To top all that off, the writing is turned up to eleven throughout. Consequently, none of the characters or storylines are at all believable. Rand's world is a place of black and white morality, good and bad people and absolutely no shades of grey. There are countless tedious repetitions of ideas, phrases and situations. Great chunks of the book are given over to philosophical rants (one particularly egregious radio broadcast clocks in at just under 100 pages). It's as unpleasant as it is daft and as a work of literature it's deeply flawed. In Rand's world, dollars are the ultimate in sex appeal and sex is dark, kinky and weird. She is just like the other supermen except she takes a long time to be persuaded to join Galt, she is beautiful instead of handsome and enjoys being near-raped by whomsoever appears to have the greatest earning potential.
Without them the world outside begins to collapse and destroy itself, as a collection of two-dimensional "college educated" caricatures pass increasingly idiotic legislation in the name of "essential need", and feed ever more hungrily on the few producers whom Galt has not yet taken to Colorado.Ĭhief among the latter is the focus of the novel, the acting vice-president of a railroad, Dagny Taggart. These are all supermen: supremely intelligent, rich, very good-looking and clever. He has also encouraged several other similar heroes to join him. Living on the principle that "I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine", he's retreated to the Colorado mountains, along with his great big brain and a super-efficient energy generator of his own invention. A man who has refused to accept the increasing socialisation of American society in Rand's bleak future, who has "taken away his fire" and gone on strike. Galt, it transpires (after 700-odd pages of hard yakka) is "Prometheus who changed his mind".
And so it was that I recently became one of the millions who have set out to discover the answer to the book's opening question: "Who is John Galt?". This sudden popularity is odd (why seek salvation from a situation caused by out of control markets in a book preaching less market regulation?) but it's also intriguing. Rand's fans proclaim her a prophet - the hero whose teachings will rid us of recession. If recent reports are to be believed, people have started seeing parallels between our current economic meltdown and the world collapse outlined in the 1200 pages of Ayn Rand's libertarian classic Atlas Shrugged.
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