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I do not normally read books as long as this. And this book has well over 1000 pages of small text. I bought it after reading The Fountainhead ([amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]) and then every time I opened Atlas Shrugged I was put off by its length.
Eventually I got around to reading it and the first 500 pages roar along. It reads like a horror novel and a sci-fi novel combined. Every page reveals new depths of horror at the decisions of the controlling stupid majority.
After about 700 pages the book started to slow down. I felt it could have benefited from some editing to remove the expositional chapters and speeches – the book had already achieved the aim of getting the point across through the actions and side conversations – I did not think that the many big speeches were required, the point of the novel felt laboured in places.
Some of the character development doesn’t work and even the heroic characters feel like they lack depth. In some ways it seems like a very long pulp novel (perhaps I enjoyed it because of that).
A motivating book in that I felt horror at the actions in the novel’s world. A warning though, if you relate to the protagonists then you may unfortunately end up more likely to ‘strike’ or quite your current occupation rather than help prop up and continue to propagate an unworkable situation at work.
Are there any companies that do things different enough that Atlas Shrugged will not serve as a metaphor for their organisation? Are there any governments that don’t map on to Atlas Shrugged?
I can see why some people rate the book so highly but it has flaws and you have to read over them to get to the end of the book – I found it worth persevering but I did skim some of the later pages and pages of pontification.
Having read the novel there are unfortunately far too many parallels with today’s UK government:
- Centralised control
- Targets
- Windfall Taxes
- Talk of ‘saving’ small businesses on high streets
- Favours to friends – BAA expansion despite other systemic solutions
- Payments for ‘being’ rather than production
- Quangos
- Jobs for the boys – despite any previous failures
- Perks for the boys – MPs expences
And overly many parallels with today’s businesses:
- Middle management that don’t make decisions
- Middle management that don’t set concrete goals
- Recruiters that hire based on title rather than success
There are elements of the protagonists behaviour and reaction that are useful to model. But the book serves a better warning to businesses and politicians in terms of ‘don’t do this stuff that the mass and people in power are doing’ rather than ‘do copy the protagonists’
I don’t think I’ll watch the film when it comes out . The proposed cast don’t hit the mark for me in terms of embodying the characters in the novel.
I recommend it, but you have to know when to skim.
Related Links demonstrate the obsessional focus that the book has received:
Phil Hine’s classic book on Chaos Magic – who knew Cthulhu could prove such fun?
I just watched