Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand.

The author of Atlas Shrugged, a book I picked up to whittle away the seconds, minutes, and hours waiting to be transported from one moment to the next. A book I chose because of a videogame called Bioshock, which apparently utilized the ideals in her thousand page work as the basis of the atmosphere and backstory.

The only other book that I've read of Ayn Rand is Anthem, a shorter, politically tinged, narration of one of her characters, explaining what essentially amounts to her view on collectivism. I could be wrong, it's been ages since I've read it, but I know it was some form of 'ism' that she wanted to portray in the world she created. It was short, it was dense, it was full of heavy ideas, and I had to read it for a class, hence it was ultimately something that I had to pore over and understand its meaning, deeply, symbolically, and not something that I would overall enjoy. I assumed that Atlas Shrugged would be the same, dry, slow, denseness, except a thousand pages thick.

I could never be more wrong.

Atlas Shrugged has been a fantastic read thus far. A thoroughly developed story, incredible characters (literally, some are unbelievable), all tied together in a war, an epic struggle of the capitalist, ability/merit driven, objective seekers and the supposed selfless merit smashing, level-playing-field brotherly-lovers.

I really need to slow down when reading this book. I'm going to finish it too quickly and then I won't have anything else to whittle away those seconds, minutes, hours...