Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

So very ready.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Consistently wrong since 2002

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

You are here: Home / Galt a brother up

Galt a brother up

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I’ll be participating in a podcast review of the Atlas Shrugged movie with the good people at Read It And Weep. There’s just one problem: the movie isn’t opening in Rochester this weekend. I also haven’t read the book. I tried the Wiki but I’m having trouble digesting it.

Is there a way to watch the movie on the internets somehow? Failing that, could you tell me a little about the book to help me get up to speed? I know there’s trains, rape, a gulch, and a perpetual motion machine. But I’m having trouble piecing together the plot.

Reader Interactions

146Comments

  1. 1.

    Tom Levenson

    You have to be a Republican to attempt to repeal the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics.

    Next up, Paul Ryan introduces a bill to set pi to 3.

    Trains? Did someone say trains?

    [n.b.: yes, it has been a long week]

  4. 4.

    MikeJ

    This is no help to you, but I did find it amusing that a “financial planner” in Utah was giving away tickets, calling it a date night. And they said bring as many people as you want!

    (Sorry whoever posted this last week. I don’t remember who you were.)

  6. 6.

    BR

    I’m sure The Pirate Bay will have a copy up for bittorrent-ing not long after the theatrical release.

  8. 8.

    Penon

    You’re participating in a review of a movie you haven’t seen based on a book you haven’t read. That’s very conservative film critic of you, Doug.

  12. 12.

    Xantar

    I love the Read It and Weep guys, but I was getting tired of Atlas Shrugged just listening to them summarize the plot and make fun of it. It seems like the question is less, “Who is John Galt?” and more “When is John Galt going to shut the hell up?”

  13. 13.

    Dennis SGMM

    The sad part is that Part I will bomb so badly that the rest of the movie will never be made. I weep for the snark unborn.

  14. 14.

    meh

    @BR:

    I’m sure The Pirate Bay will have a copy up for bittorrent-ing not long after the theatrical release.

    Pirate Bay doesn’t traffic in bestiality.

  16. 16.

    Lolis

    I ended up selling a ticket to an Arcade Fire concert to a libertarian think tanker today. When he told me he was libertarian I made a funny face and said I didn’t like libertarians. He said they weren’t that bad and partnered with the ACLU on some projects. The whole thing just made me realize I should have asked for more money and not delivered the ticket to him at work. We had a short interaction where he ended up telling me that even though I got paid crap my job was rewarding so that made up for everything. I love the free market talking points for public employees.

  18. 18.

    sukabi

    pretty sure you don’t have to actually READ the book… the last 30+ years of fiscal & social policy ala Greenspan and his ilk have been a distillation of it…

    Plus, I wouldn’t worry too much about getting “called out” for not reading it, if the conservatives participating in the podcast are true to form, they won’t have actually read the thing either… just picking and choosing specific passages that fit their world view and leaving out the things that “don’t work” for them… you know, like Bible readin’.

  20. 20.

    JGabriel

    DougJ @ Top:

    There’s just one problem: the movie isn’t opening in Rochester this weekend. Is there a way to watch the movie on the internets somehow?

    Since you have no interest in seeing the filmmakers profit from spreading the word of Ayn Rand, it is clearly and absolutely in your own Galtian self-interest to bittorrent a pirated copy from the internet when it becomes available.

    A = A.

    Q.E.D.

    .

  23. 23.

    Mark S.

    Isn’t it a little hard to review a movie if you don’t see it? What are you going to talk about?

  25. 25.

    Mr Barky

    There’s some guy named Galt who builds a train. Then he gives everyone a tax cut or something. That’s all I remember.

  26. 26.

    Mandramas

    The problem with Libertarians is that they are Social Darwinist in sociology and Creationist on biology.

  27. 27.

    sukabi

    @Lolis: sorry, liking your job and or the people you work with DOESN’T pay the bills, put food on the table, or in case of disaster help with medical bills or retirement…

    The ability to NOT think beyond the next 5 minutes must be an acquired skill.

  28. 28.

    slag

    @Xantar: I just tried listening to that. It didn’t go well.

    Good luck, DougJ! And remember, speak from the diaphragm…not the nasal passages.

  29. 29.

    Martin

    You think you’d be the first person to review the movie based solely on the trailer?

  30. 30.

    Redshift

    @Lolis:

    We had a short interaction where he ended up telling me that even though I got paid crap my job was rewarding so that made up for everything.

    Bizarre. How does that statement remotely fit into a libertarian philosophy?

    Sounds like he’s a “Republicans who like to smoke dope” libertarian. That would fit in with the ACLU comment, too.

  31. 31.

    Zifnab

    @MikeJ:

    calling it a date night. And they said bring as many people as you want!

    There’s a Mormon joke in there…

  32. 32.

    Bulworth

    Is there a way to watch the movie on the internets somehow? Failing that, could you tell me a little about the book to help me get up to speed?

    If you would just get out of that hammock and pull yourself up by your bootstraps you would understand the genius that is Atlas Shrugged without any of us John Galts to help you out.

  33. 33.

    Redshift

    @Arclite: I can’t recall which blogger it was who pointed out that even if you’re being completely fair, there’s no need to have any sympathy for Santorum about his Google problem, because the reason it persists is that he hasn’t done anything noteworthy since he left office.

  34. 34.

    transmaniacon

    I’ll never understand why they got rid of the Circus of Values in Bioshock 2.

    My incentive for finishing the game has evaporated.

  35. 35.

    Xantar

    @Mark S.:

    The Read It and Weep guys managed to review the audio book even though some of them were listening to highly abridged versions (the book was divided into four parts, and each of those parts is 14 hours unabridged and 3 hours abridged. I really wonder how the poor voice actor got through it all).

    Apparently, there’s a LOT of bloviating that can be cut out while still conveying the basic idea to the audience.

  36. 36.

    Joe Beese

    @Penon:

    You’re participating in a review of a movie you haven’t seen based on a book you haven’t read. That’s very conservative film critic of you, Doug.

    Reviewers will be too busy calling attention to their contempt for the source material to provide any useful information about the actual movie.

  40. 40.

    Joe Beese

    @Xantar:

    Apparently, there’s a LOT of bloviating that can be cut out while still conveying the basic idea to the audience.

    Very true.

    Rand never says anything once when she can say it three times. Or even five.

  42. 42.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    What is wrong with you? Seriously. Don’t participate in the podcast review. Duh.

  43. 43.

    Bokonon

    The Fountainhead is all pretty simple. Here is the Cliff Notes version:

    Greed is good. Selfishness is moral. Altruism is the tyrrany by the weak. Take what you want (and give nothing back). Strength through joy. Root hog or die.

    Repeat over and over until brainwashed.

    [And, yes, I am deliberately mashing up the pirate’s code from “Pirates of the Caribbean” and Gordon Gekko’s speech from “Wall Street” with some 1930’s fascist tropes, all combined together with some actual Ayn Rand. I challenge anyone to prove that I am wrong on this – because it is all pretty hard to distinguish, no?]

  45. 45.

    Mark S.

    @Arclite:

    Yeah, Doug, you have no excuse now. It’s showing at the Regal Henrietta (where the fuck did they come up with that name?) Cinema 18 tomorrow. Get your ass out there!

  46. 46.

    Martin

    Actually, Doug should review the movie as though he has no clue that it was a book, but instead reference current Republicans as the inspiration for each character. Toss in an offhand “It would have been better if Paul Ryan had raped Michele Bachmann after that interaction…”

  47. 47.

    Jager

    When I was in college, I had a pal named John Gault. When he’d be introduced to somebody, sometimes they would do a double take and John would say, “Gault with a U, asshole”!

    Come to think of it, John disappeared about 1975, hmmmm

  48. 48.

    Cris (without an H)

    In general, I think it’s good for a movie adaptation to be reviewed both by people who are familiar with the source material and by those who aren’t. The former can tell you what the filmmakers did right and could have done better, the latter tell you if the filmmakers succeeded at all. Because a movie really should stand on its own, and be comprehensible without having read the original.

    So in short, don’t sweat it, in this case ignorance is a virtue.

  49. 49.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Joe Beese:

    I was impressed by the fact that the book that had impressed me when I was sixteen made such an excellent doorstop when I was twenty.

  50. 50.

    Arclite

    @Mark S.:

    Regal Henrietta Cinema 18

    Atlas Shrugged: Part 1
    ‎1hr 42min‎‎ – Rated PG-13‎‎ – Drama‎
    12:10 2:40 5:10 7:35 9:55pm 12:05am

    Doug: You can go to the midnight showing!!

  54. 54.

    joeyess

    Ahh, fuck the Cliff Notes. Here’s all you need to know:

    There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

    Read it at Tbogg’s place.

  55. 55.

    jimbo

    An awful piece of crap. Truly execrable prose. I would find it astonishing that so many took it as a guide to life, were it not for the timeless appeal of intellectual-sounding justifications for selfishness.

  58. 58.

    becca

    When you get ready to watch, be sure to pop some benzedrine and don a Superman cape.

    Really enhances the plot.

  59. 59.

    Joe Beese

    @Cris (without an H):

    in this case ignorance is a virtue

    It’s necessary to distinguish between the honest ignorance of someone who says “I don’t know anything about this” and the dishonest ignorance of someone who says “There’s a rape in it” – since the notorious rape occurs in Rand’s other novel, The Fountainhead.

    An honestly ignorant person might be able to tell me whether the movie is worth going to or not. A dishonestly ignorant person will only be able to tell me what their prejudice is.

  63. 63.

    FormerSwingVoter

    I can’t let a discussion of Ayn Rand go by without linking to this:

    michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm

    Summary: Ayn Rand becomes infatuated with horrible child murderer William Hickman, bases main hero characters after him. Because he was the kind of man every Galtian Superman should aspire to be. Really.

  66. 66.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    I read the plot on Wiki (the book’s, that is) and the only way I could think of of possibly making it through the book would be drugs.

  67. 67.

    Bill Murray

    When did Jonah Goldberg get a gig a BJ? I expect some MST3K level snark to make up for this

  71. 71.

    MTiffany

    could you tell me a little about the book to help me get up to speed?

    Sure: “I got mine, fuck you.”

  72. 72.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    I tried the Wiki but I’m having trouble digesting it.

    You can get the same effect by eating sawdust, only it’s much more pleasant.

  73. 73.

    JITC

    Nagging Nellie here –

    Is it silly to keep criticizing a book that you’ve never read? Just read the book. Yes, it’s long and a slog. But everyone will be able to better criticize the bone-headedness of it if everyone actually read it.

  75. 75.

    joeyess

    @JITC: Don’t listen to JITC, Comrade. Take our word for it. The book blows. However long it takes you to read the damn thing, you’ll forever want that time back and lament that it’s lost forever.

  76. 76.

    JGabriel

    @Joe Beese:

    An honestly ignorant person might be able to tell me whether the movie is worth going to or not. A dishonestly ignorant person will only be able to tell me what their prejudice is.

    Both will only tell you what their prejudice is. The “honestly” ignorant critique may be unsullied by informed context, but the biases will still shine through.

    .

  77. 77.

    Loneoak

    @Martin:

    I agree. Martin’s idea is genius—review it substituting members of the current clown car for the actual ‘characters’.

  78. 78.

    Joe Beese

    @Martin:

    I think you need to reread Atlas Shrugged. There’s at least two encounters that are arguably rape scenes.

    I’m pretty familiar with it.

    When Teen Francisco makes a woman of Teen Dagny in the woods, Rand gets a little moist describing how Dagny understands that her only choice is to submit to his passion, yada yada… but it’s not like she fights him off.

    [And of course, even in The Fountainhead, it’s what Rand accurately described as “rape by engraved invitation”.]

    That’s one. I don’t know what you might be thinking of for the second. Lillian lays motionless and unfeeling on the rare occasions when Henry has sex with her, but that’s par for Republican marital intercourse.

    My main point is that people who use Rand’s predilection for romantic rape fantasies as an indictment of her political views are being lazy and opportunistic. There are plenty of legitimate criticsims to make of them that don’t rely on that kind of cheap ridicule.

  80. 80.

    Countme In

    Plot: Dagny Taggert humps the Chrysler Building, and since Planned Parenthood has long since been defunded, she gives birth to an old woman, who appears on the Phil Donahue show to hawk her malign doctrine, thereby securing HER Medicare payments so that she can live long enough to see “Atlas Shrugged” become the second highest-selling book next to the Bible, and then both texts are cited by Rand’s filth spawn, the incoherent devout Roman Catholic and Objectivist Paul Ryan, to rat-fuck, the sick, the poor, and the elderly.

    A train runs through it, dual metaphor for George Will’s erect individualistic juices being sapped by the collective, and as a novel, entrepreneurial means to transport lots of people over distances, some of whom are reading “Atlas Shrugged” en route and promising to derail Obama’s high-speed rail initiative.

    Fucking and lecturing, fucking and lecturing, and yet more lecturing by John Galt.

    Not enough fucking, so Dagny Taggert masturbates to oddly Soviet sounding industrial work-songs.

    Then Ayn Rand steps over a homeless guy in New York City, hawking a bolus of contempt his way, on her way to a cab, when the planes hit the World Trade Center, from whence Terri Schiavo falls, landing on and killing Rand, and finally, the Catholic Church and Objectivism collide in a bloody mess.

  81. 81.

    JGabriel

    @Joe Beese:

    My main point is that people who use Rand’s predilection for romantic rape fantasies as an indictment of her political views are being lazy and opportunistic.

    Rand simultaneously has a predilection for rape fantasies, and pushes a philosophy in which the majority want to serve, and can only be fulfilled by serving, the ubermensch — despite their protestations.

    Anyone arguing that there’s no connection is intellectually disingenuous.

    .

  82. 82.

    Chris

    Is there a way to watch the movie on the internets somehow? Failing that, could you tell me a little about the book to help me get up to speed? I know there’s trains, rape, a gulch, and a perpetual motion machine. But I’m having trouble piecing together the plot.

    Beyond the “genius-inventors-go-on-strike-to-show-the-world-how-much-it-needs-them” plotline, can’t help you. Sorry.

    I can tell you how the sequel goes, though. Decades after the original, John Galt hobbles out of his canyon, one of the only survivors of the genocidal war that resulted from that many “me! me! me!” assholes living in the same couple square miles and competing for the resources on it. John Galt walks to nearest town. Discovers, to his utter amazement, that society has in fact gone on just fine without him. John Galt has existential crisis, launches into James Bond Villain like monologue combining denial and megalomania. But no one remembers him: he’s relegated to being one of those crazy people on street corners yelling at others as they go by and speaking of himself in the third person. The few people who can make out his mutterings wonder “who the fuck is John Galt?” No one knows, no one cares. The end.

  84. 84.

    JGabriel

    @Chris:

    John Galt has existential crisis, launches into James Bond Villain like monologue combining denial and megalomania. But no one remembers him: he’s relegated to being one of those crazy people on street corners yelling at others as they go by and speaking of himself in the third person. The few people who can make out his mutterings wonder “who the fuck is John Galt?”

    (Applauds.)

    Hilarious.

    .

  86. 86.

    darkmatter

    @JITC: Ye Gods why?

    This is one of the very few times where not reading a single page of a book is preferable to burning out your brain cells reading that dreck.

  87. 87.

    Radon Chong

    I’ve thought about it, and here’s what you should do: You can’t see the movie, or read the book in time, but what you can do is read a bunch of other reviews of the movie and review those. You know there are going to be a bunch of hacktastic wingnutty reviews of this thing, and you are just the person to bring those to the discussion. You’re welcome.

  88. 88.

    Dave

    @Joe Beese:

    When Teen Francisco makes a woman of Teen Dagny in the woods, Rand gets a little moist describing how Dagny understands that her only choice is to submit to his passion, yada yada… but it’s not like she fights him off.

    Really? Glad to see you bringing back rape definitions to the 1950s.

  89. 89.

    Joe Beese

    @JGabriel:

    Rand simultaneously has a predilection for rape fantasies, and pushes a philosophy in which the majority want to serve, and can only be fulfilled by serving, the ubermensch —despite their protestations. Anyone arguing that there’s no connection is intellectually disingenuous.

    It’s true that her philosophy views most people as sub-humans – her exact word at one point – best suited for extermination.

    But there are plenty of women who don’t believe that who still have romantic rape fantasies. [See: “bodice-ripper”.] Nor is Rand the first writer to posit submission as a expression of femininity. [See: Pauline Reage.]

    So while it’s not surprising that someone with Rand’s views would get off on this sort of thing, I really don’t think there’s a causal relation.

  90. 90.

    Chris

    @JGabriel:

    (Applauds.)
    …
    Hilarious

    Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.

    @darkmatter:

    This is one of the very few times where not reading a single page of a book is preferable to burning out your brain cells reading that dreck.

    I’ve always figured that if I ever decided to read either of them, I’d read Das Kapital and Atlas Shrugged in one go. I understand they’re both mind-numbing and stupefying, but that way I’d be done with the two extremes of modern politics.

    Has anyone read Das Kapital who’d like to comment? Am I being unfair to Karl in lumping the two together?

  91. 91.

    Joe Beese

    @Dave:

    Glad to see you bringing back rape definitions to the 1950s

    .

    You do realize that Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957?

  93. 93.

    Joe Beese

    @Dave:

    The point is what YOU said.

    And I was discussing what happens in the book – which I’m guessing you haven’t read. She doesn’t fight him off because she desires the sex and enjoys it.

    If you want to call that “rape” because you think it scores points in some argument you’d like to have with me, go right ahead.

  94. 94.

    transmaniacon

    @Joe Beese:

    It’s true that her philosophy views most people as sub-humans – her exact word at one point – best suited for extermination.

    Which, of course, is nitpicking.

  95. 95.

    Bob L

    Ok, what’s with trains in Atlas Shrugs? That makes no sense, they were old school when she wrote it an airplanes fit the bill better for her ideas.

    Like the whole move centers around better steel means Taggert’s trains go faster. Huh, train speed is more about much money you want to throw at maintain the tracks.

  96. 96.

    Chris

    @Bob L:

    Ok, what’s with trains in Atlas Shrugs? That makes no sense, they were old school when she wrote it an airplanes fit the bill better for her ideas.

    Wait a tick –

    @Joe Beese:

    It’s true that her philosophy views most people as sub-humans – her exact word at one point – best suited for extermination.

    Exterminate the little people? Then who’s supposed to make the trains run on time? Who’s supposed to do all the tedious work of building the railroad? Building the train? Operating the railroad? Operating the train? Maintaining the railroad? Maintaining the train?

    (The James Bond Villain jab above was mostly, but not totally, in jest. The Galtian crowd really does send off that insanely-megalomaniacal-yet-horrifically-impractical vibe).

  97. 97.

    Joe Beese

    @transmaniacon:

    Which, of course, is nitpicking.

    It’s simply neither here nor there with respect to the rape fantasies.

    Most women who write them do not believe in the extermination of sub-humans. Rand was one who did.

  99. 99.

    Chris Wolf

    Best review of the book I’ve ever read:

    I read “Atlas Shrugged” and it changed my life. For two weeks. In seventh grade.

  100. 100.

    Mandramas

    @Chris: Das Kapital is a highly technical essay, written in 1867. It is numbling because it state of art economy and sociology from their age.
    Atlas Shrugged is mind-numbing because, you know, Ayn Rand was a awful writer.
    It is interesting that Leftist thinking only created non-fiction great books, but the right were more able to create fiction books. Not the utter Rand piece of crap, but 1984 (a book I personally hate, but it is well written). There are no 1984 left analogue, neither Das Kapital has a good opposite book (The Wealth of Nations is pre-industrial, and it is another piece of crap)

  101. 101.

    Joe Beese

    @Chris:

    Exterminate the little people? Then who’s supposed to make the trains run on time?

    Philosophical systems are seldom practical.

    Though I wouldn’t want to live in Rand’s world – as if such a thing were possible – I wouldn’t want to live in the world of Plato’s Republic either.

  102. 102.

    Bob L

    @Chris:

    Exterminate the little people? Then who’s supposed to make the trains run on time? Who’s supposed to do all the tedious work of building the railroad? Building the train? Operating the railroad? Operating the train? Maintaining the railroad? Maintaining the train?

    And, you need the evil government to get the eminent domain to get the right away to built the tract in the first place, to back your bonds so you get the captial to built and run it. They are inherently monopolistic. The whole thing is as statist as you can get.

  104. 104.

    JGabriel

    @Joe Beese:

    But there are plenty of women who don’t believe that who still have romantic rape fantasies. [See: “bodice-ripper”.] Nor is Rand the first writer to posit submission as a expression of femininity. (See: Pauline Reage.)
    __
    So while it’s not surprising that someone with Rand’s views would get off on this sort of thing, I really don’t think there’s a causal relation.

    That means your argument is that Rand utterly lacks any self-awareness, and that the obvious parallel between a woman who desires being controlled by her partner and a worker who desires being controlled by his employer is, on her part, unconscious?

    Just because it looks, walks, and talks like a metaphor, doesn’t mean the author intended it as one?

    That would make most of Rand’s fictional oeuvre a subconscious expression of rape trauma — which I suspect it is — but it seems unlikely that you intended that interpretation.

    .

  107. 107.

    Bob Ewing

    For God’s sake, don’t try to “digest” Atlas Shrugged. You’re trying to defeat a self-preservation mechanism God put in place for a good reason. It’s noxious pap, and deserves to be expelled from the system as quickly as possible.

  109. 109.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    But I’m having trouble piecing together the plot.

    That’s where reading the book won’t actually help. So spare yourself that nightmare.

  110. 110.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    @Chris:

    Exterminate the little people? Then who’s supposed to make the trains run on time? Who’s supposed to do all the tedious work of building the railroad? Building the train? Operating the railroad? Operating the train? Maintaining the railroad? Maintaining the train?

    Rand holds the attitude that “if the king will not work, the peasants starve”.

  111. 111.

    duck-billed placelot

    @Joe Beese: Rand makes a HUGE point about how the rapishness of the sex is the thing she needs, the fact that this big strong MAN OF MEN takes the thing he wants from her/degrades/humiliates her. (The proles will like it, see!) And yeah, sure, some people have that kink, but Rand’s work holds that up as the only good sex for adults. I mean, it’s no surprise, since the main through line of her work is revelling in a complete lack of empathy, but it’s still horrifically bad. It’s also no surprise that a society that demonizes female sexuality would have women in it that like rape fantasies; doesn’t mean a philosopher gets a pass on positing that as the ideal sexual interaction.

  112. 112.

    Triassic Sands

    I’ll be participating in a podcast review of the Atlas Shrugged movie

    Unless you’re going to review it without watching it, you have my deepest sympathies. I’m assuming you are being forced to watch it under threat of grievous bodily harm to you or a loved one — otherwise you’re just plain crazy and I feel sorry for you for a different reason.

  113. 113.

    hitchhiker

    It’s a melodrama in the classic style. Stylish, thin, intelligent rich people nobly suffer horrible anguish when stupid people with bad tailors annoy them while dumpy, nasal poor people get in their way. Garments are rent. Teeth are gnashed. Wails are wailed. Tears are wept. Sex is had.

    Plus, there’s a constant lecture being delivered in the background explaining over and over that it’s all about the mind.

  114. 114.

    scav

    Personally, I’m still gobsmacked at finding a viable reason for sitting in a Henrietta parking lot for hours, staring at the snow piles and not much besides and I have been in multiple Henrietta parking lots.

  115. 115.

    Cermet

    @JITC: Why not? Thugs do that in congress for every single bill; and if a democrat has sponsored the bill, they denounce it automatically and can’t even bother to read the title of the bill. If that works for thugs, why not do that with their metal leader, the nutcase so-called book writer and whore?

  116. 116.

    SRW1

    @Tom Levenson:

    You have to be a Republican to attempt to repeal the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics.

    OK, I can see why they would want to repeal the 1st law of thermodynamics. That one just sucks if you own a patent on a perpetual motion machine. But the 2nd? The 2nd law of thermodynamics is the best friend of Republicans! How would they exploit crises without chaos causing a crisis?

  118. 118.

    Joe Beese

    @hitchhiker:

    It’s a melodrama in the classic style. Stylish, thin, intelligent rich people nobly suffer horrible anguish when stupid people with bad tailors annoy them while dumpy, nasal poor people get in their way. Garments are rent. Teeth are gnashed. Wails are wailed. Tears are wept. Sex is had.

    Yes, the pulpiness is delightful. People are always “whirling” to face someone in astonishment. And they perform marvels of expressiveness like a “half gasp, half scream”.

  119. 119.

    BattleCobra90000

    @DougJ:

    Just act like an asshole, then everybody will assume you read the book sometime in the last three months. If they press you on details, say you’re withholding your prodictivitah until they pony up more gold bricks. Done.

  120. 120.

    Wolfdaughter

    @Joe Beese:

    The bodice-ripper genre is actually predicated on there being an ongoing relationship between the ripper and the rippee, said relationship culminating in marriage. A little different from the “standard” rape, no? (To the extent there is such a thing as a “standard” rape, but rape does involve lack of consent on the part of the victim).

    Unfortunately, there are women who, unconsciously or consciously, seek out men who will abuse them. Such women have usually had abusive childhoods and are trying to live out a fantasy of changing a man, thereby somehow changing their childhoods.

    The majority of women don’t really fantasize about being violently raped.

  121. 121.

    Wolfdaughter

    @Mandramas:

    I am not under the impression that George Orwell was right wing. Although I’ll grant that the book is a right wing utopia dystopia.

  123. 123.

    justawriter

    @Mandramas: I don’t know if you can say there are no great leftwing novels. I know nobody reads Upton Sinclair anymore, mores the pity. But even if you narrowly define “left” as an indictment of capitalism then you still have most of Dickens and Steinbeck’s Dust Bowl novels. Then there are all the books that deal with single issues important to the left, like All Quiet on the Western Front and Catch 22 on militarism and Toni Morrison’s books which deal with both race and womens issues. That’s just what I could come up with off the top of my head.

  124. 124.

    Amir_Khalid

    @Mandramas:

    I don’t see Nineteen Eighty Four as expressing a right-wing point of view. If I recall correctly, George Orwell identified as being on the left politically, i.e. he called himself a sociaIist.

    While the evil totalitarian state in Nineteen Eighty Four does indeed dress up its repression in the language of sociaIism, I don’t believe Orwell intended that as a diss on the left. I’m not aware of any serious criticism that sees it that way, either. His intention, as I understand it, was to depict an extreme example of political corruption of language, a running theme in his nonfiction writing as well.

  125. 125.

    Amir_Khalid

    I have a commet awaiting modereation for iadvertent use of the word social ism. Help!

  126. 126.

    Amir_Khalid

    @Mandramas:

    I don’t see Nineteen Eighty Four as expressing a right-wing point of view. If I recall correctly, George Orwell identified as being on the left politically, i.e. he called himself a social ist.

    While the evil totalitarian state in Nineteen Eighty Four does indeed dress up its repression in the language of social ism, I don’t believe Orwell intended that as a diss on the left. I’m not aware of any serious criticism that sees it that way, either. His intention, as I understand it, was to depict an extreme example of political corruption of language, a running theme in his nonfiction writing as well.

  127. 127.

    Joe Beese

    The bodice-ripper genre is actually predicated on there being an ongoing relationship between the ripper and the rippee, said relationship culminating in marriage

    In The Fountainhead, Dominique and Roark are overwhelmingly attracted to each other at first sight, they toy with each other for a while by pretending indifference, he physically overpowers her proud resistance, she’s enthralled by the experience, pines for him through marriages to two other men, becomes his accomplice in a criminal act, and joins him triumphantly at the end of the novel – presumably for life.

    Rand writes standard romance fiction – just with sub-humans and perpetual motion engines.

  128. 128.

    JITC

    @Cermet:

    Why not? Thugs do that in congress for every single bill; and if a democrat has sponsored the bill, they denounce it automatically and can’t even bother to read the title of the bill. If that works for thugs, why not do that with their metal leader, the nutcase so-called book writer and whore?

    Rand’s theories are awful. The answer to why they are so awful is in the books. So is the answer to why so many want to believe in her awful theories.

    If you don’t read them, then you’re just guessing at it all.

    As you point out, only thugs opinionate about things they’ve never read/seen.

  129. 129.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    @Mandramas: to kill a mockingbird, uncle tom’s cabin, i think there are plenty, depending on your definition of a great book, of course.

    if you are looking at a strict western canon definition, you may come up with fewer, many of those books deal with aristocracy and religion, not really subjects a contemporary lefty identifies with, in a role model way.

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    @Wolfdaughter:

    The classic “bodice-ripper” is pretty much dead at this point. In the current marketplace, you’d have a very hard time selling one of the classic “rape is just a way to say I Love You” novels like Rosemary Rogers et al used to write. But, yeah, The Fountainhead is very much of its time period and has all of the old creepy shit in it.

    I could go into a whole lecture about how it’s probably because women have (more) societal permission to enjoy sex and don’t have to sublimate everything into fantasies of being punished and overpowered, but then we’d really end up off track.

  132. 132.

    Jennifer

    @Chris: As I noted the other day in discussion of McMegan, there’s a reason why Randians identify with John Galt instead of that truly self-sufficient literary character, The Little Red Hen. It’s because it’s a lot easier and more fun to pay people substandard wages to do stuff than it is to do it yourself…which would really cut into your leisure time for laying around and bitching about how all the people doing the work are “parasites.”

  133. 133.

    Seanly

    The author violently kills a trainload of people for buying products made from a new steel which should only be used for railroad tracks. That and a lot of overly long muddled speeches.

  134. 134.

    Mandramas

    @Wolfdaughter: Maybe Orwell is not right wing, but the book is. Or, it was used as it was, even when in fact, a lot of 1984 can be applied to any dictatorial government.

  136. 136.

    Ron

    Doug, I thought that the movie website said it was going to be playing at the Henrietta theater.

  137. 137.

    Ron

    Upon further review, the Henrietta movie theater’s website does say that Atlas Shrugged is opening there tomorrow.

  139. 139.

    Chris

    @Mandramas:

    As others have pointed out, Orwell was a socialist, and he definitely did not write 1984 as an endorsement of anything right wing. And like you yourself said, it really applies to any dictatorship and to a lot of politics in general – it’s hard to watch the Tea Party Movement in action and not have some parts of the book come to mind.

    But it’s interesting that, as you said, the right wing “used” it for their own purposes. They can recognize a good product when they see it, but it’s very hard to imagine them turning out anything like 1984.

  140. 140.

    Glen Tomkins

    “I’m having trouble piecing together the plot.”

    Good luck with that, because Ayn Rand had a similar problem, and apparently gave up.

  141. 141.

    El Cid

    @Chris: There’s the whole bit about Orwell having written a preface on how thought control occurred in democratic societies, versus the nightmare direct totalitarianism of the book. Things like self-censorship, promotion of more acceptable voices, the power of publishing houses and radio broadcasters.

    To demonstrate a lack of a sense of irony so profound that that lack rivaled empty space, the publishers wouldn’t publish his preface. It was obtained recently by Orwell biographers.

  142. 142.

    JGabriel

    @Amir_Khalid:

    If I recall correctly, George Orwell identified as being on the left politically, i.e. he called himself a social ist.

    Correct. Orwell is sometimes claimed by the right, because he opposed totalitarianism — including the communism of the Soviet Union. But that didn’t make him a wingnut, it just made him a socia1ist who hated dictators.

    .

  143. 143.

    Nutella

    The book and the movie are about the importance of high-speed rail and how private industry, unions, and government must all support it. With a few rape scenes.

  144. 144.

    alwhite

    Dougie – if you do go to see the movie DO NOT buy a ticket to Assholes Shrugged! Buy a ticket to some other movie playing at the film bin & then just wonder into AS.

    Not only will that deny the producers the $8 or so of the ticket (most Hollywood releases get 90-100% of the ticket price the first couple of weeks in release, it goes down slightly after that) but when you fall asleep or begin vomiting uncontrollably you will not feel as bad since you didn’t pay for it.

  145. 145.

    Chris

    @El Cid:

    To demonstrate a lack of a sense of irony so profound that that lack rivaled empty space, the publishers wouldn’t publish his preface. It was obtained recently by Orwell biographers.

    Now THAT’s funny.

    Last point – a shout out to the person above who mentioned “To Kill A Mocking Bird” as liberal literature. One of the best books out there IMHO.

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