Great Literature

[Philip Coates]

I have become a slut for literature discussions.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

My offer was serious. It's hard for you to stay on topic. Since others constantly irritate you so much, I thought you might appreciate a more restricted opportunity to discuss what you wanted to discuss with whom you wanted to discuss it and still have an audience.

Seems I was mistaken. Maybe you are not really interested in that...

Michael

[jeffrey smith]

> I kept feeling that Dagny (for example) did things because her role in the plot needed her to do it, but I did not think that Dagny did it because she was Dagny, and that's what Dagny would do

Jeffrey, do you recall an example in the book? Something she did which her characterization would be inconsistent with? There's a difference between someone taking an action their character does not necessitate and taking and action which contradicts the character's thoughts, values, or emotions.

Meanwhile, let my try and digest the rest of your comments...it's a bit too late at night and I have some whim-worshiping to do.

I can't recall any specific examples because it's been a long time since I read it. Let's just say that some (younger) members of this forum were not yet born I read it at the suggestion of a neighbor, and came away distinctly unimpressed. When I did go back to Rand, it was to the non fiction.

If someone suggests that I ought to reread it and see what I think now--they would probably be right, but it would be done with no enthusiasm and not enough time to read it. In fact, for a good many years now, I tend not to read novels--stick to history, science, and poetry. And when I do, it's usually a mystery story, or a novel I read before and liked the first time around. And my relatively recent attempt at the Fountainhead doesn't exactly encourage me.

But what struck me about the characters in AS was that they were wooden--not that they didn't do things which were inconsistent with their characters, but that that did things that were not motivated. Their actions were not organic, or, as you put it, that their characters did not necessitate. And most of them were not fully fleshed out characters--two dimensional. It's hard to claim a character is inconsistent when there's not enough of the character to figure out whether or not they are being consistent.

Of course, two dimensional characters do not necessarily kill a book. Hunt for Red October was a fantastic book, despite the fact that the only character who was a little bit more than two dimensional (say, two and a half dimensional) was killed off on page two (IIRC)--the KGB officer assigned to the sub.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

The main "character" in Atlas is the US economy. It's big novelistic action arena and we get to see it from the point of view of each person's reactions to it and actions within it. The idea is that people emerge in essentialized form based on their actions in the world. I'd never seen a novel done this way and it was a whole different viewpoint for me.

Jim

Edited October 4, 2009 by James Heaps-Nelson

[Brant Gaede]

The main "character" in Atlas is the US economy. It's big novelistic action arena and we get to see it from the point of view of each person's reactions to it and actions within it. The idea is that people emerge in essentialized form based on their actions in the world. I'd never seen a novel done this way and it was a whole different viewpoint for me.

Jim

Nice summing up. There are other ways to cut the pie; it can be read on different levels. This one seems to be what I'd call libertarian.

--Brant

[James Heaps-Nelson]

The main "character" in Atlas is the US economy. It's big novelistic action arena and we get to see it from the point of view of each person's reactions to it and actions within it. The idea is that people emerge in essentialized form based on their actions in the world. I'd never seen a novel done this way and it was a whole different viewpoint for me.

Jim

l

Nice summing up. There are other ways to cut the pie; it can be read on different levels. This one seems to be what I'd call libertarian.

--Brant

It's weird, Brant. I read the novel at 16 when I was all fired up about business and economics and this is the way I always see it. Rand shows how morality in business is a matter of life or death and that moral decay has disastrous consequences out in the world.

Jim

[Xray]

I don't buy it from you that Rand's mere technique of writing got you to love her fiction.

I never said it did. Apparently you have issues with reading comprehension too?

You sound a bit testy over that rhetorical comment of mine, the implicit message of which was quite clear: that it is logical to assume that you also value Rand's ideology conveyed in the novel. Please correct me if I'm in error in my assumption.

JR:

So when we speak of a "great writer", this does of course also have the connotation of the message conveyed via the writing; surely you (I'll borrow your words) are not too obtuse to grasp this?

I'm not too obtuse to grasp the fact that this is the intellectually sloppy way in which many people speak and write.

I've explained to you what I mean when I use these terms. I find it useful to distinguish what is written about from the writing itself. If you want to talk to me, use the terms as I do. If you don't want to do that, talk to someone else. It's really all the same to me.

Since this is an open discussion forum, I'm afraid you will have to put up with me directly addressing your posts, whether you approve of what I'm saying or don't.

JR:

So we can talk about both here - her subject matter and her style of writing.

Sure, as long as we keep them separate and talk about them one at a time. If you want to ball them up together in a conceptual mishmash, talk to someone else. I'm not interested.

I too think it is useful, for clarity's sake, to make sure what one is talking about - the technique and style of writing or the subject matter. But since language is the medium used to convey the subject matter, examining in what way the style of writing is employed by the author to transport his/her message does not mean that the examiner lumps things together in a conceptual mishmash. Thk key is always clarity and being specific, therefore I would appreciate you quoting directly from the book as much as possible.

For up to now, nothing specific has come from you here yet in regard to the writing in AS, that is, no quotes from the book to demonstrate your evaluation of the writing, etc., but then we have just got started, so I hope there is more to come than just the personal opinion you gave that "AR was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century".

JR:

I asked you about Cyrus in # 214. Would you agree that this fictional character of a story Rand read as a child influenced her immensely, becoming something like the epitome of the 'male hero' she longed to worship all her life?

So some people say. I have no opinion on this subject.

No opinion? This surprises me. Just curious: have you read B. Branden's biography "The Passion of Ayn Rand"?

Edited October 4, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

JR:

No, Phil, you don't have to bow down. But it would be helpful if you were willing to admit when you don't know what you're talking about. You don't have any idea what the objective standards for judging proficiency at writing are, do you? You've never given it a moment's thought, have you? You've always just figured, "If I like a writer, s/he must be a good writer," right?

JR: Writing is writing. The standards for judging it are the same whether it's fiction, poetry, or nonfiction.

I don't dispute that you have standards by which you judge the quality of writing, but others may have not share them.

How can a standard be "objective"? Standards are always arbitrarily established, aren't they? Which is the reason why they can be changed. Just think of how standards of literery evaluation have changed over the centuries, there have been times when even Shakespeare was not "valued" highly.

But let's get specific with concrete examples, so if you would quote from AS a section of what think is good writing and explain why, TIA.

Edited October 4, 2009 by Xray

[jriggenbach]

"Xray" wrote (why she's afraid to sign her posts with her actual name is beyond me):

"Since this is an open discussion forum, I'm afraid you will have to put up with me directly addressing your posts, whether you approve of what I'm saying or not."

I won't however, have to pay any attention to your replies; nor will I be under any obligation to reply to them myself.

"Xray" wrote:

"So we can talk about both here - her subject matter and her style of writing."

I replied:

"Sure, as long as we keep them separate and talk about them one at a time. If you want to ball them up together in a conceptual mishmash, talk to someone else. I'm not interested."

"Xray" replied:

"I too think it is useful, for clarity's sake, to make sure what one is talking about - the technique and style of writing or the subject matter. But since language is the medium used to convey the subject matter, examining in what way the style of writing is employed by the author to transport his/her message does not mean that the examiner lumps things together in a conceptual mishmash. Thk key is always clarity and being specific, therefore I would appreciate you quoting directly from the book as much as possible.

"For up to now, nothing specific has come from you here yet in regard to the writing in AS, that is, no quotes from the book to demonstrate your evaluation of the writing, etc., but then we have just got started, so I hope there is more to come than just the personal opinion you gave that 'AR was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.'"

That's not a personal opinion; it's a statement of fact. I've said nothing more than that, because no one else has said anything about her writing in reply. Instead they post irrelevancies about whether they find her characters convincing.

"Xray" wrote:

"I asked you about Cyrus in # 214. Would you agree that this fictional character of a story Rand read as a child influenced her immensely, becoming something like the epitome of the 'male hero' she longed to worship all her life?"

I replied:

"So some people say. I have no opinion on this subject."

"Xray" replied:

"No opinion? This surprises me. Just curious: have you read B. Branden's biography 'The Passion of Ayn Rand'"?

Yes, of course.

JR

[Xray]

"Xray" wrote (why she's afraid to sign her posts with her actual name is beyond me)

Why should I be "afraid" to sign my posts with my name? My actual name is listed in my profile and can be looked up.

I simply find it unnecessary and superfluous to sign one's post with one's name, that's all. What counts is that a (quoted) post can be traced to the source, so even in snippets of posts, I always give the poster's name.

I also prefer to address other people by their poster names, even if they give their real names too, so I will address e. g. Adam as "Selene" instead of using the first name.

JR:

Xray: "No opinion? This surprises me. Just curious: have you read B. Branden's biography 'The Passion of Ayn Rand'"?

Yes, of course.

Imo the biography gives an excellent insight into what shaped Aynd Rand's thinking and attitude toward life. I believe Rand's devastating experience of being rejected both as a child by her mother, her inability to make friends among her peers and her subsequent isolation, as well as the experience of her family being rejected as a "socially unwelcome group" was in all, a traumatic experience for her. The reverberations of this experience can be felt in AS, where she damns "the looters", "the moochers" or the "altruists" as she also calls them, in short, all those whom she felt were similar to those who had denied her so many basic rights back then in Russia. AS is placed in the US, sure, but Rand's scathing damnation of "them", of the "enemies", this is her own bitter feelings pouring out. That wound of hers never healed.

As for Cyrus, he was the hero of her childhood readings, the one who bravely defied fate and his enemies. AR said of herself that she was a "hero worshipper". Imo that's why Galt & Co have those unrealistic, superman-like traits.

Another male figure having tremendous influence on her was Leo (non-fictional this time). When reading AS, I asked myself why she described her characters so often as a having a "mocking", "derisive" smile on their faces, even in sexual encounters, which was quite strange.

But later it occurred to me that AR probably borrowed that mocking smile from Leo, whom she had met in a group of young people and who to her seemd so sure of himself, having that condescending smile on his face most of the time. "What I liked most was the arrogance and the haughty smile - the smile which said "'Well, world, you have to admire me.'" (BB, TPOAR, p. 47)

I get the image of some 'strutting rooster' type whom Rand was smitten with, but who did not return her feelings.

Writing AS gave her the opportunity to at least artistically compensate this loss by endowing her male heros (especially D'Anconia) with traits of Leo.

Edited October 4, 2009 by Xray

[Philip Coates]

Regarding Roark, I once did a substantive post contrasting him to Francisco. I think I gave a number of reasons why I respect but can't warm up to him, while I not only respect but very much like Francisco and (to a lesser extent) Rearden among the male characters. I tend not to like Rand's women as much as her men.

I think Jeffrey is on to something missing in Roark's characterization (although he's only read two chapters and so can't fully know yet). Stylization and essentialization in fiction or any art is an issue of degree. It's possible to be too stylized, even where that is a virtue.

In this case, while I understand the "I don't think of you" stuff, it's a bit overdone or overstressed. It's not that Howard Roark is underdeveloped as a character in the sense of unclear and you can't imagine him, but the development is out of balance:

<>Chapter one, three pages in<>

"You're being expelled from the Institute. I can't tell you how sorry I am..."

...he made people feel as if they did not exist. He just stood looking. He would not answer.

<>end of quote<>

There needs to be more emotion and at least one or two touches of giving a damn about the whether the entire human race lives or dies. I think that can be done without undercutting his central theme of rock solid, adamantine independence. Nonetheless, he's a wonderful life-giving example of an unswerving force with massive integrity, something the young - and everyone - desperately need to see. And also of passionate dedication to one's purpose in life, of a great creator.

The book has many virtues that make it both great literature and great and radically important in the realm of ideas. But I'd rather talk a bit about why I love Atlas Shruggedan order of magnitude more. Part of it is objective - contrary to the claims of so many, Atlas is the superior book - both in terms of ideas and as literature. Part personal - I was already independent, fully Roarkian in some ways, when I read Fountainhead, but what I desperately needed when I read it was Atlas. Francisco was what I needed to see and learn from.

[to be continued . . . . if I feel like it]

Edited October 4, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Brant Gaede]

Improve The Fountainhead here; improve it there. Ruin it.

--Brant

[Philip Coates]

Don't touch it where it's perfect; touch it very slightly. Improve it.

[Brant Gaede]

Don't touch it where it's perfect; touch it very slightly. Improve it.

Jusgt like Harriman and Mayhew. I assume you're pulling my leg.

--Brant

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Regarding Roark, I once did a substantive post contrasting him to Francisco. I think I gave a number of reasons why I respect but can't warm up to him, while I not only respect but very much like Francisco and (to a lesser extent) Rearden among the male characters. I tend not to like Rand's women as much as her men.

I think Jeffrey is on to something missing in Roark's characterization (although he's only read two chapters and so can't fully know yet). Stylization and essentialization in fiction or any art is an issue of degree. It's possible to be too stylized, even where that is a virtue.

In this case, while I understand the "I don't think of you" stuff, it's a bit overdone or overstressed. It's not that Howard Roark is underdeveloped as a character in the sense of unclear and you can't imagine him, but the development is out of balance:

<>Chapter one, three pages in<>

"You're being expelled from the Institute. I can't tell you how sorry I am..."

...he made people feel as if they did not exist. He just stood looking. He would not answer.

<>end of quote<>

There needs to be more emotion and at least one or two touches of giving a damn about the whether the entire human race lives or dies. I think that can be done without undercutting his central theme of rock solid, adamantine independence. Nonetheless, he's a wonderful life-giving example of an unswerving force with massive integrity, something the young - and everyone - desperately need to see. And also of passionate dedication to one's purpose in life, of a great creator.

The book has many virtues that make it both great literature and great and radically important in the realm of ideas. But I'd rather talk a bit about why I love Atlas Shruggedan order of magnitude more. Part of it is objective - contrary to the claims of so many, Atlas is the superior book - both in terms of ideas and as literature. Part personal - I was already independent, fully Roarkian in some ways, when I read Fountainhead, but what I desperately needed when I read it was Atlas. Francisco was what I needed to see and learn from.

[to be continued . . . . if I feel like it]

Phil,

I think it's the distance. You don't see Roark immersed in his struggle, the way Francisco is. Rand didn't want to make her villains too large. She solved that problem in Atlas by having the heroes struggle against each other.

Jim

Edited October 4, 2009 by James Heaps-Nelson

[Philip Coates]

> I think it's the distance. You don't see Roark immersed in his struggle, the way Francisco is. [Jim]

It's important to see a character struggle. More in my next post...

[Xray]

The main "character" in Atlas is the US economy. It's big novelistic action arena and we get to see it from the point of view of each person's reactions to it and actions within it. The idea is that people emerge in essentialized form based on their actions in the world. I'd never seen a novel done this way and it was a whole different viewpoint for me.

Jim

Imo the main "character" in Atlas is not the US economy. The main character is the author herself trying (via her fictional heros and heroine, who each represent parts of her personality), to transform the personal trauma she had experienced in Russia (where she had been deprived of so much), into a tale (including surrealistic elements) where the "looters" finally get what they deserve.

Form the Wikipedia article:

"Former Ayn Rand associate Nathaniel Branden argues that Atlas Shrugged "encourages emotional repression and self-disowning" and that her works contain contradictory messages. Branden claimed that the characters rarely talk "on a simple, human level without launching into philosophical sermons." (end quote)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged

What do you (and others) think of N. Branden's assessment?

Edited October 4, 2009 by Xray

[James Heaps-Nelson]

The main "character" in Atlas is the US economy. It's big novelistic action arena and we get to see it from the point of view of each person's reactions to it and actions within it. The idea is that people emerge in essentialized form based on their actions in the world. I'd never seen a novel done this way and it was a whole different viewpoint for me.

Jim

Imo the main "character" in Atlas is not the US economy. The main character is the author herself trying (via her fictional heros and heroine, who each represent parts of her personality), to transform the personal trauma she had experienced in Russia (where she had been deprived of so much), into a tale where the "looters" finally get what they deserve.

That's a lot of projection. Why wait three novels in to do that if that were really her driving force? In Atlas, she is pointing out the consequences of the looters' actions once they run out of victims.

Jim

[Philip Coates]

Subject: The Greatness and Power of Atlas Shrugged

I'm going to cover a lot of ground. Each point will be terse.

-- In addressing whether or not the characters are three-dimensional vs. cardboard, context of the novel is relevant. The canvass of Atlas is vast compared to Fountainhead (where the central focus is on one character.) If you have three or four major characters and a dozen minor ones entering and leaving the stage, you can't allow too many of them to hog the limelight. In a play, the audience wants to focus on the lead(s). If the cleaning lady in the background draws too much attention that takes away the focus. True in a novel, you can always go back and reread, but the principle remains the same. What's skillful in the novel is to develop Dagny, Francisco, Rearden, James Taggart, Lillian, Dr. Stadler, Galt, and a handful of others all so well and distinctively, given that you have to give each of them fewer pages than you do the major characters in Fountainhead, due to the needs of a much more complex plot...and a whole philosophy. Think of a painting. If there is a large canvas containing a vast landscape or dozens of people, one has to give less space and less development to each element. They are tinier than if you do a close-up portrait.

-- It's a mistake to evaluate Atlas by purely literary standards. In a way, it's not a work of literature, not exclusively. It is a hybrid - both a work of literature and one of philosophy. Purely literarily, it's a mistake to have a speech of the length of Galt's. It causes the story to come to a screeching halt. But the speech -definitely- was a good decision. Wny? Because the criterion is that the book is a work of philosophy as well. And the speech is necessary to tie all the philosophical elements together. This is not the first fiction work that has been talky and yet is respected for all the ideas. I'm told "The Magic Mountain" is only one example of a well-liked work that is that way. Late Heinlein is very talky with little action and seems a vehicle for his ideas. What's amazing is that Rand is able to pull off something so impossible as well as she does and the action doesn't vanish and make you want to snooze as late Heinlein does. Stranger in a Strange Land? the bizarrities of Lazarus Long?

-- Seldom given due credit are the many skills of Rand just as a writer. [she's often derided as a simple-minded, un-nuanced writer best suited to immature adolescents.] To start with, the stories (especially in Atlas) are complex and operate on different levels. As a creator of characters, even the sketchily drawn secondary characters, people constantly say they often capture in pattern people or types who one sees throughout one's life. She is a great satirist, good at witty repartee (the parties are a lot of fun - note in particular the great dialogue involving Francisco). Her descriptions are evocative and effective - not just the major scenes such as the breathtaking ride on the John Galt Line, but scattered throughout - the city sinking into the fog, the blasted oak tree, the peeling skyscrapers. And her essentialized descriptions of people. Part of the appropriateness of making bad guys ugly is that it's often more than just ugliness it's a trembling lip or sagging chin or weak mouth. Or using weak and satirical names (Wesley Mouch, anyone, which suggests a mouse). When you don't have a lot of time to spend on a minor character and can't do a three dimensional character [see my first point in this post], nothing wrong with using shorthand like this. If that bothers you, get over it. It's at very worst a minor blemish. Dickens did it too in his sprawling novels, so the gossip says.

-- Rand has a certain range in being able to capture despair and decline and disillusion as well as a soaring uplift and idealism. And the enormous potential and beauty possible in the world. On this last, I don't know anyone better. "She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. ... they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive."

-- Most original and unprecedented of all is the conveying and making palpable a complete new philosophy. This is impossible in a novel. Yet she comes as close as can be to pulling it off. This is part of the double track nature of the book - telling an exciting story of disappearances and having philosophical implications inserted side by side.

-- When she does get philosophical, it is never too abstract for too long. And the implications for your life are never too far away. She is at her most down to earth and forceful often when she is the most far-reaching, broad, and abstract: "Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved.." Galt's speech alone,(whether you agree with it or not - I do) is a great work of literature as well as revolutionary intellectually.

(I think I'll leave it at this length - short enough to be understood.)

Philip Coates

Edited October 4, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Xray]

Time to open up my big mouth here

I'm not enthused by Rand the novelist. I think--apparently a view not widely shared--her nonfiction is her best literature; she was a master of rhetoric and a great essayist. Her novels, however--they underwhelmed me enough that I have no real desire to read them again. Or, in the case of Fountainhead, finish reading them.

Atlas Shrugged is particularly weak: I found the characters wooden, meaning that they did things because of their role in the plot, and not because of any innate logic to their personality. In other words, I kept feeling that Dagny (for example) did things because her role in the plot needed her to do it, but I did not think that Dagny did it because she was Dagny, and that's what Dagny would do, and if the plot required her to do otherwise, then throw out the plot.

And very often she wrote the way a second rate writer writes: the sentence that's been used here (Dagny's first sight of John Galt) is a good example. Pompous, about twice as long as it needed to be, and in the end it reduces John Galt to a philosophical proposition.

Fountainhead isn't bad in this way, but the characters are both two dimensional, and almost all of them are toxic: they aren't people with whom I can emphathize (not even Roark), and the collection of moral dwarfs which populate the opening chapters (essentially, everyone except Roark and the architect who first employs him--was his name Cameron?) makes one want to hurry over to the bathroom sink and use some mouthwash. I didn't read beyond the opening chapters because I couldn't get myself to care about any of the characters.

It doesn't get any better after reading the opening chapters; Roark even commits rape.

Many of Rand's characters seem to be incapable of feeling empathy.

Edited October 4, 2009 by Xray

[Philip Coates]

"The act of a master taking shameful, contemptuous possession of her was the kind of rapture she had wanted." Part 2, chapter 2

Edited October 5, 2009 by Philip Coates

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Many of Rand's characters seem to be incapable of feeling empathy.

Xray,

Plenty of Rand's characters show empathy: Dagny toward Cherryl Taggart, Roark toward Steven Mallory and Rearden toward Tony (the Wet Nurse). For me, the empathy comes out stronger and has more power because it is deserved.

Jim

Edited October 5, 2009 by James Heaps-Nelson

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Subject: The Greatness and Power of Atlas Shrugged

I'm going to cover a lot of ground. Each point will be terse.

-- In addressing whether or not the characters are three-dimensional vs. cardboard, context of the novel is relevant. The canvass of Atlas is vast compared to Fountainhead (where the central focus is on one character.) If you have three or four major characters and a dozen minor ones entering and leaving the stage, you can't allow too many of them to hog the limelight. In a play, the audience wants to focus on the lead(s). If the cleaning lady in the background draws too much attention that takes away the focus. True in a novel, you can always go back and reread, but the principle remains the same. What's skillful in the novel is to develop Dagny, Francisco, Rearden, James Taggart, Lillian, Dr. Stadler, Galt, and a handful of others all so well and distinctively, given that you have to give each of them fewer pages than you do the major characters in Fountainhead, due to the needs of a much more complex plot...and a whole philosophy. Think of a painting. If there is a large canvas containing a vast landscape or dozens of people, one has to give less space and less development to each element. They are tinier than if you do a close-up portrait.

-- It's a mistake to evaluate Atlas by purely literary standards. In a way, it's not a work of literature, not exclusively. It is a hybrid - both a work of literature and one of philosophy. Purely literarily, it's a mistake to have a speech of the length of Galt's. It causes the story to come to a screeching halt. But the speech -definitely- was a good decision. Wny? Because the criterion is that the book is a work of philosophy as well. And the speech is necessary to tie all the philosophical elements together. This is not the first fiction work that has been talky and yet is respected for all the ideas. I'm told "The Magic Mountain" is only one example of a well-liked work that is that way. Late Heinlein is very talky with little action and seems a vehicle for his ideas. What's amazing is that Rand is able to pull off something so impossible as well as she does and the action doesn't vanish and make you want to snooze as late Heinlein does. Stranger in a Strange Land? the bizarrities of Lazarus Long?

-- Seldom given due credit are the many skills of Rand just as a writer. [she's often derided as a simple-minded, un-nuanced writer best suited to immature adolescents.] To start with, the stories (especially in Atlas) are complex and operate on different levels. As a creator of characters, even the sketchily drawn secondary characters, people constantly say they often capture in pattern people or types who one sees throughout one's life. She is a great satirist, good at witty repartee (the parties are a lot of fun - note in particular the great dialogue involving Francisco). Her descriptions are evocative and effective - not just the major scenes such as the breathtaking ride on the John Galt Line, but scattered throughout - the city sinking into the fog, the blasted oak tree, the peeling skyscrapers. And her essentialized descriptions of people. Part of the appropriateness of making bad guys ugly is that it's often more than just ugliness it's a trembling lip or sagging chin or weak mouth. Or using weak and satirical names (Wesley Mouch, anyone, which suggests a mouse). When you don't have a lot of time to spend on a minor character and can't do a three dimensional character [see my first point in this post], nothing wrong with using shorthand like this. If that bothers you, get over it. It's at very worst a minor blemish. Dickens did it too in his sprawling novels, so the gossip says.

-- Rand has a certain range in being able to capture despair and decline and disillusion as well as a soaring uplift and idealism. And the enormous potential and beauty possible in the world. On this last, I don't know anyone better. "She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. ... they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive."

-- Most original and unprecedented of all is the conveying and making palpable a complete new philosophy. This is impossible in a novel. Yet she comes as close as can be to pulling it off. This is part of the double track nature of the book - telling an exciting story of disappearances and having philosophical implications inserted side by side.

-- When she does get philosophical, it is never too abstract for too long. And the implications for your life are never too far away. She is at her most down to earth and forceful often when she is the most far-reaching, broad, and abstract: "Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved.." Galt's speech alone,(whether you agree with it or not - I do) is a great work of literature as well as revolutionary intellectually.

(I think I'll leave it at this length - short enough to be understood.)

Philip Coates

Phil thanks for this terrific summary. The way Rand highlighted the use of emergency powers as an excuse for full-scale expanded government intervention was eerily prophetic. The contrast of the producers to the Washington-based businessmen known as the Aristocracy of Pull cut through typical anticapitalist rhetoric. The incorporation of the mystery element to delay John Galt's entry into the story was ingenious. I also liked the peppering of Greek mythology elements. The confrontations of Hank Rearden with Dr. Floyd Ferris are deadly serious, but contain a humor element as well.

Jim

[jriggenbach]

-- Seldom given due credit are the many skills of Rand just as a writer. [she's often derided as a simple-minded, un-nuanced writer best suited to immature adolescents.] To start with, the stories (especially in Atlas) are complex and operate on different levels. As a creator of characters, even the sketchily drawn secondary characters, people constantly say they often capture in pattern people or types who one sees throughout one's life. She is a great satirist, good at witty repartee (the parties are a lot of fun - note in particular the great dialogue involving Francisco). Her descriptions are evocative and effective - not just the major scenes such as the breathtaking ride on the John Galt Line, but scattered throughout - the city sinking into the fog, the blasted oak tree, the peeling skyscrapers. And her essentialized descriptions of people. Part of the appropriateness of making bad guys ugly is that it's often more than just ugliness it's a trembling lip or sagging chin or weak mouth. Or using weak and satirical names (Wesley Mouch, anyone, which suggests a mouse). When you don't have a lot of time to spend on a minor character and can't do a three dimensional character [see my first point in this post], nothing wrong with using shorthand like this. If that bothers you, get over it. It's at very worst a minor blemish. Dickens did it too in his sprawling novels, so the gossip says.

On the one hand, I don't really disagree with much of anything Phil says in this paragraph. His last point - on the legitimacy of the use of two-dimensional minor characters and the Dickensian naming of such folk - is particularly well taken. You might want to read E.M. Forster's succinct little book, Aspects of the Novel, sometime, Phil. He made this same point back in 1927, albeit with somewhat different terminology and at much greater length.

On the other hand, if you look at Phil's list of points under the main heading "the many skills of Rand just as a writer," you quickly see that the most striking thing about it all is how little most of it has to do with writing.

Here's how to think about this issue, folks. You've got a body of conceptual material - facts; analyses; arguments; made-up "facts," in the case of fiction - that is in need of being written. The body of conceptual material is what you're writing about; it's your subject matter. Coming up with it, arranging it, organizing it - none of this, technically speaking, is "writing" at all. "Writing" is the creation and deployment of sentences and paragraphs. It has to do with words, and also with grammar, punctuation, and other methods of ordering words to advance meaning. It has nothing to do, except indirectly, with ideas. Ideas is what you write about. Ideas is your subject matter.

If you single someone out for praise "just as a writer" - if you say, for example, that someone is among the greatest writers of English of the 20th Century - what you are praising is that person's skill at creating and deploying sentences and paragraphs. What you are saying is that, given some particular body of conceptual material to be formulated in words, this individual displays notable skill in the formulation. The questions relevant to determining whether someone is a "good writer" are questions like these:

Is his or her meaning crystal clear? If s/he writes a passage that is ambiguous, are there grounds for arguing that this ambiguity in itself conveys a clear and relevant meaning? (Example: a key passage in a novel seems at first blush to refer to one group of characters - say, the members of a particular juvenile street gang, as in West Side Story - but on closer reflection it becomes clear that the passage actually could refer to either of two groups of characters - either the Sharks or the Jets. On still further reflection, it becomes clear that this is in itself an example of clear and unambiguous formulation, since one of the themes of the novel in question is the many ways in which seemingly opposed and irreconcilable groups of people are actually very similar.)

Does s/he display an ear for the "music" of prose? A word, as Rand herself noted in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology "is . . . a visual-auditory symbol used to represent a concept." Even as we read silently we are at least subliminally aware of the sound of the words we are reading. (Some of us are more than just subliminally aware of this issue - on the one hand, there are those advanced readers who understand the crucial role the sound of language can play in advancing meaning; on the other hand, there are those who are relatively inexperienced readers, whose own use of language is much more tied up with speech than with writing, and who are ignorantly mocked by "educators" bent on getting them to stop "subvocalizing" when they read.) Does the writer accused of being a "good writer" give evidence of understanding this issue? Does s/he employ the time honored techniques of assonance, alliteration, internal rhyme, etc., to underscore and thereby advance his or her meaning? Does s/he make intelligent use of rhythm and variations in rhythm to accomplish the same goal? Does s/he control rhythm in such a way as to give his or her writing a fluid quality, so that it seems to flow smoothly, carrying the reader with it, from topic to topic and from chapter to chapter? Does s/he control rhythm in such a way that when his or her subject matter reaches a full stop, so does the cumulative rhythm of the prose?

Does s/he vary the length and type (simple, compound, complex, compound complex) of his or her sentences? Does s/he make intelligent and suitably infrequent use of the passive voice? Is s/he precise and exact, rather than abstract, vaporous, and vague? It is astonishing how many writers (especially of fiction), some of whom are touted as "good writers" by their confused readers, give no evidence whatever of ever having read Strunk and White, much less having internalized their more useful rules of thumb.

Does s/he make skillful use of patterned imagery in extended passages, such as chapters? Are metaphors employed and dropped, or are the images of which they are constituted re-used systematically so as to stress the ongoing relevance of the comparison that underlay the metaphors?

This is the form analysis of prowess at writing needs to take. Talk of "stories" being "complex" and "operat[ing] on different levels" is irrelevant to whether the author of those stories is a "good writer." Her stories were her subject matter. The arrangement of their elements into a plot or various levels is not writing. It is storytelling. Talk of "characters" resembling "people or types who one sees throughout one's life" is equally irrelevant to the issue of "good writing." Characterization is not writing. It is storytelling. The characters being delineated are the subject matter not the writing. Saying that Rand's "descriptions are evocative and effective" is relevant - but what makes them evocative and effective? Blank out. (Hint: it has to do with Rand's ear for the music of prose.)

I must abandon this for now. Beginning tomorrow AM, I'll be on the road for a couple of weeks. I will have some free time in hotel rooms with a laptop, so if anyone is interested in talking about this further, I'll have more to say.

JR

[Philip Coates]

Lots of interesting and meaty points to chew on, Jeff. I will reread this (and print it) later today. But in the meanwhile, if people are interested, I have a part two or addendum to write to my long summary about Atlas yesterday - it's about a deeper reason people, who can see all those, still don't like the book. It has to do with 'Rand's universe'

> You might want to read E.M. Forster's succinct little book, Aspects of the Novel, sometime, Phil. He made this same point back in 1927, albeit with somewhat different terminology and at much greater length.

I will see if Amazon has it at a reasonable price. If you have any other top examples of literary criticism, I hope you will mention them. As I mention I am more of a lit slut than a slut for whether on not R was a slut, so literary criticism and analysis will move past tell-all Rand bios on my reading priority list.