<p>I'm pretty sure I would hate Rand as well.</p>
<p>i use my copy as a paperweight.</p>
<p>I found it enjoyable</p>
<p>No. I hate Ayn Rand though. She is just…awful.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize anyone who wasn’t sure they would love it read it</p>
<p>I haven’t read it. I had to read Anthem in class and hated it, so I haven’t bothered reading her other works.</p>
<p>Ayn Rand is a ■■■■■. Atlas Shrugged is only useful as fancy kindling.</p>
<p>Anthem although short is not the best book to start. Read Fountainhead–a more straight forward novel. Atlas Shrugged is a fabulous book but perhaps you are too young to appreciate it.</p>
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<p>Not it’s not.</p>
<p>Atlas Shrugged and Anthem are very similar. Fountainhead, however, is very different from these two. It can be hard to slog through, but it gives great insight into how people work. Even though I hated trying to read though the book, once I was done with it I realized how much it impacted me, and I am surprised at how much I remember from it now.</p>
<p>I admit that the whole Dominique-Roark romance got a little weird, but it is a really good book. It teaches you that as long as you are good at what you do, you will be successful in life. That is not saying that life will not have its pitfalls, but you will definitely be happier and more successful than those who pursue social status, money, fame, or power as their goal.</p>
<p>I don’t think age has any play in whether or not I can appreciate a book.</p>
<p>^I think it does. There are just certain life experiences conveyed by novels that can only be appreciated at a certain age. For instance, how could a young child appreciate Meursault’s existential stagnation for the first half of The Stranger? Other books also demand a maturity in critical reading that simply comes from experience. </p>
<p>But I guess you could argue you just learn to appreciate books in new ways. That’s what happened for me and Roots.</p>
<p>Read the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged when I was in college, and again later in life. They don’t get better with age - they get worse.</p>
<p>Never read it in full but I have seen Ayn Rand’s writing and I will say that it is absolutely terrible writing from an aesthetic/artistic perspective, but it makes some curious argumentative cases.</p>
<p>You’re allowed to dislike a book because you don’t agree with its theme, but to throw out the theme entirely is a hubris. At the very least, it gives you some insight into how other people think.</p>
<p>I’m atheist, for example, but raised Catholic and I can appreciate certain aspects of the Bible. The person who thought these stories up was human after all, so naturally one can learn a bit about human experience from them. Same thing with Atlas Shrugged.</p>
<p>It’s hard to like libertarians because they don’t conform to YOUR (this goes for anyone’s) beliefs. But to see A.S. as nothing more than capitalist propaganda is missing the point.</p>
<p>I think Ayn Rand was much more focused on the importance of thinking (and living) for yourself, realizing your worth as an individual with ideas and goals, is far more fulfilling than choosing a side simply because you are sheepish and uninformed (and that goes for any situation). And admittedly, Ayn Rand was wrong on many counts in my opinion.</p>
<p>No I loved it! I wrote my “favorite book” college essay on it. It was interesting - political but not in your face, had good backup because of her experience, I loved Dagny as a main character.</p>
<p>True, but a person can experience a lot of things early on in life, compared to older people who have lived comparably passive lives. It really depends on the individual and their life, not so much by their age.</p>
<p>@waitingforivy</p>
<p>How is Atlas Shrugged not “in your face”? It’s so didactic. </p>
<p>Dagny is basically who Ayn Rand wanted to be. </p>
<p>This book was written like it was made to attract awkward and smart teenagers.</p>
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<p>You do realize this is College Confidential, right?</p>
<p>Ok I might be crazy here, but who here thinks Ayn Rand is autistic, and that is why her characters all seems to have various traits of autism? After all, it is very hard for an autistic person to be able to understand how a so-called “normal” person works.</p>
<p>I adore ayn rand. Her works are a bit radical and arduous, but it gives a strong message. Anthem was the first book i read, and it was insightful - not particullary ‘extravagent’, but something to think about. Now fountainhead!! Oh ho, it was marvelous. Roark’s character was marveling and stupendous; it really alteted my perspective on life. I really do think that rand’s crusade for individualism and free thinking is something… worth looking into. Haha, her views on alturism however, is a bit too outrageous.</p>