Ayn Rand and the World She Made

[Alfonso Jones]

Bill P,

The place to find a more detailed rundown of the publishers that Rand submitted The Fountainhead to is Bob Mayhew's edited volume.

Robert C

I've got that volume. I'll take a look and see what details it offers.

Bill P

[Robert Campbell]

ND,

Besides lacking the index, the audiobook must have cut out Anne Heller's 108 pages of notes.

Heller is better versed in Rand's philosophical system than Jennifer Burns was. I have more of a glass-half-full attitude about her efforts to link events in Rand's life to aspects of her philosophy. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I wouldn't have brought up the virtue of honesty at the point (p. 53) where Rand was at the US Embassy in Latvia, trying to make sure she would be able to escape from the Soviet Union. I wouldn't even have tied what she said on that particular occasion to her experiences as a Jew in Russia. She could have been an ethnic Russian or a Ukrainian or a Kalmyk and the stakes would have been the same.

On the amphetamine issue, Jennifer Burns also points to photos of Ayn Rand taken during her Chatsworth years (1944-1951). Many of these are unpublished, but in the Heller book you can see (on the first page of photos after p. 320) a shot of Ayn and Frank (1951, according to Heller) and then the familiar photo from Nathaniel and Barbara Branden's wedding (1953, after the return to New York). Ayn Rand looks unusually thin in the 1951 photo. Seeing changes in her handwriting during 1942 could be significant—but I wouldn't mind being able to see them myself.

Concerning her later New York years, Heller quotes blunt or harsh statements from interviews, many of which were originally done by Barbara Branden but used more selectively in The Passion of Ayn Rand. There are several direct quotes from Barbara Weiss. Bertha Krantz is quoted opining that Frank must have been a "nebbish" and that his paintings that Rand showed her were "schlock." On the cat issue, the story about her holding the dying Frisco's paw should be told, but, well, if you let a tomcat spray in your apartment, it's going to smell awful.

The Burns book includes a few tidbits along the lines of "Leonard hasn't gotten enough credit for X." I assume she got these from the folks at the Archives, and, so far as I know, they're legit—although, of course, Dr. Peikoff's own official mythos does not allow him to come out and say that he read Kant, Rand didn't, and he had to convince her that Kant was a major baddy. The Heller book is much more focused on his character, and most of what she has to say about that is negative. (I'd heard years ago that Peikoff once incurred Ayn Rand's disapproval because he liked the music of Johannes Brahms. I didn't know, till I read Heller, that he actually gave away all of his Brahms recordings after Rand made a pronouncement ex cathedra. Heller gives the year and the recipient.)

Robert Campbell

[Selene]

Folks:

I am sorry to keep bringing this up, but does it really matter whether she did amphetamines?

Does it matter that she was, apparently, a "slob", which, I might add, is not unusual at all for brilliant individuals who "see", who invent, who lead movements, who create art...

The personal commitment, dedication and sheer force of will to create Atlas Shrugged from "Who is John Galt?" to over 1,000 pages later, "He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar." is a tour de force unparalleled in my lifetime.

I just step back and say thank you.

I often wonder how my life would have progressed had I not read Atlas when I was 14-15.

Adam

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Folks:

I am sorry to keep bringing this up, but does it really matter whether she did amphetamines?

Does it matter that she was, apparently, a "slob", which, I might add, is not unusual at all for brilliant individuals who "see", who invent, who lead movements, who create art...

The personal commitment, dedication and sheer force of will to create Atlas Shrugged from "Who is John Galt?" to over 1,000 pages later, "He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar." is a tour de force unparalleled in my lifetime.

I just step back and say thank you.

I often wonder how my life would have progressed had I not read Atlas when I was 14-15.

Adam

Hear, Hear Adam!

The emphasis of these details, some of which are speculative, is ungracious at best or the muddy footprint on the face of Howard Roark at worst. These are not things she shared with us or forced on us. She put her best foot forward in her work.

Jim

Edited November 20, 2009 by James Heaps-Nelson

[tjohnson]

I am sorry to keep bringing this up, but does it really matter whether she did amphetamines?

Unfortunately when you become famous people become interested in your private life.

[Greybird]

[...] I'd heard years ago that Peikoff once incurred Ayn Rand's disapproval because he liked the music of Johannes Brahms. I didn't know, till I read Heller, that he actually gave away all of his Brahms recordings after Rand made a pronouncement ex cathedra. Heller gives the year and the recipient.

To know, from a report such as this, that Heller goes into such detail is to make me almost infinitely weary at the prospect of actually reading her book.

I've been through this with others I've admired, a cycle of successively more detailed biographies that end up dredging associates' or friends' lives for the fine grain of their virtues and faults. This is meant to amplify and explain the main subject, who thought those people important, for good or ill. And after a few rounds of this, I get heartily sick of looking into those associates — as well as the light refracted onto them.

To take two examples very far afield: I've gotten more than I want to ever know about the decorated interiors of Barbra Streisand's houses and the lovers who've shared her bed. And I am bored stiff by reading about the publishing maneuvers of George Jean Nathan, even though he was probably the closest professional associate of H.L. Mencken.

If I see one more such examination that goes into, say, Peikoff's personal cowardice, I think I'll go mad. I've seen enough in two massive memoirs already — and from the man in person — to tell me all I need to know. Not about morally judging him, directly, as that's a different matter. But about wanting to pay another sizable sum to read more about him, among many others.

All this is making me more inclined to spend my more limited book funds at the moment on Burns's tome. I remember vividly how, after James Spada's 600-page biography of Streisand, his third (!) tome about her, I felt not enlightened, but merely exhausted. I fear Heller's work, however likely to be well-written, will do the same.

Burns's study at least attempts, from all descriptions, to make more connections — supported or not — to intellectual and political milieus well beyond Rand's own associates. That appears to be different in type, not in amounts of wearying personal detail.

I'm still glad both books have been published. Maybe I just need another few years before going through another over-dissecting personal biography.

(Methinks I will go put on Brahms's "Variations on a Theme by Haydn." And look into getting a DVD to replace my tape of "Chocolat." Two favorites I apparently do share with those of Peikoff. Just to be perverse. {g})

[James Heaps-Nelson]

[...] I'd heard years ago that Peikoff once incurred Ayn Rand's disapproval because he liked the music of Johannes Brahms. I didn't know, till I read Heller, that he actually gave away all of his Brahms recordings after Rand made a pronouncement ex cathedra. Heller gives the year and the recipient.

To know, from a report such as this, that Heller goes into such detail is to make me almost infinitely weary at the prospect of actually reading her book.

I've been through this with others I've admired, a cycle of successively more detailed biographies that end up dredging associates' or friends' lives for the fine grain of their virtues and faults. This is meant to amplify and explain the main subject, who thought those people important, for good or ill. And after a few rounds of this, I get heartily sick of looking into those associates — as well as the light refracted onto them.

To take two examples very far afield: I've gotten more than I want to ever know about the decorated interiors of Barbra Streisand's houses and the lovers who've shared her bed. And I am bored stiff by reading about the publishing maneuvers of George Jean Nathan, even though he was probably the closest professional associate of H.L. Mencken.

If I see one more such examination that goes into, say, Peikoff's personal cowardice, I think I'll go mad. I've seen enough in two massive memoirs already — and from the man in person — to tell me all I need to know. Not about morally judging him, directly, as that's a different matter. But about wanting to pay another sizable sum to read more about him, among many others.

All this is making me more inclined to spend my more limited book funds at the moment on Burns's tome. I remember vividly how, after James Spada's 600-page biography of Streisand, his third (!) tome about her, I felt not enlightened, but merely exhausted. I fear Heller's work, however likely to be well-written, will do the same.

Burns's study at least attempts, from all descriptions, to make more connections — supported or not — to intellectual and political milieus well beyond Rand's own associates. That appears to be different in type, not in amounts of wearying personal detail.

I'm still glad both books have been published. Maybe I just need another few years before going through another over-dissecting personal biography.

(Methinks I will go put on Brahms's "Variations on a Theme by Haydn." And look into getting a DVD to replace my tape of "Chocolat." Two favorites I apparently do share with those of Peikoff. Just to be perverse. {g})

It is my objective conclusion that everyone must listen to and like Itzhak Perlman's rendition of the Brahm's Violin Concerto.

Jim

[Dragonfly]

Unfortunately when you become famous people become interested in your private life.

Yes, and why not? I think Objectivists often do have a problem with that because a private life isn't always compatible with the immaculate image of a God(des) (hence the writing of a book like PARC). I think it makes a person more interesting and more understandable. So might Rand's use of amphetamines explain her seeing of a UFO, her physical appearance at the time and typical characteristics of her behaviour and ideas. I like to read such details of for example famous composers like Bach, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms etc. (or great scientists like Feynman, Heisenberg, Dirac etc.) and I collect biographies of them for that reason, and it does in no way diminish my respect for their achievements. On the contrary, it's just because I admire them so much that I want to know everything about them, warts and all.

[Dragonfly]

(Methinks I will go put on Brahms's "Variations on a Theme by Haydn."

Do you know the original version for two pianos? Brahms wrote many of his works originally for piano duet (Hungarian dances) or for two pianos (Symphonies, Haydn Variations, String Quintet, the string quartets). But avoid recordings of Argerich & co., they don't know how to play Brahms.

[Selene]

Unfortunately when you become famous people become interested in your private life.

Yes, and why not? I think Objectivists often do have a problem with that because a private life isn't always compatible with the immaculate image of a God(des) (hence the writing of a book like PARC). I think it makes a person more interesting and more understandable. So might Rand's use of amphetamines explain her seeing of a UFO, her physical appearance at the time and typical characteristics of her behaviour and ideas. I like to read such details of for example famous composers like Bach, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms etc. (or great scientists like Feynman, Heisenberg, Dirac etc.) and I collect biographies of them for that reason, and it does in no way diminish my respect for their achievements. On the contrary, it's just because I admire them so much that I want to know everything about them, warts and all.

Dragonfly:

"...it does in no way diminish my respect for their achievements. On the contrary, it's just because I admire them so much that I want to know everything about them, warts and all."

Exactly. It is of interest to me that Allan Drury wrote a brilliant political organization book in the 1940's...or that the Julia Childs worked as an operative asset for the Allies in the OSS.

And yes, it is interesting, but not surprising, that she was not "neat and tidy". I know I saw into her when I was attending NBI. I am a very perceptive person and virtually nothing that I have heard so far stuns or shocks me. I expect it from a person that driven and that brilliant. I still think she has the top ten eyes that I have ever looked into.

Adam

[anonrobt]

And yes, it is interesting, but not surprising, that she was not "neat and tidy". I know I saw into her when I was attending NBI. I am a very perceptive person and virtually nothing that I have heard so far stuns or shocks me. I expect it from a person that driven and that brilliant. I still think she has the top ten eyes that I have ever looked into.

Agree... my experience matches...

[Reidy]

The Brahms story is surprising. During NBI's brief venture in record sales in the early 60s, they offered the violin concerto and 2nd piano concerto. Do you know when Rand made this pronouncement?

[9thdoctor]

(I'd heard years ago that Peikoff once incurred Ayn Rand's disapproval because he liked the music of Johannes Brahms. I didn't know, till I read Heller, that he actually gave away all of his Brahms recordings after Rand made a pronouncement ex cathedra. Heller gives the year and the recipient.)

Robert Campbell

A friend of mine attended a conference in the late ‘80’s, pre-Kelley split, and reports that John Ridpath said he once was a Beethoven fan, and on AR’s advice that this pointed to a problem (psychological, sense of life, whatever), he worked on it and got over liking Beethoven.

It is my objective conclusion that everyone must listen to and like Itzhak Perlman's rendition of the Brahm's Violin Concerto.

Szeryng with Monteux is tops. Perlman with Giulini is…also tops.

I like to read such details of for example famous composers like Bach, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms etc. (or great scientists like Feynman, Heisenberg, Dirac etc.) and I collect biographies of them for that reason, and it does in no way diminish my respect for their achievements. On the contrary, it's just because I admire them so much that I want to know everything about them, warts and all.

Bach went to jail for participating in a brawl. Sheep may safely graze indeed…

(Methinks I will go put on Brahms's "Variations on a Theme by Haydn."

Do you know the original version for two pianos? Brahms wrote many of his works originally for piano duet (Hungarian dances) or for two pianos (Symphonies, Haydn Variations, String Quintet, the string quartets). But avoid recordings of Argerich & co., they don't know how to play Brahms.

Argerich’s version of the 1st Piano Quartet is a dud, go with Gilels. I liked her recording of the 2 piano version of the Piano Quintet.

[jeffrey smith]

Bill P,

Of the two authors, Anne Heller gets much further into the details of Rand's negotiations with publishers over The Fountainhead. She cites a ton of sources, though I haven't paid special attention, on this issue, to whom she cited on what.

As a young person naïve to the publishing business, I took the account in "Who Is Ayn Rand?" to mean that Rand sent a partly completed manuscript of the novel to 12 publishers, and all of them flatly rejected. Of course, a reader who knows something about publishing would have considered some other possibilities, such as submission of an outline, failure to come to terms over an advance, etc. (My experiences with academic publishing have included reviewing outlines plus sample chapters, etc.) Let's just say that the way the story was told, these more sophisticated interpretations were not being invited.

I didn't realize till I read Jennifer Burns' book (which came out before Heller's) that Ayn Rand actually did have a deal with Knopf and it fell through, partly on account of her not holding up her end of it. I sure wouldn't put Knopf on the list of 12 publishers who turned the book down.

Robert C

Agreed - and looking at the account in Heller right now.

It looks to me, though, that the exaggeration by Rand (and there is clearly some exaggeration) is that of including Knopf. All the other turndowns were real. To turn down an outline of a book (a proposal) is to turn it down. To turn down an outline plus a few chapters is to turn down the book. To not recognize this is to betray an ignorance of the publication process. So Rand's exaggeration consisted, basically, of including one company (Knopf) which accepted the book, but then rejected it when Rand failed twice on the deadline.

I have yet to see what I would consider a convincing list of the publishers to which the book was submitted (Yes, I've read both of the current bios, the Passion of Ayn Rand, both the NB memoirs, the Britting micro-biography, etc...). Anyone see such a comprehensive list? With any documentation? Rejection letters? Names of 12 publishers given by Rand? Something more than what I find in Heller?

Bill P

I happened to see a copy of the Britting book in the public library this afternoon--should have checked it out, but my arm was fairly full. I did flip through it, and noticed one of the photographs was of a typewritten list of the publishers to whom Fountainhead was submitted. So said the photo caption; there was no indication of provenance, date, etc. of the photograph; and in fact without the caption the photograph would seemed to be simply showing a page listing a random group of publishing houses.

Don't remember any specific names, and didn't count to see if they were a dozen.

Jeffrey S.

[Xray]

Ms. Xray:

Humor is way above your pay grade.

No problem for me to reach up there though, since I've always been a good climber despite my sports-laziness.

So here you repeat the same conversation between Dagny and Francisco that you incorrectly argued about ad infinitim on a prior thread.

As I recall, it was Dagny and Hank. AS for incorrect arguing, it was you who tried to suggest I was doing this, but shot yoursef in the foot. Go reread the discussion.

It would appear to me that you are attempting to entrap some newcomer to your spiderweb of Ayn is the Antichrist pap.

I have zero interest in spiderwebbing anyone here.

Edited November 21, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Folks:

I am sorry to keep bringing this up, but does it really matter whether she did amphetamines?

I haven't read Heller's or Burns's books yet, so didn't know about Rand's (ab)using amphetamines. Did B. Branden mention this? I don't recall reading anything about it in TPOAR but my memory may not be accurate.

Amphetamines can have quite dramatic side effects, like violent mood swings, unleashing of aggression leading to physical violence, even psychotic breaks can occur.

How Rand's possible abuse of them factored in is hard to say. I was quite baffled to read about her claiming she saw an UFO. Maybe the amphetamines affected her sensory perception? (see DF's post).

The personal commitment, dedication and sheer force of will to create Atlas Shrugged

"Commitment, dedication and sheer force of will" drive many, and the goals they want to achieve varies greatly too.

For example, no doubt Robespierre as well as mother Theresa showed "commitment, dedication and sheer force of will".

from "Who is John Galt?" to over 1,000 pages later, "He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar." is a tour de force unparalleled in my lifetime.

Did trading a theistic rosary for a secular dollar sign really change much?

Isn't to be faced with a set of "objective values and virtues" as anti-individual than the other set left behind?

Edited November 21, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Amphetamines can have quite dramatic side effects, like violent mood swings, unleashing of aggression leading to physical violence, even psychotic breaks can occur.

How Rand's possible abuse of them factored in is hard to say. I was quite baffled to read about her claiming she saw an UFO. Maybe the amphetamines affected her sensory perception? (see DF's post).

I forgot to add that even if they did, why did Rand not consider that her senses may have deceived her?

Edited November 21, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

Amphetamines can have quite dramatic side effects, like violent mood swings, unleashing of aggression leading to physical violence, even psychotic breaks can occur.

How Rand's possible abuse of them factored in is hard to say. I was quite baffled to read about her claiming she saw an UFO. Maybe the amphetamines affected her sensory perception? (see DF's post).

I forgot to add that even if they did, why did Rand not consider that her senses may have deceived her?

[merjet]

I have zero interest in spiderwebbing anyone here.

Did trading a theistic rosary for a secular dollar sign really change much?

You sure can epitomize superficiality. Didn't you use your marvelous "identify by difference" device on the denotations and connotations of these two symbols and discern that their identities are more different than night and day? Did you get that device from Acme Corporation or rig the contraption by yourself?

[Selene]

Ms: Xray:

I actually did miss this. You are, for once, factually correct about something that Ayn did actually write.

"As I recall, it was Dagny and Hank."

So I will wear my black outfit just for you tonight as a penance.

Enjoy!

Adam

[Robert Campbell]

According to Heller, Rand once put down Brahms' music as "worthless." (I thought I remembered a year, but the incident is mentioned on p. 299, in a passage mixing events that took place in 1958 with other, similar happenings that took place at various times during the Collective and NBI periods.)

An interview with Barbara Branden is cited for the "worthless" remark; an interview with Elayne Kalberman (to whom Leonard Peikoff gave his Brahms records) is also included in the notes on sources (p. 501).

Robert Campbell

[Xray]

According to Heller, Rand once put down Brahms' music as "worthless." (I thought I remembered a year, but the incident is mentioned on p. 299, in a passage mixing events that took place in 1958 with other, similar happenings that took place at various times during the Collective and NBI periods.)

An interview with Barbara Branden is cited for the "worthless" remark; an interview with Elayne Kalberman (to whom Leonard Peikoff gave his Brahms records) is also included in the notes on sources (p. 501).

Robert Campbell

Did Peikoff give his Brahms records to Elayne Kalberman because Rand considered this music as worthless?

[Jerry Biggers]

There is an extremely nasty attack on Ayn Rand, thinly disguised as an interview with Anne Heller on her Rand biography, on Bloomberg.com. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aYe2VsLOl7LU The writer/interviewer is one "Zinta Lundborg," who goes out of her way to set-up the interview with Heller by grossly distorting Rand's views beyond recognition (must have been reading all the recent smear/reviews by her cronies in the lib media).

However, Heller responds to the interviewer's loaded questions with comments that are in the same hyper-critical derisive tone. This is in contrast to Heller's book which, while quite critical of Rand, also goes on to complement her on her accomplishments in ways that most reviewers have chosen to avoid.

Nevertheless, I am disappointed that Heller did not come to the defense of Rand at any point in the interview. It is possible, however, that any positive comments by Heller may have been edited-out, since there is a note at the end of the article that it was "part" of a longer interview.

[jeffrey smith]

I have zero interest in spiderwebbing anyone here.

Did trading a theistic rosary for a secular dollar sign really change much?

You sure can epitomize superficiality. Didn't you use your marvelous "identify by difference" device on the denotations and connotations of these two symbols and discern that their identities are more different than night and day? Did you get that device from Acme Corporation or rig the contraption by yourself?

One of the things that amuses me about AS is that closing scene. After a thousand pages exalting reason and expounding her philosophy, Rand chose to end the book with a magical ritual.

The dollar sign is a form of the staff of Hermes/Mercury. Making that ritual sign was nothing more nor less than invoking the God of Commerce and Communication(and who would have been a better member of the pantheon?)upon Galt's Gulch in a fairly brief but standard magical ceremony.

Jeffrey S.

[Alfonso Jones]

One of the things that amuses me about AS is that closing scene. After a thousand pages exalting reason and expounding her philosophy, Rand chose to end the book with a magical ritual.

The dollar sign is a form of the staff of Hermes/Mercury. Making that ritual sign was nothing more nor less than invoking the God of Commerce and Communication(and who would have been a better member of the pantheon?)upon Galt's Gulch in a fairly brief but standard magical ceremony.

Jeffrey S.

Let's examine that closing scene in the context defined by the book itself. Recall in the chapter "The Sign of the Dollar" (Owen Kellogg speaking)

"The dollar sign? For a great deal. It stands on the vest of every fat, piglike figure in every cartoon, for the purpose of denoting a crook, a grafter, a scoundrel—as the one sure-fire brand of evil. It stands—as the money of a free country—for achievement, for success, for ability, for man's creative power—and, precisely for these reasons, it is used as a brand of infamy. It stands stamped on the forehead of a man like Hank Rearden, as a mark of damnation. Incidentally, do you know where that sign comes from? It stands for the initials of the United States."

He snapped the flashlight off, but he did not move to go; she could distinguish the hint of his bitter smile.

"Do you know that the United States is the only country in history that has ever used its own monogram as a symbol of depravity? Ask yourself why. Ask yourself how long a country that did that could hope to exist, and whose moral standards have destroyed it. It was the only country in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only country whose money was the symbol of man's right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself. If this is evil, by the present standards of the world, if this is the reason for damning us, then we—we, the dollar chasers and makers—accept it and choose to be damned by that world. We choose to wear the sign of the dollar on our foreheads, proudly, as our badge of nobility—the badge we are willing to live for and, if need be, to die."

Reading that, plus the obvious allusion to "sign of the cross", and it seems to me that Rand is simultaneously:

1) Reaffirming her rejection of religious/mystical groudings

2) Reaffirming her basic allegiance to the original foundations of the USA

Bill P