Re:Ask HN: What else do you do besides computers?
by mindcrime on Friday February 18, 2011 @04:45PM
(#2237404)
The characters that I think I'm supposed to like (Dagny and the prince boyfriend) all seem to have gotten where they are by being born into awesome situations. Don't get me wrong - Dagny is a hell of a lot more sympathetic than her brother, for example - but it's hard to look at her as a "self-made woman" when the railroad has been a family business for like 5 generations.
That's true, but there seems to be a concerted effort throughout the story to tie her - in a sort of spiritual sense - to her grandfather who built the railroad originally. She thinks about him a lot and you get the sense that she is - at times - asking herself "Can I be as good a person as he was, can I be that brave, that strong, etc?"
By the end of the book I felt a lot of sympathy for both Dagny and Rearden.
As for how I like it, thus far I am a little concerned about one point. The characters that I think I'm supposed to like (Dagny and the prince boyfriend) all seem to have gotten where they are by being born into awesome situations. Don't get me wrong - Dagny is a hell of a lot more sympathetic than her brother, for example - but it's hard to look at her as a "self-made woman" when the railroad has been a family business for like 5 generations. I'm hoping Hank Rearden shows up more, because he seems more in line with someone I'd sympathize with.
Other than that, though, I like it quite a bit. It's almost like my own thoughts are echoing back to me. I think it would be interesting to see what Rand would have done had she been alive now and whether the advent of the Internet, for example, would have changed some of the isolation she writes into her characters. Also, Dagny would have been able to track down that missing symphony she heard the train conductor whistling a lot easier.