What Are You Reading

[ChiTownScion]

Rand seems to be the darling of those who have never evolved beyond the community college sophomore stage.

 

[Fading Fast]

I have a friend who said he became solid Libertarian once he read "Atlas Shrugged." Another said he changed from liberal to conservative after reading it. Both are among those in my circle that constantly urge me to read it.

My leanings were libertarian before reading Rand, what she helped me was to see some ways dots connected. I had a "feeling" of how I thought economies worked / why collectivist ideas wouldn't, but she helped me form a better intellectual base with stronger premises for my positions. Not that I then, or now, swallowed Randianism whole - but it helped me shaped and make sense out of some not-well-organzied ideas I had.

I would be suspicious of anyone whose entire philosophical outlook could be changed by one book. But it could set them on a path toward discovering a new outlook. "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman, which I read in middle school did that for me - it set me on a course of discovery that continues to this day, three-plus decades later. And along the way, I made sure to read many competing works from those from the other side of the spectrum - from the NYT editorial page to Karl Marx.

As Lizzie implied in one of her post, books like "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Grapes of Wrath" (a true literally achievement) are important books whether or not you agree with their philosophies. My small point about Rand's books that I made earlier is that there are many of-the-liberal-persuation literary giants, but almost no conservative ones; hence, I think that is why Rand gets so much attention.

I just re-read what I wrote and I think I stayed within the parameters of not making the discussion about politics today but on the author, her influence and her impact. If I strayed too far, please delete - as my intent was sincerely not to stray (sometimes hard to see the line though).

 

[LizzieMaine]

No worries. I think it's a good point about being skeptical about anyone's views being formed by a single book. I know that my own views have leaned in the same general direction my entire life -- not because what I've read, but because of accumulated experience, especially my time working in a factory. Reading only helped to give expression to perspectives and alignments that were already there. (I admit I was always very happy in Sunday School when we read the part about Jesus chasing the moneychangers out of the temple with a whip, but I wouldn't say that was the catalyst for my current beliefs...)

 

[Big J]

No worries. I think it's a good point about being skeptical about anyone's views being formed by a single book.

Hell yes! After all, look what Mein Kapf did!lol

 

[LizzieMaine]

To say nothing of Ignatius J. Reilly and "The Consolation of Philosophy."

 

[pawineguy]

Rand seems to be the darling of those who have never evolved beyond the community college sophomore stage.

That would indict a lot of very successful people. Perhaps your experience with Rand admirers is atypical.

I think with a few re-writes and a much better editor Atlas Shrugged could have been a great novel, but it's just so hard to get through. The odd thing is that she was a writer before she really turned to philosophy and had a fair amount of success in both Hollywood and on Broadway. Her early years during and after the Russian Revolutions need to be understood in order to see where from everything else flowed.

 

[pawineguy]

My leanings were libertarian before reading Rand, what she helped me was to see some ways dots connected. I had a "feeling" of how I thought economies worked / why collectivist ideas wouldn't, but she helped me form a better intellectual base with stronger premises for my positions. Not that I then, or now, swallowed Randianism whole - but it helped me shaped and make sense out of some not-well-organzied ideas I had.

I would be suspicious of anyone whose entire philosophical outlook could be changed by one book. But it could set them on a path toward discovering a new outlook. "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman, which I read in middle school did that for me - it set me on a course of discovery that continues to this day, three-plus decades later. And along the way, I made sure to read many competing works from those from the other side of the spectrum - from the NYT editorial page to Karl Marx.

As Lizzie implied in one of her post, books like "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Grapes of Wrath" (a true literally achievement) are important books whether or not you agree with their philosophies. My small point about Rand's books that I made earlier is that there are many of-the-liberal-persuation literary giants, but almost no conservative ones; hence, I think that is why Rand gets so much attention.

I just re-read what I wrote and I think I stayed within the parameters of not making the discussion about politics today but on the author, her influence and her impact. If I strayed too far, please delete - as my intent was sincerely not to stray (sometimes hard to see the line though).

All well said, and parallels many experiences of my own, including Friedman. Whether or not you agree with anything Rand believes, she was a very important voice.

 

[Bob Roberts]

Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund.

 

[T Jones]

...and to say nothing of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Communist Manifesto".

 

[LizzieMaine]

Interesting fact: John Galt's Big Speech is approximately twice as long as the Communist Manifesto. Say what you will about Marx and Engels, but they could be concise when they needed to be.

Meanwhile, I'm spending time these days with H. L. Mencken's definitive study of the American language, called, naturally, "The American Language." Mencken is another good example of an author whose personal politics I find utterly loathsome, but within the field of popular phil0logy, there are few who do it better. While there are touches of the choleric newspaper crackpot Mencken in some of the commentary, "American Language" for the most part is a thoroughly researched and enjoyable exploration of how and why we speak and write as we do.

 

[Big J]

Interesting fact: John Galt's Big Speech is approximately twice as long as the Communist Manifesto. Say what you will about Marx and Engels, but they could be concise when they needed to be.

Really? Wow!
Although I shouldn't be surprised, Rand was that bad a writer. I wonder if her grocery list was equally as long and badly written?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Really? Wow!
Although I shouldn't be surprised, Rand was that bad a writer. I wonder if her grocery list was equally as long and badly written?

Grocery lists are for proles. Rand buys the whole store, cuts the wages of the staff by 75 percent, and takes what she wants of the stock by right of her moral superiority.

Seriously, though, a lot of people think the Communist Manifesto is some kind of weighty tome, when it was nothing of the kind -- it was a pocket-sized pamphlet. My copy of the 1939 International Publishers edition from the CPUSA is 48 pages long. Print Galt's speech in the same format, in the same size type, and it'd be twice that length.

Marx could be just as wordy when he wanted to be, of course. "Capital" is a gargantuan work -- the best available US version, the Modern Library Giant edition of 1945, is 869 pages of very small type. Set "Atlas Shrugged" in a similar page size and style, and it would probably be shorter than that.

Marx, however, even in translation, has a better grasp of punctuation than Rand.

 

[Big J]

Grocery lists are for proles. Rand buys the whole store, cuts the wages of the staff by 75 percent, and takes what she wants of the stock by right of her moral superiority.

lollollol
That's very funny indeed!

Seriously, though, a lot of people think the Communist Manifesto is some kind of weighty tome, when it was nothing of the kind -- it was a pocket-sized pamphlet. My copy of the 1939 International Publishers edition from the CPUSA is 48 pages long. Print Galt's speech in the same format, in the same size type, and it'd be twice that length.

Marx could be just as wordy when he wanted to be, of course. "Capital" is a gargantuan work -- the best available US version, the Modern Library Giant edition of 1945, is 869 pages of very small type. Set "Atlas Shrugged" in a similar page size and style, and it would probably be shorter than that.

Marx, however, even in translation, has a better grasp of punctuation than Rand.

I'm trying to read Mao's 'Little Red Book' at the moment, partly for the Chinese practice, but also so that I can quote parts back to Chinese enjoying their wealth too much It's really small, but awfully hard for me. I imagine it was much easier for Chinese revolutionaries.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ah yes. Communism "with Chinese characteristics." The Little Red Book didn't come out till 1964, so the revolutionaries of the thirties and forties didn't have to try to get thru it. It's just as well, they were too busy trying not to be exterminated by the Japanese.

 

[Big J]

Ah yes. Communism "with Chinese characteristics." The Little Red Book didn't come out till 1964, so the revolutionaries of the thirties and forties didn't have to try to get thru it. It's just as well, they were too busy trying not to be exterminated by the Japanese.

lol!

The best thing about it is that it's little!
It's taking me forever to read, but it sure is easier to carry around in my bag than Atlas Shrugged! On that basis alone I can see why one billion chose Mao's book over Rand's!

 

[Fading Fast]

Rand was, always, wordy. My God, she said the same thing 15 different ways...in the same sentence (which usually was the equivalent of a long paragraph). She was not a great literary writer, but she was no hack either. She had a very stylized way of writing that I'm not a huge fan of, but, I not only haven't published any novels, I don't have two best sellers published.

And before someone comes back with the - romance novels sell x millions of copies - let's be fair, she sold millions of copies of philosophical novels (not exactly your usual mass-market, best-seller fair). She is not a literary giant by any means, and I'm no lover of her writing style, but she had talent. And, for what it is worth, she was writing in her second language learned as a young adult.

For all her writing faults - and I laughed at the punctuation comment as I always felt as if she saw every punctuation as nothing more than a pause for her to take a breath - for millions, she created characters and stories that advanced her ideas and philosophy. My point is not to argue the good or bad of that philosophy, but to say that there is writing talent there of some type. Many have tried to imitate her - none have had a hundredth of her success.

And while not my cup of philosophical tea, I think Marx was a talented writer, but also no literally giant. Just a good writer at advancing his ideas - which is no small talent.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And while not my cup of philosophical tea, I think Marx was a talented writer, but also no literally giant. Just a good writer at advancing his ideas - which is no small talent.

He was largely a theoretician and a pamphleteer, so literary considerations would have had little interest to him. I think, so far as leftist writers are concerned, there's a lot to pick from from as far as literary quality is concerned. Steinbeck, of course, was in a class by himself, and I very much enjoy the plays of Clifford Odets, although some find them dated.

The CPUSA published its own literary magazine in the twenties and thirties, "New Masses," much of which is still considered a landmark in American letters -- you didn't have to belong to the CP to publish there, and the magazine attracted a broad range of talent from the Left. Among the authors featured in the magazine were Langston Hughes, Granville Hicks, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Wolfe, Richard Wright, James Agee, Dorothy Parker, and Ernest Hemingway. And of course, in a more popular vein you've got Dashiell Hammett, who served a stretch as a political prisoner for refusing to "name names" during the McCarthy Era, and remained a CPUSA member to his dying day.

I agree that literary merit is often less of a consideration when you're talking about ideological works, especially those where the author has developed a "cult of personality." L. Ron Hubbard, to use an obvious example, has published more works than any other author in history, and has sold who knows how many hundreds of millions of copies of those works. And yet nobody would ever consider that any of those works sold on the basis of their literary worth -- they sell because there's a cult that buys them. (And, alas, I expect by saying this that Scientologists will track me down and have me killed. Don't try anything, Travolta, I know where you live.)

 

[Harp]

Ah yes. Communism "with Chinese characteristics." It's just as well, they were too busy trying not to be exterminated by the Japanese.

Mao unleashed his own wrath.

 

[AmateisGal]

Finished All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Such exquisite writing...as a writer, I am envious. A powerful, haunting story.

Highly recommend.

 

[Harp]

Such exquisite writing...as a writer, I am envious.

The late James Salter whose canon includes The Hunters; A Sport and a Pastime; Light Years; Dusk; and Burning the Days
is a highly instructive writer. Edith Wharton herself would have admired him-despised him, of course, but c'est la vie.