Reading Atlas Shrugged nowadays. A spell bound novel which is acclaimed to be second most influential book after Bible for the Americans. I always feel that its an exaggeration of some sort of some silly survey but in no way, i am against the importance thats being shown to this book. Ayn Rand is one of the most influential novelist of the century, who lead one entirely different line of thoughts i.e. Objectivism. A novelist that has an institute after her, even today when there was Enron Scandal, many CEOs turn back to their bookshelves and dusted "Atlas Shrugged". Such is the impact that the book has and Ms. Rand has. She has an interesting life histroy and one can go http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand for complete story.

Recently i have been in a discussion with one of my seniors, one of the most prolific reader i have seen. Working in SAP, used to come quiet late in the night around 11 and then read upto 3-4-5 whatever time. Its a pleasure to discuss things with him but its never the way easy to extract his thoughts.

So, we were discussing aboout Ms. Rand works. And i found his thoughts very sane and logical. Rand's philosophy and thought are wonderful, no doubt, but many a times, they are not real. You may argue that they are real but not practical, or some funny thing like they are difficult to understand [;)] but i damn you! She said "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." According to her, its the heroes, intelligent people who run this world, took all the pains and serve the cause of laggards. Right Ms. Rand, absolutely. I agree. You talk of society that wise persons don't need society, their sole purpose is their work. Here i have certain doubts, as my senior too has. I say that its mainly the wise, real life heroes who are the main manipulators of humankind and extract their purpose out. The intelligent ones work less, because they know that they can manipulate and they know that they are wise enough ! Isn't so ?

Again, when you talk of a comparison between the characters of Roark and Toohey (plz mind, i m nt writing Keating !), i found Toohey to be equivalently forceful as Roark. When i say equally forceful, it makes Toohey more class apart from Roark since Roark was Rand's man. The one real hero. He was the one who is idealised here and Rand picturised him as best. And when Toohey won in the whole novel except the last phase, it makes his achievments more remarkable. And one good thing about Toohey is that he is not that alien, he is real. We can find many characters like him in today's world and none like Roark. Might be the Roarks are so indifferent that they don't give a damn to show themselves to me, might be. But i also damn care ! Gail was another larger than life charcter in Fountainhead, but Toohey finally let him down. I am not saying that Toohey is great but am saying that Toohey is forceful. While its hard to imagine about a man who enjoys sleeping with a woman who destroyed him, its not hard to imagine one like Toohey who revolves the world at his fingertipes. I found the ending of the novel also not that good. When everything is so hi-fi in the novel, all the bizzare words, all supernatural philosophy, Roark finally won because court verdict was in his favor. Why didn't Roark give a damn to court ? Why couldn't he had another 10 year sentence in jail rather than explaining his stand to court ? I agree that things have to end at some place and hero must make a mark but in larger than world canvas, the ending is too wordly.

Again it seems i am criticising Rand. Nopes, how can i ? Trully, i never have so much doubts over anything, even during my Networking and DBMS classes. I have read Fountainhead some one and half years ago and i remember each and every thing. Such is the impact of her work. I dwell upon her novel. I think a lot of her characters. We find a lot of Keatings today. I think that if Howard would have born in some rich, well being family, he would been a different man ……or not ? She creats an impression and thus out of all this thinking process, certain doubts come.

I agree more than anything here that she gave most importance to one's work. When Rearden (i think i m rt!) is asked, "Who is the most depraved kind of human being". He answered. "man without a purpose." No words for it. Many a lines are such that you can't further read not because you are tired, but because your soul compels you for being a coward, for being one who compromises with the things. Rand upheld the industrialist as one of the most admirable members of any society and fiercely opposed the popular resentment accorded to industrialists. Trully, its an industrialist who is the life and blood line of any nation.

I have gone off the mark. All these things didn't come out of discussion, they all are mine. For you can't talk of such sane (or insane !) things for long until you yourself so much sane and i know that i am not, atleast not now. Its again a virtue. Ayn Rand is one of the most powerful writer ever produced and one should follow her thinking but again on her terms. As she say, "damn the society", so you damn the society. You try to change yourself, try to be more focussed but don't ever think to change the world as she conveys. She says, "Go on strike." Why the fuck madam, we are not superheroes. What the most we can do, is we can be very objective and indivualistic but again here comes a line. If you can cross that then you are the one who has got the virtues of Roark, but my friend, don't think that you can have those virtues as you are reading these lines and Roark would have never read these. He is indifferent.

P.S.: I have just read only around one fourth of the book. Wish me luck that i can complete it and remain sane for the coming one month. Bbye friends !