This is John Galt Speaking

September 30th, 2008 | View Comments

It’s as good a time as any to talk Atlas Shrugged, eh?

The short of it is that I loved the book. I was completely and totally hooked at the introduction of Dagny Taggart and could barely bring myself to put it down, reading by flashlight well into the night during our extended post-hurricane power outage. That is, until “This is John Galt Speaking,” which is supposed to be the meat of the book, but I found it to be redundant and unbelievable from a plot perspective. The same people who wiped Dagny off the air seconds after she uttered “blackmail” are content to sit quietly while Galt rambles Objectivist philosophy for three hours? I didn’t really enjoy Galt’s character that much to begin with—he’s too perfect to be interesting (on the other hand, helloooooo Francisco d’Anconia!)—and could have done without 50+ pages of his speechifying, most of which had already appeared near-verbatim in other parts of the book.

Many of the broader themes of the book resonated strongly with me—personal responsibility, self-sufficiency, and competence, woohoo! I would be a very happy camper in Galt’s Gulch.

But I think the underlying political philosophy in the book looks so good because the world of Atlas Shrugged is the ideal environment for that sort of extremist laissez-faire capitalism. There is a bright line between the good and the bad; the contributor and the looter; the honest and the cheater; the genius and the dolt who thinks dividing revenue by miles of rail maintained makes any sort of logical sense. The real world is a good deal messier.

As a good, old-fashioned story of good vs. evil, it’s a great read, particularly for those with strong interests in the socio/political/psychological. I’m not sure if I’ll take away much more than that.

Discuss.