she added comments designed to look unique (but confusing to beginning writers) like final causation doesn't exist in nature, but you have to use it to derive plots.

Actually, this isn't a bad way to make up sequences of events (work backwards from the climax in planning story events). But to learn this properly as a beginner, you have to chop away her jargon and the seduction of thinking you are being empowered with secret knowledge that all other fiction writers throughout history never knew (except Victor Hugo and Dostoevsky and a few moderns like Fleming and Spillane). Then you have to think it through in your own words. The best way that has worked for me is to put her ideas into plain 5th-grade level English.

For instance, when Rand says "theme," I think "thing."  

Seriously. Of course, I consider "role" and "injustice" and "impact" as things. Intangible things, but still things. Only after I do that, I expand it to something like "noun or topic without any individual characters or action."

And when she says "plot theme," I think "hassle involving the thing." Later I add "complicated" and "characters" so it becomes something like "complicated hassle with specific characters and involving the thing."

See how well this works with Rand's own words from "Basic Principles of Literature":

Quote

For example, the theme of Atlas Shrugged is: “The role of the mind in man’s existence.” The plot-theme is: “The men of the mind going on strike against an altruist-collectivist society.”

The theme of Les Misérables is: “The injustice of society toward its lower classes.” The plot-theme is: “The life-long flight of an ex-convict from the pursuit of a ruthless representative of the law.”

The theme of Gone With the Wind is: “The impact of the Civil War on Southern society.” The plot-theme is: “The romantic conflict of a woman who loves a man representing the old order, and is loved by another man, representing the new.”

But I only discovered how to do this after reading countless books on writing where other writers use the same words Rand does, but with different meanings. What's worse, their meanings are generally the accepted ones. Rand's meanings fit only her own frame.

I could go on and on about this. But leave it to say, this is confusing as all hell to a beginner.

 

Booby Trap

Here's an even deeper booby trap. If you (not you, Wolf, but the indefinite you), as an aspiring fiction writer who fell in love with Rand's ideas, happen to like the feeling of superiority you get from being one of the enlightened ones when you read Rand, a feeling that she encourages in her "us against them" bellicose rhetoric, you cannot be confused. Ever. That is not an option. You have to have the answers and the correct ones. Otherwise the superiority feeling goes away and anxiety sets in as the impostor syndrome wreaks havoc on your soul.

But, as a human being, you are confused on many things. You always are. If you are never confused, you never have to learn. So what to do to keep the superiority feeling running? Easy. You give up fiction writing and keep to preaching to everyone. At least you can understand preaching--you make some kind of moral statement about what others do, you do that in a tone of certainty, then praise and condemn with gushes and outrage at will.

You may feel frustrated you can't write Rand-based fiction, but you think if you preach enough, fiction writing knowledge will come later.

Sadly, it doesn't.

 

Rand's Fiction Writing Techniques--Metaphor

One final note. Rand's fiction writing techniques are extremely good by ordinary storytelling standards. To see them and understand them at a 5th grade English level, though, you have to step outside her fiction writing teaching and jargon. And once you see her techniques like that, it becomes easy to learn them.

Let me show you what I mean with one example: metaphor. Rand was creative and insightful in coming up with her major metaphors. Think about Atlantis for the men of the mind disappearing in Atlas Shrugged. But with metaphor here, and in other places, she often differed from normal writing practices.

Rand explained her main metaphors as she went along during the story. I'm mentioning Atlantis, but you can make a list of other metaphors. (Think Drooling Beast and so on.) This is good for keeping the reader's focus in a state of verbal clarity during a specific passage. For that state, doubt and vagueness can be nowhere around as they cause the reader's awareness to delve into the underbelly of the mind--to float on feeling, so to speak. So, to repeat, to keep readers in mental clarity, explain your main metaphors.

This is often seen as a flaw in fiction writing instruction books (the ones I have read) because they try to teach mood and emotion--not mental clarity--as priority with metaphors. But this is a tool and how you use it it depends on what you want to use it for.

The point is, once you see this, if you want to induce the same mental clarity effect Rand got with readers (that is, if this is important and relevant to a passage in your story), you can come up with an ingenious colorful metaphor and explain it. And you will know why you did that. Of course, this only works well in moments of reflection. If your passage is focused on mounting hope and fear like in a thriller, you will spoil your emotional effect doing this and make the reader feel unsatisfied, feel like something is off.

This is just one technique. Rand has a bunch of them.

I have a pet idea I might turn into a work someday--a course on how to write fiction like Ayn Rand did. I want to write a few stories in her manner first just to prove my knowledge, but I have no wish to make that the goal of my writing. I have my own voice and reasons for being and working. But, at least, when I get around to doing this course, maybe I can help open the door for some others to break free of their paralyzing worship state and get down to learning their craft with a dose of common sense.

Michael

[regi]

11 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

... The next generation of secondhanders achieved great things as well, like Paul Ryan.

Exactly. They were not individualists, but opportunists, sychophants, "Objectivists;" which means they missed the whole point and purpose of all Rand wrote. Whether she succeeded or not, her stated purpose of all she wrote was about individualism, which she mistakenly thought could be promoted. One cannot become an individualist by adopting an ideology, "philosophy," or religion.

11 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Listen carefully. There was no new fiction produced by any of them.

Well many of them, especially at ARI, wrote a lot that was inadvertently fiction. (Just my snide way of agreeing with you.)

You are right about one thing, being an individualist is the costliest way of living there is, but why shouldn't it be? Why shouldn't the most valuable thing in the world be the most costly? It is the only thing worth living for, what one is and has made of himself living in the only way one is willing to live.

It is that cost that most are unwilling to pay and choose to settle for something less. I've written about it, Hated—The Individualist In a Collectivist World. I know you know something about that.

Randy

[Wolf DeVoon]

10 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

If you want to see a Bond that has very little suffering in him, Roger Moore's smarmy Bond of the movies fits the bill perfectly. The reason those particular movies worked with the public had more to do with spectacle than drama or even basic storytelling. They are more like a jazzed up circus mixed with a video game than a captivating thriller. 

Forgive me for quoting so little of your excellent in-depth post, all of which I found persuasive. I have no doubt that you can write.

[Wolf DeVoon]

7 hours ago, regi said:

It is that cost that most are unwilling to pay and choose to settle for something less. I've written about it, Hated—The Individualist In a Collectivist World.

I'm beginning to believe that you know the canon quite well. I picked a line from the article you cited, nicely composed. You said:

...the spirit of collectivism is ubiquitous, and almost everyone is caught up in some form of it.

That made me think instantly of family -- the primary and most powerful institution of collectivism, almost always anti-individualist, featured many times in Rand's work in the nagging of Mrs. Keating, Toohey's ridicule of Katie, Wynand and Roark as orphans, Jim Taggart heir to a family fortune, Dagny's and Francisco's valiant ancestors, conspiracy of Whitfield father and daughter in Night of January 16th, the entire landscape of Kira's circumstances in We The Living, doomed cousin Irina the artist.

[KorbenDallas]

15 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I know this because my journey in fiction writing has included identifying what she did that smothered creative storytelling in those who are still learning and rediscovering basic storytelling principles.

What are your thoughts on the heroic journey as compared to Rand's philosophic approach?  I've found them to be largely incompatible, the big thing that comes to mind is the heroic journey seems to place others before the self quite often.  It seems that Rand's approach was somewhat specific to her purpose of having her fiction represent her philosophy.  I might have repeated you some with the last sentence there.

15 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Rand explained her main metaphors as she went along during the story. I'm mentioning Atlantis, but you can make a list of other metaphors. (Think Drooling Beast and so on.) This is good for keeping the reader's focus in a state of verbal clarity during a specific passage.

Wow Rand could write metaphor!  I really like how you said "verbal clarity" here, her metaphors stand out as being very clear, precise, and illustrative to her points---where in so much of other fiction the metaphor serves for reader inclarity, even if the writer attempted clarity.

[regi]

19 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

That made me think instantly of family -- the primary and most powerful institution of collectivism, almost always anti-individualist ....

Oh yes! Perhaps all collectivism begins with that tiniest tribal unit—everything for the sake of the family, then the wider family; the community (tribe), then the widest tribe: society (or "one's country"), taught to every memeber from the day they are born.

There is nothing wrong with families that consist of members who remain close only because they find real value in each other without obligation or sense of "duty." I was very fortunate to have parents who taught me I was not born with an obligation to anyone, not even my parents, but that I was responsible only to and for myself. Nevertheless there were cousins, aunts, and uncles that I loved the company of because they were all so different and all told stories that stimulated my imagination or just made us all laugh. That was in the 40s and 50s, when individual's were mostly free to live their lives as they chose and people appreciated each other for their differences.

Even in those days our family was unusual. I don't think there are any like that today. Most are just as you described, collectivist and anti-individualist, in which everyone is obligated to the family, the family's views, the family's religion, the family's values, and the most "needy" family members, and woe to any family member that chooses to think for themselves and to live their own life as they choose in betrayal of their familial duty.

Thanks for reminding me of another reason to be disappointed in what the world has become.

Randy

[regi]

15 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

where in so much of other fiction the metaphor serves for reader inclarity

Really?

You mean like this:

"This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children's eyes. From the western half of the sky the sun was shying little golden disks at the sea—if you gazed intently enough you could see them skip from wave tip to wave tip until they joined a broad collar of golden coin that was collecting half a mile out and would eventually be a dazzling sunset. About half-way between the Florida shore and the golden collar a white steam-yacht, very young and graceful, was riding at anchor and under a blue-and-white awning aft a yellow-haired girl reclined in a wicker settee reading The Revolt of the Angels, by Anatole France."

Randy

[KorbenDallas]

37 minutes ago, regi said:

15 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

where in so much of other fiction the metaphor serves for reader inclarity

Really?

Really.

37 minutes ago, regi said:

You mean like this:

"This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children's eyes. From the western half of the sky the sun was shying little golden disks at the sea—if you gazed intently enough you could see them skip from wave tip to wave tip until they joined a broad collar of golden coin that was collecting half a mile out and would eventually be a dazzling sunset. About half-way between the Florida shore and the golden collar a white steam-yacht, very young and graceful, was riding at anchor and under a blue-and-white awning aft a yellow-haired girl reclined in a wicker settee reading The Revolt of the Angels, by Anatole France."

No I didn't mean like that.

For anyone interested in the attribute, it's The Offshore Pirate by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[regi]

57 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

No I didn't mean like that.

For anyone interested in the attribute, it's The Offshore Pirate by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I knew you didn't. Like every other device, most writers don't do them well, but the good writers do, which is why they are good writers. Good catch, by the way. Fitzgerald was a poet.

[Wolf DeVoon]

7 hours ago, regi said:

"This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings..."

Carrots and peas, Beans on their knees, Pigs in the seas, Lucky fellows!

Oysters and rocks, Sawdust and socks, Who could make clocks out of cellos?

[Wolf DeVoon]

22 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Wow Rand could write metaphor!

Um, not her thing at all. Symbolism yes (Your days are numbered). Textual metaphor none that I recall, except perhaps the kid on a bike looking at Monadnock. Well, maybe the description of Roark on the cliff, naked. I dunno. Shut up, Wolf.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 1/14/2018 at 11:21 PM, KorbenDallas said:

What are your thoughts on the heroic journey as compared to Rand's philosophic approach?  I've found them to be largely incompatible, the big thing that comes to mind is the heroic journey seems to place others before the self quite often.

Korben,

Then you probably didn't care for Dagny's hero's journey.

I bet if you take Campbell's FULL template, you will be able to peg Dagny's journey to at least 80-90% of the steps. She even landed in the middle of the beast's lair (Galt's Gultch) .  

The essence of the hero's journey template is the following:

1. The protagonist is just fine where he or she is at. Maybe not great, but just fine.
2. A disruption happens to the "just fine" status.
3. The protagonist goes out into the unknown to solve the disruption.
4. The protagonist grapples with the solution out there in the unknown.
5. The protagonist returns (or doesn't) and "just fine" has been duly altered.

This is a template for growth or transformation and is universal across all life. 

Even with single cell organisms. They are just fine in the familiar environment they are prewired to live in, but they venture out and return. That's how they change.

Venturing out means getting good shit or being eaten. So there's that.  

But that's why the hero's journey makes such a great story template. Lots of suspense and drama is inherent in the unknown.

On 1/14/2018 at 11:21 PM, KorbenDallas said:

I really like how you said "verbal clarity" here, her metaphors stand out as being very clear, precise, and illustrative to her points---where in so much of other fiction the metaphor serves for reader inclarity, even if the writer attempted clarity.

I was with you until you got to "inclarity."

Verbal clarity (based on declarative memory to use technical jargon) is not the same as clarity based on, say, procedural memory. You don't need words to run from a bear. And, believe me, your mind is very clear about what you need to do in that case.   Or even autobiographical memory if it is image-laden. (You don't need words to remember the magic of a first kiss.) All metaphor does is interrupt a linear verbal stream to allow awareness to access the rest of the mind (sensory inputs, but including non-linear verbal thoughts). Whether that mental state is clear or fuzzy depends on the character, what is going on at the time, and what the writer is attempting to make the reader feel.

I do agree that an overdose of metaphors will lead to a state of confusion in the reader. But too much explanation of metaphors will spit the reader right out of the fiction trance.

Notice that the heavy metaphorical language of the Fitzgerald quote, which is the beginning of a story, works really well on third reading on (especially the spot of sunlight on wave tips turning into a full dazzling sunset to signal the process of a young girl coming of age in discovering love). But it is very hard to get into the fiction trance on first reading. Oh well... who can blame Fitzgerald? He was young when he wrote that and was reaching for the big brass ring of writerdom.  

Ah.. to be young and full of piss and vinegar again...

 

Michael

[dldelancey]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 8:19 PM, regi said:

The 2nd-grade reference was to the contradiction and hypocrisy of schools that begin sex education in pre-school, but suspend or punish children for any show of physical affection, like kissing or hugging.

Where do you live?

I know it's grim. I don't like it. Generalities are never true of everyone. But I didn't make it up.

A little research on the percentage of girls in early teens sending nude selfies and a little CDC research on STD statistics for teens etc. will no doubt paint the same picture. I believe your teens are just what you say. You must be an excellent (and exceptional) mother. If they go to public school, and they feel comfortable with you, ask them about what others girls are doing.

[Try these if you like: "Statistics," and "Sexual Risk Behaviors: HIV, STD, & Teen Pregnancy Prevention," and "Middle school youth are engaging in sexual intercourse as early as age 12."]

One father (of two boys) told me what they were facing in a high income "prestigious" neighborhood school: "Seventy five percent of the girls send nude selfies on Snapchat. Maybe twenty five percent are virgins. All of them are willing to sexually please a boy they meet at a party, or hook up with on social media, orally or with their hands because they do not believe it is sex. The girls are worse than the boys, vying to outdo each other sexually."

Another father wrote, "I could not believe the sexual aggressiveness of high school girls towards my sons and the sons of my friends. We had our work cut out for us, because one wrong move and a promising young man's college career would be sidelined by child support payments and a nagging babymama if things went wrong. I personally called the fathers of a couple of the aggressive girls who had been offering themselves, and was met with total passivity and unconcern."

I do not judge what young people are doing. It is what they are being taught and are exposed to all the time, everywhere, in school, entertainment, and what passes for literature. Only the strongest and most independent young people can escape the influence of "all sex all the time" that pervades American culture.

If you can do this, ask your daughter and teen friends if they know what the lyrics to Ariana Grande's "Side to Side" mean. They're not at all subtle. I won't even mention rap. If your girls aren't listening to it, good, but most girls their age are. (I'll send you a description of the lyrics if you want.)

I'm glad your experience with your daughter and her friends is not what I know is happening all over this country. For example:

This story is from "conservative" New Hampshire. "Unwelcome exposure: Website's 'wins' are nude selfies of NH girls." Where did all those pictures of nude teens come from? They took them to send to their boyfriends.

There are always decent young people and I'm delighted yours are, but to believe most are today is sadly unrealistic.

Randy

My child is a boy.  He has friends who are boys and girls, from the private school he attended K-6 and from the public school he now attends in grade 7. 

I am familiar with Ariana Grande's work, including Side to Side.  She is not a child, and that song is not meant for children.  What "passes for literature" in my son's reading and English classes as a 7th grader includes The Christmas Carol, The Outsiders, A Wrinkle in Time, the Horizon series, Brandon Sanderson's YA novels, The Princess Bride, among many other books that both he and I enjoy.

I don't discount that sexuality is everywhere around children.  It most definitely is.  But there is a difference between "what they are being taught and [what they] are exposed to all the time."  No one is teaching my son or any of his friends to have sex until they're sore (the meaning behind Side to Side).  That song isn't meant to teach.  My son hearing it doesn't teach him anything except that maybe women are as capable of sensuality as men are.

What I think you're actually taking exception to is a lack of teaching.  The kind that is not supposed to happen in school or in entertainment, but in the home. 

[regi]

2 hours ago, dldelancey said:

The kind that is not supposed to happen in school or in entertainment, but in the home.

You are right. My experience is that it is just the opposite is sadly what is actually happening. I believe your case is a delightful and hopeful exception. All my best to you and your family.

Randy

[regi]

14 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Carrots and peas, Beans on their knees, Pigs in the seas, Lucky fellows!

Oysters and rocks, Sawdust and socks, Who could make clocks out of cellos?

Well I never said everythng he wrote was poetry. Does doggerel count?

[regi]

7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

... what the writer is attempting to make the reader feel.

Michael, I do not agree that a good writer attempts to make a reader feel anything. With the exception of humor and horror, writers who intentionally attempt to evoke an emotional reaction are not good writers, and the attempt is a mistake in any case. Every reader will have different emotional reactions to what they read determined by their own values and beliefs, just as they do to real life events and people. Personally, when I detect that a writer is attempting to produce an emotional affect I'm put off, because there is a distinct oder of manipulation in such writing.

7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

... especially the spot of sunlight on wave tips turning into a full dazzling sunset to signal the process of a young girl coming of age in discovering love.

Good grief that sounds like "critical theory" on steroids. Is it possible Fitzgerald was only providing a beautifully crafted metaphorical description of the setting. No wonder it took three readings to appreciate the beauty of that description and to read into it what Fitzgerald never intended.

Randy