Re:Ayn Rand's Literature of Capitalism
by gwenhwyfaer on Saturday September 15, 2007 @09:11AM
(#54893)
I'd have to nominate 'We, The Living' as the best thing she ever wrote, on the grounds of both authenticity and quality. Everything after that was solipsistic pulp polemic, but I do retain a soft spot for WTL. But 'Anthem' was ripped off from 'We' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_%28novel%29) and can't hold a candle to either 'Brave New World' before or '1984' after; its only use is the same as that of 'The Communist Manifesto' (the two works are even as humourless as each other).
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Yes, "We" is also wonderful, though I don't see that "Anthem" was a ripoff...it's just another take on the same idea, which many others have taken a stab at over the years. And Brave New World and 1984 are completely different from the former to, and from each other. I love dystopian fiction, so I've read tons of it. My current favorite writer in the genre is Margaret Atwood ("Handmaid's Tale" and "Oryx and Crake"). So I guess if you don't really enjoy reading speculative fiction with a gloomy outlook on the future, maybe you only need to read one of them (probably 1984, since it's the one everybody knows), but otherwise, they're all a lot of fun.
"We, the Living", I didn't care for. The language is stilted (even more than Atlas and Fountainhead). It was her first real writing in English, and it shows. I never recommend WTL to folks who don't already like Ayn Rand, and most of the folks I know who've started it never finished it. I did, but I would never re-read it. (I've re-read Fountainhead and Atlas, minus the Galt speech, a couple of times, and Anthem at least four or five times.)