Now, If Book Reviewers Read The Books...

The NY Times runs a review of a new Ayn Rand biography, "Ayn Rand and the World She Made" by Anne C. Heller.

The review would be even more interesting if the reviewer, Adam Kirsch of The New Republic, showed a token familiarity with Ms. Rand's work, or even with life here in reality.  This howler was flagged by Nicole Gelinas at The Corner (punchline highlighted:

Nor would Rand, sooner than any other desert prophet, allow her message to be trifled with. When Bennett Cerf, a head of Random House, begged her to cut Galt’s speech, Rand replied with what Heller calls “a comment that became publishing legend”: “Would you cut the Bible?” One can imagine what Cerf thought — he had already told Rand plainly, “I find your political philosophy abhorrent” — but the strange thing is that Rand’s grandiosity turned out to be perfectly justified.

In fact, any editor certainly would cut the Bible, if an agent submitted it as a new work of fiction. But Cerf offered Rand an alternative: if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties, she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life. 

...Yet while Rand took to wearing a dollar-sign pin to advertise her love of capitalism, Heller makes clear that the author had no real affection for dollars themselves. Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done.

Hmm - is Steve Jobs a capitalist, and what is his view on compromising his vision for a few extra bucks?  Never mind.  More to the point, has Mr. Kirsch the vaguest familiarity with "The Fountainhead", Ms. Rand's earlier book whose protagonist, Howard Roark, was always refusing to compromise his vision in exchange for a bit of business?  As to Atlas Shrugs, it is replete with characters who are similarly uncompromising and non-businesslike (as Kirsch understands it). 

Whatever.  The funniest thing I ever read about Ayn Rand described some seminar young, free-thinking individualists.  All the women were wearing capes, smoking cigarettes, and doing their best to look like Dagny Taggart.  Now all free-thinkers wear black to highlight their creativity and individuality.

Comments

[clarice]

Black is also slenderizing and goes with everything,TM.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

But it makes someone my size get mistaken for a bouncer.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I find this amusing also, having recently been excommunicated from an Objectivist group.

[narciso]

The message is important, but it's
inconvenient to the likes of Times, who act like the stock foes in Atlas Shrugged, the
poets, the publicists, the philosopher, and
Rand picked up this in the tranquil 50s. What my grandfather would notice twenty years later after his sojourn in post Franco
spain, or Solzhenitsyn would call attention to at Harvard

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

What, Barbara Branden left some stone unturned?

[Demonizing is worst on the demonizer.]

What an incredibly narrow vision of a capitalist.
============================

[glasater]

It is a thought to use dollar sign pins as a reference to Ayn Rand's philosophy.

[Old Lurker]

Well, well. What a timely thread on which to post the LUN.

It was crystal clear to JOMer's the consequence on Ford of Obama taking GM and Chrysler from their owners and turning them over to the unions. The end game has begun for Detroit, it seems. Surprise, surprise.

NOT

Nice day to go wax my BMW.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Check out John Galt Gifts for similar things. i've bought many tee shirts from them, hey seem like good folks.

[daddy]

TM,

Sorry for this long paste, but in your spirit of hammering this clueless reviewer of Ayn Rand, remember this Classic opening of Mark Twain's in "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses", wherein Twain eviscerates some Yale Professor for lauding Fenimore Cooper:

Fenimore Cooper`s Literary Offenses

The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer stand at the head of Cooper`s novels as artistic creations. There are others of his works which contain parts as perfect as are to be found in these, and scenes even more thrilling. Not one can be compared with either of them as a finished whole.

The defects in both of these tales are comparatively slight. They were pure works of art.

Prof. Lounsbury
The five tales reveal an extraordinary fullness of invention. ...One of the very greatest characters in fiction, Natty Bumppo... The craft of the woodsman, the tricks of the trapper, all the delicate art of the forest, were familiar to Cooper from his youth up.

Prof. Brander
Cooper is the greatest artist in the domain of romantic fiction yet produced by America

Wilkie Collins
It seems to me that it was far from right for the Professor of English Literature in Yale, the Professor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper`s literature without having read some of it. It would have been much more decorous to keep silent and let persons talk who have read Cooper.

Cooper`s art has some defects. In one place in Deerslayer, and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction--some say twenty-two. In Deerslayer Cooper violated eighteen of them. These eighteen require:

That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the Deerslayer tale accomplishes nothing and arrives in the air.
They require that the episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the Deerslayer tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since there was nothing for them to develop.
They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.
They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this detail also has been overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.
They require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the Deerslayer tale to the end of it.
They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. But this law gets little or no attention in the Deerslayer tale, as Natty Bumppo`s case will amply prove.
They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship`s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the Deerslayer tale.
They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. But this rule is persistently violated in the Deerslayer tale.
They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible or reasonable. But these rules are not respected in the Deerslayer tale.
They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.
They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. But in the Deerslayer tale this rule is vacated.
In addition to these large rules there are some little ones. These require that the author shall

Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
Use the right word, not its second cousin.
Eschew surplusage.
Not omit necessary details.
Avoid slovenliness of form.
Use good grammar.
Employ a simple and straightforward style.

(The full text continues here.)">http://www.classicauthors.net/Twain/fenimorecooper/">here.)

[fernhulet]

research middle wide union

[haracchee]

result during http://asiapacificpartnership.org state melting http://www.painfoundation.org http://www.ashe.org percent individual http://www.lupus.org

[daddy]

Fernhulet

I think you're wrong about that. I think you should research right wide union, not middle wide union, as else you are apt to be painted as a "moderate" squishy research union---but to each Alien from Pluto his own I suppose.

And as for haracchee----Man (or boy or girl or dog or whatever) Where's the love?

[Magic Dog]

I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged back in the days when I was a voracious reader who would read anything just for the hell of it. They were great comedies, and made me want to have kinky sex with Ayn Rand. But they never made me take her "philosophy" seriously!

[Brian]

So Magic Dog read through 1,800 pages because he's a voracious reader who wanted to have kinky sex with Ayn Rand.

Either that or he's just lying.

[Elron Hubberd]

Ayn Rand is the greatest freethinker of the last 100 years.

She banged her way through some of the greatest economic minds of the 20th Century (and Alan Greenspan). She wrote using 20 dollar words and fucked like a rabbit.

She's like Glenn Reynolds, but with an interest in sex.

[jimmyk]

It figures that a NY Times journalist would essentially equate true capitalism with prostitution.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

She's like Glenn Reynolds, but with an interest in sex.

Dude, have you seen Dr Mrs Reynolds?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Seriously, on re-reading Atlas Shrugged for the unmpteenth time a few years ago, I realized I had a very different interpretation than I used to. instead of seeing it as a political novel, I saw it as a Bildungsroman in which Dagny Taggart eventually grows to overcome a shame-based upbringing and an isolated childhood with distant parents, and become a self-actualized individuated person.

And a natural bottom.

[Ignatz]

--Dude, have you seen Dr Mrs Reynolds?--

She is quite a looker, in direct contradistinction to Ayn Rand.

Magic Dog must have got his copies from the Braille Book of the Month Club.

[DrJ]

Dude, have you seen Dr Mrs Reynolds?

Only on the 'net, where she appears to be a handsome woman with really terrible writing and interviewing skills.

I'm spoiled by the local company, it seems.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Actually, she was pretty cute in her younger days:

I've always had a weakness for the intense Russian Jewish girls.

[sbw]

Heh. Drudge reports the White House and Senate have agreed on terms for a journalist shield law.

I buck the tide. I don't think there should be a shield law.

If one believes strongly enough in breaking to law to publish something, one should be prepared to face the consequences of it like any other citizen. One can hope for jury nullification, but one should not count on it.

Besides, I doubt the definition of journalist stands up to scrutiny. As practiced, paide journalists don't practice journalism while unpaid bloggers frequently do.

But, and most significantly, it allows journalists to be played like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's flute, without fear of exposure.

With a shield law, Alinsky wins.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Here's what Newt just said about Hoffman now:

The emergence of Doug Hoffman as the only alternative to a pro-tax increase, pro-Pelosi liberal is a victory for Mike Long and the Conservative party, in alliance with the national conservative movement and talk radio.

The challenge for the next three days is to convince every Republican who opposes Pelosi and opposes tax increases that Doug Hoffman is the only vote that can stop the Left on tuesday.

In a district that has double-digit unemployment, tax increases are a threat to further crush the economy.

If taxes are the key issue, the Democrats will suffer a significant defeat.

In all three elections Tuesday the Democrat is going to run ten to twenty points behind Obama's share a year ago.

That is dramatic decay for a brand in 12 months.

[sbw]

Come on, typepad! [Shin kick!] Cough up the comment!

[Extraneus]

Well I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged during my formative years, and the ideas therein have stayed with me ever since. Many of the dastardly personages in the current administration were described in these books, as were their motivations. The thought of any sort of sex with Ayn Rand never occurred to me and still doesn't.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

The thought of any sort of sex with Ayn Rand never occurred to me and still doesn't.

Well, certainly not now, she's been dead for years.

[unɹ puɐ ʇıɥ]

Should we follow Newt on his next "hill to die", or wait until the hill has been taken and he tells us to side with the victor?

[narciso]

Nice Newt, but where you a week, and more importantly where was the NRSC, nearly a million dollars ago!

[narciso]

All right enough griping, it's time to close ranks, like the Phalanx in 300, in the LUN

[Extraneus]

I'm sure Newt was glad to climb onto the life boat, but, as usual, he never knows when to shut up. Personally, I think now would be a good time.

[glasater]

Rand's semi autobiography "We" was so poignant....

[Magic Dog]

Well, certainly not now, she's been dead for years.

Why should that stop a good Republican? You've been doing, well, something to dead horses for years now. By the way, Rand was a '50s vixen back in the day. I hope someone had the toenail scratches on his back to prove it.

[Gregory Koster]

Glasater, there was a serious, talented artist inside Rand trying to get out. It happened once in NIGHT OF JANUARY 16th, and there's plenty of evidence that the artist was inside in ATLAS and FOUNTAINHEAD and WE THE LIVING. But the artist was far too often defeated by the polemicist. E.g. in ATLAS, there's a fine scene where the gangster union boss is shaking down the idiotic Wesley Mouch, Washington Shlub, Third Class. The gangster is straightforward, "Do I get the board, Wesley?" Mouch gives an answer that would have made Sir Humprhey Appleby proud, but it's obvious he's caving in. How does Rand end the scene? With this:

"Everyone in the room knew this meant Yes."

Everyone in the room might, BUT YOU DAM READERS MIGHT NOT SO I'LL BELT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH THIS MESSAGE!!! HE'S SELLING OUT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Whew. Small wonder that Rand has to be read with an icebag on your head.

Yet the artist was there. Want to understand Van Jones or Anita Dunn or Tim Geithner? ATLAS or FOUNTAINHEAD will show them to you in detail.

A period of silence from Newt would be most welcome. I am sorry that Mitt couldn't do better than his timorous clinging to the sidelines. If the GOP has any sense, they will use the result in NY23 as a cowpox injection. If they don't instead of a Dem slaughter next year, it'll be 1998, not 1994.

[narciso]

There's a degree to which the polemic has a context, to someone like Rand a Russian exile, who had seen Marxism triumph directly
in her homeland, and creeping socialism abroad, she had to be dramatic. It might seem overwrought even now, I really thought
my grandfather was being overdramatic back in the 80s, turned out he was underplaying
the threat

[DrJ]

there was a serious, talented artist inside Rand trying to get out.

The artist did not struggle hard enough. I have always considered her to be a third-rate author.

Rand has to be read with an icebag on your head.

I'd say she can be read only after one's third bottle of wine. Maybe more. That's the wine, not the Rand.

[Thomass]

He is beating a strawman. Simple.

[JM Hanes]

I never managed to get through more than 30 yawn inducing pages or so of Rand before my eyes started to cross. I still don't get her iconic status.

sbw:

"I buck the tide. I don't think there should be a shield law."

I couldn't agree more! With everything you said.

[DrJ]

I still don't get her iconic status.

I don't either, JMH. She is only rivaled by Leviticus as a balm to insomnia.

Speaking of which, do you ever sleep? If so, when?

[Porchlight]

I agree that she is not much of a writer, but I still think her ideas are compelling.

[JM Hanes]

DrJ:

"Speaking of which, do you ever sleep? If so, when?"

LOL. Pretty much when I finally can't keep my eyes open any more. I wake up almost precisely 7.5 hours later, I'm just on a 28 hour cycle, which means I end up working my way around the 24 hour clock.

[Micha Elyi]

Rand's semi autobiography "We" was so poignant....-- glasater, October 31,&nbsp2009 at 09:32 PM

You're misidentifying Anthem. Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote We.

[JM Hanes]

Almost forgot! I claimed dibs on Jason Werth, before he hit his second homer.

[clarice]

Sleep inducers? When my son was little and couldn't sleep--almost always--I'd read to him from Winston Churchill's "History of the English Speaking People". We never ever got past the Picts.

[Kasper Hauser]

Hhhm,,,, Kirsch really doesn't understand what Capitalism is, does he?

Capitalism is not the worship of money over all....Capitalism is a system by which money or "wealth"--i.e., the fruit of one's labor---belongs to the individual who creates it. And by owning the fruits of one's own labor, one essentially owns oneself. Captialism is the rejection of all those preceding systems--tribal, feudal, royal--by which an individual is owned by others. It also stands diametrically against the rebirth of those systems of enslavement in the form of socialism and communism.

[Kasper Hauser]

Clarice...

No-one ever gets past the Picts!

[Insufficiently Sensitive]

Nice job Mr. Hauser, you've nailed it down concisely. A pity the NYT hasn't got a clue what capitalism is, other than some sort of caricature.

[Pat Patterson]

Rosa Luxemburg was an "...intense Russian Jewish girl." Does she count as a hottie? How about Barbra Streisand?

[Robert]

"Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist.....would have done."

"Hmm - is Steve Jobs a capitalist, and what is his view on compromising his vision for a few extra bucks? Never mind. More to the point, has Mr. Kirsch the vaguest familiarity with "The Fountainhead", Ms. Rand's earlier book whose protagonist, Howard Roark, was always refusing to compromise his vision in exchange for a bit of business? As to Atlas Shrugs, it is replete with characters who are similarly uncompromising and non-businesslike (as Kirsch understands it)."

See, I think you're missing the point. I don't think Kirsch means capitalist when he says capitalist. But if you replace capitalist with Jew, which Ayn Rand was (atheism aside), it really makes more sense. Capitalists take risks all the time. Greedy hook-nosed Jews? See, that's something else entirely.

But Kirsch sounds like a Jewish name, no? Maybe he's one of them self-loathing types.

[narciso]

I was going to say he was a credentialed moron, but maybe this is a one off, according to the LUN

[glasater]

Yup--It was "Anthem".

Thanks for the correction. It was some years ago after all.........:-)

[jaed]

I believe you both are struggling to recall the title of "We the Living". "Anthem" is SF and unlikely to be autobiographical. (Although it does resemble Zamyatin's "We" in some ways.)

[Jane]

I still don't get her iconic status.

I have a vivid memory of driving from Boulder to Breckenridge in 1975 and being so enthralled with Atlas Shrugged that I read it out loud to my friend who was driving. We were mesmerized - and this was a mere 3 years after quitting school to work for George McGovern.

I'm not much of an intellect, which may explain why Rand's ideas were so enthralling and transformative for me. I never did read the final speech tho. I just couldn't get thru it.

[sbw]

Having read Kirsch's bio I now see that he aspires to reach the rarified atmosphere of intellectualism reached by British academics in the 1930s.

Someone loosen his collar. He can't breathe.

[MayBee]

"I buck the tide. I don't think there should be a shield law."

I couldn't agree more! With everything you said.

Me three!
With shield laws in place, I don't see what stops journalists from just making shit up.

[clarice]

Ditto,MayBee. But now that I know we'd be covered, too.

Add Sullivan vs NYT to the mix and the media has a ticket to ride.

[Magic Dog]

I loved it when Ayn was a servant girl in Atlas Shrugged, working for gold flakes. Hot, hot, hot! I wonder how many Republican nerdlings ruined their sheets to that book! Vixen! Ha ha!