Must Read Classics – Atlas Shrugged

So I have spent the last month with Ayn Rand i.e. I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged back to back and to the utter shock of the husband, finished both within a month. I was hooked from the first page and just could not put it down. It was like my teenage years when I used to read in the kitchen behind the cylinder because I was not allowed to switch on the lights elsewhere and I could just not sleep without finishing the book. Good times!

So this are just some lines which struck me and stayed with me after I shut the book too. These lines make a lot more impact in context but most of them are good as stand-alone lines and some are those I would love to tell the so called professionals and experts in today’s world.

There were loads of stuff I liked about it. Some are ‘briefly’ described here. If you have not read the book and don’t want any info that could be ‘spoilers’ then don’t read this now. I can’t think of any ‘spoiler’ but you never know –

My favorite character is neither John Galt nor Dagny Taggart but Henry (Hank) Rearden. Here is a completely logical character arc and one I could identify with. I loved his quiet confidence, his pride in his work, his ability to accept his errors and learn, his dilemmas and how he comes out of it all shining. This was a character I never thought would take the decision to give it all up but things change one by one and when he finally does take ‘the decision’ it felt right and flowed smoothly and did not kill the character for me. He had some of the best lines like –

When he finally makes his Metal after ten years of work –

• He never felt loneliness except when he was happy
• The feeling was a sum, and he did not have to count again the parts that had gone to make it
• He remembered nothing distinct of the years between them; the years were blurred like a streak of speed. Whatever it was, he thought, whatever the strain and the agony, they were worth it, because they had made him reach this day

His thoughts about his family (could seem hard hearted for some) –

• He despised causeless affection, just like he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could wish to be loved
• She wanted to force upon him the suffering of dishonor -but his own sense of honor was her only weapon of enforcement

His convictions and opinions

• To me, there is only one form of human depravity – the man without a purpose
• He had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act. No, he thought, not an assurance of victory -who can ever have that? -only the chance to act, which is all one needs
• The worst things about people is not the insults they hand out, but the compliments
• What sort of code permitted the concept of a punishment that required the victim’s own virtue as the fuel to make it work?
• I want to let the nature of this procedure appear exactly for what it is. If you need my help to disguise it -I will not help you
• I can say to you that I have done more good for my fellow men than you can ever hope to accomplish -but I will not say it, because I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to work

I also loved Francis d’Anconia. He seemed too perfect most of the time considering he was very rich and intelligent and kind of had it all. Despite that he seemed a nice guy who you would want to root for. And what was the cherry on the cake for me was the lovely detailing of the relationship between Francis and Rearden. Two men who respected and complemented each other beautifully –it worked very well for the story especially since it took away some of the spotlight from Dagny Taggart (which was a relief for me)

Some of Francis’ lines to Dagny –

• He and she had never spoken of the things that happened to them, but only of what they thought and of what they would do…She looked at him silently, as if a voice within her were saying ; Not the things that are, but the things we’ll make….We are not to be stopped, you and I….
• What’s the most depraved type of human being? The man without a purpose
• There is nothing of any importance in life -except how well you do your work
• The courage to say, not ‘It seems to me’, but ‘It is’ -and to stake one’ life on one’s judgment

Some stellar lines from his speech on money

• Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth -the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started.
• It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money -and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it
• Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue….Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot
• No other language or nation had ever used these words (to make money) before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity -to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor.

Lines between Francisco and Rearden

• If one’s actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not
• There are no evil thoughts, except one -the refusal to think
• The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt
• A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, it to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides.
• He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of pleasure

Don’t you love them already????

Somehow I did not like Dagny Taggart so much. I know it is fiction but her character seemed too good to be true. I could not accept the fact that every man she met fell in love with her, be it Eddie or Hank or Francisco or John. And then they all understand how it won’t work out and peacefully move out to make place for the other guy. Too utopian for a book set in a dystopian universe. I did read Rand’s logic behind it and could accept it to an extent. Maybe she could have stopped it with just one example. Every guy was kind of a stretch. Dagny could have been good friends / soul mates with them. I liked her relationship with Wyatt and Francisco (in the later part of the book). Maybe they could have been that way from the beginning. Also Dagny is so adamant about her railroad that her zeal began to grate on my nerves at some point. It was more like she knew she was making a mistake but refusing to accept it.

I also did not fall for John Galt, the ‘hero’ of this story, if you will. His story comes out in bits and pieces and there never seemed to be enough information to form an opinion about him. Maybe his character was so advanced on the ‘maturity’ or ‘reason’ scale that attributing mere human emotions to him seemed impossible. I would have liked some more meat on how he got to be where he got to be. I saw that in Rearden and to an extent in Francisco and so those characters were more identifiable and relatable. John Galt was like the superhero who jumps from space when there is trouble and saves the world. I could not relate to that.

I loved the entire book but somehow the ending did not live up to my expectations. I am unable to think of an alternative ending to it but somehow this end seemed too Bollywood-ish to me. I know she wrote the book before this became a Bollywood staple diet but maybe something else was possible as an ending.

Since the setting is dystopian, the situations and characters are bit of an extreme. So when you read the book, you need to keep that in mind. It may not sound plausible in our world today but after reading I somehow get the feeling we may be approaching such a scenario. I know that is very pessimistic of me and I know this won’t happen in my lifetime but it does seem a possibility considering the path the world is on to.

What I loved most about the book and about Ayn Rand is her way with words. She can put the perfect words for things we know and understand but may not be able to express. I also like the words and sentence construct she uses for conveying the most simple lines in a manner that stays with you long after. Sample these –

• He didn’t want to make money, only to get it
• I’ve hired you to do a job, not to do your best -whatever that is
• But what came from it was only a desire to desire her, a wish to feel, not a feeling (my favorite line, more effective in context)
• Nobody can accuse me of running a profit-making business (Profit is a dirty word, isn’t it? ;))
• A future where so great a field of activity lay waiting that no time could be wasted on the comfort of its start (another favorite of mine –when she described Francisco’s house in the Valley)
• If you don’t know, the thing to do is not get scared, but to learn (aptly put)
• He has the power to choose but no power to escape the necessity of choice (Whoa!)
• His body is given to him, it sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not.
• Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification
• Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
• To arrive at a  contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality
• To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason -Purpose -Self-esteem
• Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it -that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life -that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence
• To hold, as man’s sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality
• The removal of a threat is not payment, the negation of a negative is not a reward, the withdrawal of your armed hoodlums is not an incentive, the offer not to murder me is not a value.

Strangely I could identify with a lot of possibly ‘controversial’ thoughts in this book. There were stuff I was always accused of or berated for. I liked the concept of the ‘virtue of selfishness’. That has been my belief for a long time and she gave voice to those thoughts.

I never could identify the halo around people who ‘sacrifice’ and have bugged many people with my ‘cold hearted’ opinions on the same. Check this line from John Galt’s speech as how sacrifice is viewed today Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favour of that which you don’t. And how he goes on to denounce it is a class act!

I absolutely loved the ‘dignity of labor’ concept and the way she elucidated it; never in as many words but that was always there as an underlying theme running throughout the book – pride of your work. I loved this line – ‘There’s no such thing as a lousy job -only lousy men who don’t care to do it’.

Another virtue I could identify with was the concept of ‘love being respect’ and not as pity or lust or friendship. Not that those relationships are bad but that is not love. See how she puts it –

• As there can be no causeless wealth, so there can be no causeless love or any sort of causeless emotion. An emotion is a response to a fact of reality, an estimate dictated by your standards. To love is to value

Another concept that stayed with me was how guiltless her joy is. It reminded me of the countless times I was warned -‘Don’t be too happy now, something awful will happen to you’ or ‘Don’t express your happiness to everyone, nazar lag jayegi!’

Another recurring theme was the confidence of people with ability and their absolute disregard to the rest of the world. It was again guiltless and they did not see the need to be ‘sensitive’ to others’ feelings. Check these –

• Her feeling for the railroad was the same: worship of the skill that had gone to make it, of the ingenuity of someone’s clean, reasoning mind, worship with a secret smile that said she would know how to make it better some day
• Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values
• Whenever anyone accuses some person of being ‘unfeeling’, he means that that person is just
• Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can’t be punished for being good. One can’t be penalized for ability
• He was a man who had never accepted the creed that others had the right to stop him (when she talks about Natheneil Taggart)
• You know, I think that only if one feels immensely important can one feel truly light

Though I am as anti smoking as one can be, Ayn Rand’s definition of smoking left me amazed –

• I like to think of fire held in a man’s hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips

I guess it is a well-known fact that Ayn Rand was an atheist and that is reflected throughout in this book. There were parts I could not fully agree with but her arguments are well put and tough to beat. This is an aspect that needs more thought from my end –regarding my belief in a Supreme Power and balancing that with every man is responsible for his destiny.

 

I do hope you read it and if you have, please drop in a line to say what you liked / disliked in it.

Random Idea

I had this really GREAT idea few years ago and was very keen to implement it during my wedding. But since it happened in a jiffy there was little I could do about it. So this is for all you guys planning a wedding……..

I always thought and still do that most wedding gifts are a waste. Not literally but they are not what the couple wants or not as per their choice. This is true because most people just recycle gifts and not much thought goes into it. I won’t fully blame them either since in this day and age of consumerism there are few things that people need. Its just a matter of what they want.

So, in order to benefit both the gift giver and receiver I have this grand plan –

Around the time of your engagement, make your ‘dream portfolio’. Include all the shares and mutual funds you want and put it up on a website.  Let people buy you, as per your budget, the number of shares / fund units and block that on your website so that the others do not buy the same thing. Since there will be around 6 months between the engagement and wedding people can watch the particular scrip and buy it at a lower price which is beneficial for them. And I am sure that you would have put good blue chip companies in your ‘dream portfolio’ and so their price will definitely increase with time and you can encash them when you want to.

Sounds good? Maybe I will moot this idea for my bro’s wedding 🙂