Erm...Maybe Galt earned his way to the top, but Dagny and that other schmuck - Francisco or whatever the hell his name was - definitely inherited their wealth.
I don't remember Hank's origin story. It's been a while since I read the book.
I do remember that the guy I made the mistake of continuing to shtupp despite finding out he had a Rand fetish did so because he totally identified with Hank for having a harpy wife. Which is hilarious because neither one of them did anything to mitigate their unhappiness except to, in Hank's case, cheat with a 'better' woman and in this dude's case, make me his emotional whipping post for his own immaturity during his divorce.
You know what my real problem with it is? That in her fiction, and presumably her non-fiction, she becomes the arbiter of what emotions or actions are noble. So Galt fucking the world over is totally okay, instead of him, I don't know, using that prodigious brain to make it better. But individual characters clearly suffering psychological reactions to possible shitty upbringings? Fuck them. Ayn had a "trash it all, fuck you I'm out" mentality. There's no compassion, no seeking to understand. Total post hoc justification for shitty things. Let's go back to the cheating example: Hank should have divorced that woman if he wasn't happy. Clearly she wasn't either but no thought is given to her. In a real novel, her wish to, I don't know, maybe be part of his life and not have a constantly absent husband might have been considered. Instead it's totally okay for him to fuck Dagny and heap all kinds of gifts on her solely because Dagny is a better person by Ayn's standards, therefore the cheating is justified.
Newsflash: no matter how you swing it, cheating is wrong. I've been there - I've been involved in it, and I've been cheated on. And I can tell you that no matter how you nuance it out, it's still shitty. You can't justify it, even if you can explain it.
If the novel weren't meant to justify her beliefs, I'd just ignore it as an exploration of incredibly flawed people. The Magicians trilogy does that brilliantly. But instead, it's clearly a self-gratifying overly-long peek into what she thought her life should be.
I can swallow some of it as an extreme reaction to failed communism, but only a sliver of it. The rest is just horseshit.
I don't remember Hank's origin story. It's been a while since I read the book.
I do remember that the guy I made the mistake of continuing to shtupp despite finding out he had a Rand fetish did so because he totally identified with Hank for having a harpy wife. Which is hilarious because neither one of them did anything to mitigate their unhappiness except to, in Hank's case, cheat with a 'better' woman and in this dude's case, make me his emotional whipping post for his own immaturity during his divorce.
You know what my real problem with it is? That in her fiction, and presumably her non-fiction, she becomes the arbiter of what emotions or actions are noble. So Galt fucking the world over is totally okay, instead of him, I don't know, using that prodigious brain to make it better. But individual characters clearly suffering psychological reactions to possible shitty upbringings? Fuck them. Ayn had a "trash it all, fuck you I'm out" mentality. There's no compassion, no seeking to understand. Total post hoc justification for shitty things. Let's go back to the cheating example: Hank should have divorced that woman if he wasn't happy. Clearly she wasn't either but no thought is given to her. In a real novel, her wish to, I don't know, maybe be part of his life and not have a constantly absent husband might have been considered. Instead it's totally okay for him to fuck Dagny and heap all kinds of gifts on her solely because Dagny is a better person by Ayn's standards, therefore the cheating is justified.
Newsflash: no matter how you swing it, cheating is wrong. I've been there - I've been involved in it, and I've been cheated on. And I can tell you that no matter how you nuance it out, it's still shitty. You can't justify it, even if you can explain it.
If the novel weren't meant to justify her beliefs, I'd just ignore it as an exploration of incredibly flawed people. The Magicians trilogy does that brilliantly. But instead, it's clearly a self-gratifying overly-long peek into what she thought her life should be.
I can swallow some of it as an extreme reaction to failed communism, but only a sliver of it. The rest is just horseshit.
![[Image: Untitled2_zpswaosccbr.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i1140.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fn569%2Fthesummerqueen%2FUntitled2_zpswaosccbr.png)
