NR’s 50th Anniversary: Whittaker Chambers on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged on National Review Online
Ayn Rand is, well, whatever you think of her, she’s rich. Which is pretty much what she set out to be. She’s rich in that Scientology kind of way, with an “institute” and a pseudo-philosophy. She’s also celebrating 50 years of living with Whittaker Chambers’ too-long lost review of Atlas Shrugged, 1,110+ pages of, well, I’ll let Mr. Chambers describe it:
Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal.
And that’s not even the good part. National Review has posted this landmark book review (?) on it’s website to commemorate the 50th anniversary of it’s publication.
Of course, not everyone agrees with Mr. Chambers. Someone on Blogcritics, who classified his post (amoung other things) as being about Books:Spirituality, post this excuse-laden article in defense of the book and of Rand. The post is a classic believers rebuttal-all bluster and no meat. After getting done attacking Chambers, the author raises the party lines:
This infamous money quote of the piece has been quite justifiably cited for years by Rand supporters as the textbook example of the dishonesty of her critics.
Ok, tell me about that. Explain to me why it’s “textbook example of… dishonesty”. The author doesn’t. I suspect because he can’t.
Anyway, read the two articles. I’m sure most people already have an opinion about Rand so rehashing 50-year-old arguements won’t change many minds.
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