In Which We Discuss the Fact that I'm a Working Class Feminist Who Enjoys Atlas Shrugged

I cannot and do not attempt to speak to Ayn Rand's intentions with this post.  I can only speak to my interpretation of Atlas Shrugged, which allows me to enjoy the book when so many others like me do not.

Atlas Shrugged is something of a controversial novel.  It focuses on Dagny Taggert, an heiress and second-in-command (though, realistically, in charge) of a railroad company, founded by her grandfather and run by her brother.  A key fact in why it's disliked is that it describes a world in which people's value comes from what they create and provide for others, and in which people can be split into creators and 'second-handers' who only take from the creators and do not provide value to others in any way.  Looking at it from our culture, that's an incredibly harsh viewpoint.  It has the unstated assumption that everyone is born with the same opportunities, which isn't the case in our society, and it doesn't address cases in which people are elderly, or ill, or lacking in opportunities.  That simply never comes up in the book.

The interpretation that allows me to enjoy the book is the assumption, firstly, that Atlas Shrugged is a work of science fiction set in a similar but non-identical world, and, secondly, it isn't intended to describe the entire population; instead, it's intended to describe a specific set of highly privileged people who could and should be doing more with their privilege instead of taking it for granted.   People who should be taking responsibility, doing what they say they will, and doing it to the best of their ability.  I find that inspiring, as a goal for me personally.  Dagny is also contrasted with her brother James, who has had the exact same privilege as her plus that of being born male, and older, and automatically the heir to Taggart Transcontinental.  That support my interpretation; Dagny's accomplishments are built on her privilege; the contrast is with why James didn't try to achieve the same, not why someone less privileged didn't.

I also like that Dagny is proud of her accomplishments.  People should be proud of what they achieve.  I got excellent grades last term, because I worked hard for them.  The fact that other people also worked hard and didn't achieve those grades may speak to their lack of privilege compared to me, which I should be careful not to forget, but that doesn't mean I didn't deserve my achievements and shouldn't be proud of them.  I intend to do even better this semester; I've been getting up early and sticking to a schedule which allows me to achieve what I intend to achieve each day, as well as attending workshops at my university's learning commons to learn how to do things better.

The story, for me, seems to be about the spirit of communism overtaking America, a country Rand saw as the very antithesis of it.  Not communism as intended, and as people hope it will be; communism as it was in China and in Russia, where Ayn Rand grew up.  One of the symptoms of this infection is incompetence, and I can definitely relate to that.  Dealing with call centres where people don't associate cause and effect and literally just say random words that they don't understand and no one seems to think that this is a problem.  That's only a tiny level of what people in communist countries experience, but even on that level, I can understand why Rand dreamt of competence, of people who knew what they were doing and just got on with it.  I've also read a little on communist China and North Korea; civilisations where you were/are expected to act as if the most ridiculous things are true, and the goal wasn't to get things done but to shift the blame.  I get why you'd want to get as far away from that as possible, if you'd grown up with it.

Another factor, for me, may be that I grew up in an abusive household where, again, the goals were to shift the blame and what happened wasn't based on reality or facts but on shifting moods and outright lies.  I think, because of that, I get a great deal of satisfaction when Rand's characters say the equivalent of "no, that's bullshit, this is true".  Within the confines of Rand's imagined world, their statements are true and clear and simple, and that is such a relief to me.

I also like some aspects of how romantic relationships work, in Rand's world.  You go for the people who like you back and who inspire you to be a better person.  That's lovely.  Dagny isn't ashamed of her sexuality or of being a mistress, and although I'm not really cool with the idea of adultery, I do like that she is open about her sexuality.  I do think Ayn Rand is mistaken in writing as if the specific submissive fetish she and Dagny (and, full disclosue, I too) share is universal for all women.  It isn't.  I get it though; it's a combination of being submissive but also proud; submitting to someone 'unworthy' isn't satisfying or enjoyable, it's just degrading and fake.  So, again, because of my specific circumstances, I can relate to it on that level.  However, I do feel that Rand glosses over how difficult it can be for women, especially at the time, to rise to the top economically.  Dagny doesn't go out of her way to help other women, and there are very few other women in the same position.  Rand seems to prescribe to the theory that the reason women aren't in positions of power is because most women just aren't as good as men, because if they were, they would be.  That isn't true, and I really dislike that opinion.  But, because I'm used to a world in which men are in power and women are invisible, its not an excessive hardship to ignore that specific element here, either.   The same goes for people of colour; they just don't really exist in Rand's world, but then, they don't exist in lots of fictional worlds so, while it's not okay, it's not a problem unique to Atlas Shrugged.

So, thoughts?  Do you like or dislike Atlas Shrugged?  Why or why not?  What troubles you about it?  What do you enjoy?

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 49/52

Four books last week, two of the rereads, two of the them audiobooks (not the same two).  This is the week from 14th to 20th July.

The rereads were A Blink of the Screen and Atlas Shrugged.  A Blink of the Screen is a collection of Pratchett's short stories, including the High Meggas, which inspired The Long Earth.  I really need to read that series; it's such a good story!

Both Atlas Shrugged and Wild Swans I listened to while catching Pokemon.  Weirdly, Pokemon Go has really helped with listening to long audiobooks, and with getting through my unread list on Audible.  Probably because my attention's less focused on it, so I don't fret about how long the story is.

The Floating Prince is a collection of fairytales which are available on Wikisource.org.  It's an excellent collection, which I read in quiet moments at work.

In Which We Discuss the Great Gatsby, Henry Rearden and Molly Fox

I recently read The Great Gatsby for the first time while rereading Annie Murray's Soldier Girl.  I say 'reread', I actually listened to it as an audiobook.

The heroine of Soldier Girl - whose story began in A Hopscotch Summer and continues in All the Days of our Lives - is Molly Fox, an young girl living in an impoverished area of 1930s Birmingham.  She is neglected and abused by her mother and sexually abused by her grandfather, who she later discovers to be her biological father as well as her grandfather.  Molly joins the army when the second world war begins and finds that she's much smarter than she seems.  She's torn in two; she has an urge to please those in reasonable authority but also wishes to rebel against anyone trying to control her.  This causes her problems at first, but she soon settles down.  Her natural ability is later recognised and she becomes an ack-ack girl, spotting enemy planes and dealing with quite technical calculations.  Her past continues to cause trouble in her relationship; during the war she meets another young soldier named Tony, who was physically abused by the priests his mother trusted.  He is killed by a bomb during their engagement.  Molly believes that, if he hadn't been, she would somehow have soured the relationship, simply by being herself.  I don't necessarily believe these to be the case, though without him she does become an active alcoholic for several years.

James Gatz was a young boy in turn-of-the-century America.  As a boy, he wrote out this schedule in the back of one of his cheap paperbacks;

Incidentally, I love Gatbsy for this.  I have written out similar schedules and resolutions.  Still do.  I don't manage to stick to them rigidly, not for more than a day or two.  Sites and apps like Habitica.com and Carrot To-Do help me to stick to them in spirit, even if I do need to ease up on the particulars.

Anyway, James Gatz grows up to become Jay Gatsby, the Great Gatsby.  His plans and schedules are derailed after he meets Daisy, the woman he loves who cannot see beyond how fashionable his shirts are.  He says;

"What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?"

He abandons his dreams of being a great inventor and becomes a bootlegger, in an attempt to rapidly gain enough wealth to be worth Daisy's attention.  A fucking good bootlegger, to paraphrase Ben Elton*, who throws parties that anyone who is anyone attends.  Gatsby himself doesn't interactive with anyone who cannot lead him to Daisy.

Gatsby explains to Nick that he bought this specific piece of land because he could see Daisy's home from there.  Later, when he is introduced to Daisy again - who has not seen him in five years and has married someone else - he describes looking out at the place where she lived, across the water.  Looking at the green light on her porch.  Nick, the narrator, describes the look on his face, as Gatsby realises that, with Daisy back in his life, he will not have the pleasure of anticipating her; one more exceptional thing has gone out of his life.  The green light was no longer wonderful.

As above, Daisy cannot see beyond Gatsby's shirts.  She is ultimately unworthy of his love.

This is why I wish to compare Molly and Gatsby.  What would Gatsby have been if Daisy had died in the war?  What would Molly have been if Tony had lived?

Perhaps Molly was able to move on because she was unable to romanticise her romance.  She was not a dreamer, as Gatsby was.

Personally, I doubt both Gatsby and Molly's faith in their ability to predict their romantic futures.  We know that Gatsby is wrong about Daisy, but I think Molly could also have made it work with Tony.

I wanted to compare the two because I can relate to both, and that caused me to notice other similarities.  Both were separated from their loves by war.  Both, I think, were wrong in their predictions of how that love might have ended.  Both pulled themselves up by their bootstraps - Molly reluctantly and Gatsby with diverted enthusiasm.

Personally, I think they'd be good for one another.

The third character I'd like to discuss is Atlas Shrugged's Henry 'Hank' Rearden, another 20th century hero.   I didn't initially think of Hank when I finished The Great Gatsby.  My partner wondered what he and the other characters of Atlas Shrugged would make of Jay Gatsby when I described the book to him.  I thought of Hank specifically because Hank married his Daisy.

Atlas Shrugged is set in the 50s, long after the flapper days of Gatsby and a universe removed from Molly's Birmingham existence.  Hank married a woman, like Daisy, who couldn't see beyond his money.  Hank's wife doesn't care what he does to create that wealth, despite this invention being the driving force of his personality.  Hank's wife continually mocks his work ethic and his achievements while enjoying their rewards.

It's not implausible that, had Daisy and Gatsby not been separated by war, and if he had not overhauled his ambitions to please her, that their relationship could have ended up the same way.

I think Hank would have understood Gatsby - he was tempted by Franscisco D'Anconia after all, before he knew the full story - but would have despised him.  Like D'Anconia he stopped working on inventions and new technology.  However, D'Anconia had a reason that Hank and Dagny understood and respected, when they came to know of it, and D'Anconia did not give up on the being the best person he could be, within the confines of the story and his personality.  He simply came to the realisation that he would need to do it in a different way.  Gatsby gave up everything he could have been for Daisy.  I suppose that was part of the point of the novel; the juxtaposition of war and the good, old-fashioned drive of the American dream against the bright lights and empty glamour of the 1920s and the 20th Century, where brand would soon become everything amongst a certain subset of personalities.

That leads me to another train of thought; a song which embodies the same thing and a lyric that's always bothered me (be warned that this post devolves rapidly into ranting at this point).  Taoi Cruz's Dynamite;

...Saing ayo, gotta let go
I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying ayo, baby let's go

I came to dance, dance, dance, dance
I hit the floor 'cause that's my chance
Wearing all my favourite brands, brands, brands, brands

The songs talks about 'celebrating and living life' and 'letting go' all in the context of a night out dancing.  In my experience, that's never been the case.  Dancing is wonderful and all, and like all music and art, it can be a transcendental experience.  Yet still songs which describe a night out clubbing like it's climbing a mountain confuse me.

Later in the song, Cruz sings;  

I just want it all, I just want it all, I'm gonna put my hands in the air.

Which, again, makes no sense to me in the clear context of a night out clubbing.  What 'all'?  How are you going to get it 'all' by raising your hands in the air?  How are you going to achieve any of your goals while spending a night out dancing, even if you do it all night and wear all your favourite brands?  You'd really think that staying up all night would get in the way of most goals, surely?

The brands line specifically is the one that bugs me.  Why brands?  I can relate to the experience of dancing being wonderful, and I suppose fashion can also be pretty awesome and a work of art in it's own right - see Meryl Streep's speech when she tells Andy off in the movie of The Devil Wears Prada (not the book, which confuses American and English education systems).  But just the act of wearing brands?  Not interacting with clothing, or designing clothing, or even having a confidence-giving life changing experience?  Just, specifically, wearing clothes with names on?

Why not just sing about hearing all your favourite bands, to fit theme?  Is that not better than wearing all your favourite brands?  What am I missing?  I genuinely want to know.  I pick on Cruz here, but there are thousands upon thousands of other songs expressing the same idea, of a night out dancing being a transcendental experience.  There's something in our culture too, that describes twenty-somethings as being fundamentally broken if they don't wish to live a lifestyle where almost every night is a night out dancing.  Why?  What am I not getting?

Anyway.  I think Daisy would like that song.  I'll be over in my double-layer of fictitious world where Gatsby was born a little later or Molly was born a little earlier and they knocked a bit of sense into each other.

*In Chart Throb Priscilla is critisising herself and her singing ability.  She points out to Beryl Blenheim, retired rockstar, that Beryl isn't her real parent and thus cannot her contributed to her ability; her real father made fried chicken.  "Fucking good fried chicken!" Beryl says in a show of loyalty which also misses the point.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 48/52

Five books last week!  That would be 7th July to 14th July.

Two books I had been working on for a while.  Atlas Shrugged, which I've read before and Poor Economics which has been on my kindle for quite a while now.

Atlas Shrugged is a brick.  As an audiobook it was 63 hours long, and John Galt's speech was 3 hours of that.  I listened to it on three times speed and that was still over an hour of real time.

I feel kind of guilty for liking this book.  I don't agree with the entirety of the philosophy, but I like some bits - like the focus on passion and taking responsibility.  I feel very positive about this review.

Poor Economics is non-fiction.  It discusses finance and economics amongst the world's poorest people.

Soul Fire and Soul Storm are the second and third parts of the Soul Beach Trilogy by Kate Harrison.  I really could not put these books down; I finished Soul Storm at 1am this morning.  It's a great series.

Finally, Awaken is the final part of Meg Cabot's Abandon Trilogy.  It's a modern retelling of  Hades and Persephone.  It was okay.  Not as un-put-downable as Soul Beach especially since I read the first book ages ago.