I don' think I'd ever have the patience to read this book. But I did have the will to walk out the audiobook I got from Libby. There is a lot of this book to commend itself, and if someone had a mind to abridge most of the overt lecturing about business, moochers, looters and relationships it would be a spectacular book.
If you ever felt like the horse that's getting worked the hardest because you are the most capable, this will speak to you. People quiet quitting, failing to make decisions, CYA, all the issues of a hyper corporate workplace. A good solid 100-200k words out of the 645k words will hit you where you live.
If you get thrown off my 'mind hopping' then you will have challenges. There are also periods in the novel where dialog is occurring, but you only get the POV's words. You have to infer the other persons dialog.
The central premise of the book is a dystopian work that is sliding into total collapse. The novel is clearly a full throated defense of libertarianism, capitalism, self-interest and industrial production. The premise asks "what if all the most capable people quiet quit? What would the rest of the people do? This speaks to me as someone that is trying to set up my own business rather than work for corps because it seems the winners are the game player and schmoozers, the looser are the hardest working and the skaters get to skate because one is as good as another.
The novel's biggest failing is that it doesn't move beyond production as a measure of value beyond what the average reader would take take as anything beyond a naked pursuit of profits. Hundreds of thousands of works of lecturing from Rand via the mouthpieces of her characters and they barely touch on the idea that a producer that comes up with an innovation that everyone wants because the item has more utility and is longer lasting would be entitled to 20% profits because the new product is so much better than everything on the market that people are lying up to pay.
It does an excellent job of presenting trade associates serving its largest members with regulation that crush the smaller competitors. When that doesn't work they use the power of the government and mealy mouthed experts and a coordinated pres that don't really say anything. The novel hits harder in post COVID world because the book has a era of permanent emergency were and unholy alliance of industry and government bureaucrats capture control. The book didn't really explore the foible of democracy where people are persuaded by politicians to vote for things to make thing better but actually makes them much, much worse.
I recall seeing a Feminist critiquing the book that took serious objections to the relationships of Dagny Taggert, the protaginust and Author Self Insert. Dagney is one of the most compent people in the book and if not born a woman she'd be running the families railroad business. The major plot points wouldn't have come to pass because she is so compentent. The Feminst presented Dagny's relationship as her putting her self into a position to be raped my successively more powerful and influential men That's not my read, but then again I am not a feminsit. I did find Dagny's relationships expertly juxtaposed by that of other characters. Rand clearly sees men that seek attainment from sexual relationships (and possession) of accomplished, mature women as the ideal. Her brother does not marry an accomplished woman; rather he elevates a stationary store clerk; Rand has much to unpack on the motivations of weak men that date younger and down. If your a man taking love advice from Rand then you definitely don't want to be an Eddie Willers type. Man spent his live dedicated to Dagny and at the end of the book when he pulled of his most impressive display of competence Rand decided to reward him with an ignoble death.That may not be the lesson Rand intended to tell about a man, but its the obvious takeaway, because he failed to live for himself.
by PregnancyRoulette