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 Re: Chapter II: The Chain [Re: Phred]
#1230336 - 01/19/03 03:42 AM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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 RebelSteve33
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Chapter III: The Top and Bottom [Re: ]
#1246795 - 01/24/03 09:24 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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Chapter III... Let's see...
i think i'm a week late, but i guess it doesn't really matter since not a lot of people seem to be participating in this discussion. let's go guys... this is a great book! it really deserves to be read and discussed! anyway, here's my thoughts on chapter three:
the opening scene with the men sitting around the table having drinks had a very dirty, almost tainted quality to it, in my opinion. the men talking seem like conspirators in some great crime.
it bothered me that they were all talking pessimistically about rearden metal. the fact that dagny and rearden both seem very sure about its immense worth make me believe it's as good as they think it is. plus there is no reason for the men's negative attitude towards the metal, except for the fact that everyone else seems to be afraid of it.
it bothered me that larkin, who i thought was rearden's friend, was conspiring with these low-lifes. i found the conversation between him and taggart on page 51 (of my book, at least!) to be especially disturbing.
i liked it when taggart made himself look foolish by not knowing how many trains were being run on one of his important rails! these men all seem very concerned about social well-being and public-concern. seeing as how i'm a very anti-social type of person myself, i'm not sure if i like that very much!
the next part that told a little of dagny's childhood and her beginning in taggart transcontinental really added to her character and made me like her even more. it showed what ambition and strength she has. she wanted something, and she made it happen!
francisco d'anconia and the whole san sebastion line thing both put a negative taste in my mouth. i liked when james approached dagny about what she was doing with that line and she made him look like a fool because he didn't act like a president at all. she is the president in reality, and he seems to know and admit that. the rio norte line seems like it's going to be a big deal if it works out.
the story of nat taggart adds even more depth to dagny's character. i really like when it says "she was incapable of love for any object not of her own choice and she resented anyone's demand for it." that is awesome! 
another part i thought was awesome was when she was talking to the guy at the cigarette stand and he said "i like cigarettes, miss taggart. i like to think of fire hled in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the msoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mand--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression." that makes me want to start smoking again!!
dagny and that man's conversation about the john galt phrase makes me even more curious about who he might really be!
i wonder who that worker is that eddie willers has a conversation with at the end of the chapter. it was weird how it only showed what eddie was saying, and there was nothing of what the other person was saying. it was also strange that eddie's friend seemed very interested when eddie mentioned that dagny loves the music of richard halley. i wonder how he will be important to the story.
as a last note on this chapter, i like the symbolism of it's name. i like how rand always gives some significance to the chapter title.
now what are your guys' thoughts on this chapter? pink?? anybody???
-RebelSteve
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Peace
Edited by RebelSteve33 (01/24/03 09:25 PM)
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Anonymous
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Re: Chapter III: The Top and Bottom [Re: RebelSteve33]
#1247349 - 01/25/03 05:36 AM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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Phred
Fred's son
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Chapter II: The Chain
RebelSteve writes:
I like how Rand gave a beautiful and intricate description of the steel mill...
Yes, exactly. Her imagery is quite vivid. She has a great way of setting a scene. She can really paint a picture with words. Interestingly enough, she had worked for the famous movie director, Cecil B. DeMille, in the script department. I have often thought that her talent in "setting the stage" may have been honed by reading countless screenplays over the years.
The other characters that we are introduced to in this chapter are Rearden's family member and a friend. I really loathed his family. Everything they said to him made me angry. I hate people who do not appreciate things they should appreciate.
Indeed. Rearden's family is something, isn't it? The carping mother, the sullen bum of a brother, the eloquently sarcastic catty wife... *shudder*! They treat him like scum because they know (or they think) it is safe to do so. Rearden's thoughts on them are interesting:
"Did he like them? No, he thought; he had wanted to like them, which was not the same. He had wanted it in the name of some unstated potentiality which he had once expected to see in any human being. He felt nothing for them now, nothing but the merciless zero of indifference, not even the regret of a loss. Did he need any person as part of his life? Did he miss the feeling he had wanted to feel? No, he thought. Had he ever missed it? Yes, he thought, in his youth; not any longer."
I find that sad, and a key observation on Rearden's present character.
I get a kick out of his conversation with Paul Larkin, his friend. Larkin says;
"Your public relations aren't any too good, Hank. You've always had bad press."
"So what?"
"You're not popular, Hank."
"I haven't heard any complaints from my customers."
"That's not what I mean. You ought to hire yourself a good press agent to sell you to the public."
"What for? It's steel that I'm selling."
"But you don't want to have the public against you. Public opinion, you know -- it can mean a lot."
"I don't think the public's against me. And I don't think it means a damn, one way or the other."
"The newspapers are against you."
"They have time to waste. I haven't."
"I don't like it, Hank. It's not good."
"What?"
"What they write about you."
"What do they write about me?"
"Well, you know the stuff. That you're intractable. That you're ruthless. That you won't allow anyone any voice in the running of your mills. That your only goal is to make steel and to make money."
"But that is my only goal."
"But you shouldn't say it."
"Why not? What is it I'm supposed to say?"
"Oh, I don't know... But your mills --"
"They're my mills, aren't they?"
"Yes, but -- but you shouldn't remind people of that too loudly... You know how it is nowadays... They think that your attitude is anti-social."
"I don't give a damn what they think."
The conversation then turns to Rearden's "man in Washington". Larkin stresses the importance of having a good one, Rearden shrugs it off as just another detail of running a business. He knows it's necessary to have such a man to protect himself from the legislature; all industrialists had to employ such men. But he finds the whole business distasteful and can't quite convince himself it's REALLY necessary. Rearden's man in Washington is Wesley Mouch. Remember this name.
Rearden then writes a check for his brother's favorite charity, in order to help him out on his fund-raising efforts and to see if maybe just once in his life, Phillip will actually show a little happiness. Not only is Phillip not happy, not only does he not bother to thank Rearden, he has the gall to tell Rearden that the charity would be appalled if it were known that some of its funding came from a grubby industrialist, so it would be better if Rearden were to give the money as cash. Rearden contemptuously agrees. Larkin tells Rearden he shouldn't have given his brother the money at all, and Rearden's wife, Lillian, butts in;
"But you're wrong, Paul, you're so wrong! What would happen to Henry's vanity if he didn't have us to throw alms to? What would become of his strength if he didn't have weaker people to dominate? What would he do with himself if he didn't keep us around as dependents? It's quite all right, I'm not criticizing him, it's just a law of human nature."
She took the metal bracelet and held it up, letting it glitter in the lamplight.
"A chain," she said. "Appropriate, isn't it? It's the chain by which he holds us all in bondage."
And that's the last sentence in that chapter. What a killer exit line! We'll have reason to re-examine the meaning of every word she said later on.
pinky
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Phred
Fred's son
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Re: Chapter III: The Top and Bottom [Re: RebelSteve33]
#1249007 - 01/25/03 07:16 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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Steve, I have a strong suspicion you are quite a few chapters past Chapter III by now. As for me, I have finished the entire book and will try to post more frequently. Go right ahead and post as many chapter critiques as you want, and I'll follow your lead.
Oh, and her observations on cigarettes have always stuck with me, as well. It's one of my favorite passages in all of her works, to tell the truth. I think it is a really great way to look at it. Of course, at the time she was writing, no one knew about tobacco what we know now. Once she was convinced (sometime in the Sixties, as I recall) of the harm they did, she (a lifelong smoker) ground out a half smoked cigarette and never lit another one.
pinky
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Edited by pinksharkmark (01/25/03 07:21 PM)
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RebelSteve33
jesus
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Posts: 3,376
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Re: Chapter II: The Chain [Re: Phred]
#1251144 - 01/26/03 06:28 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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That conversation you quoted between Rearden and Larkin was quite funny! Also, their conversation about Wesley Mouch that you talked about was a very important little piece of that chapter that I forgot to mention...
I also forgot to mention the thing about him writing his brother a check for a charity organization... I found that simply disgusting and appalling!
Oh, and that thing about the chain was a killer exit line!!! 
You are right, pink... I am much farther than the 3rd chapter of this book. I would be done with it by now, but school just started again and I haven't been able to find the time to pick it up and read for a while! 
I will continue to post my chapter interpretations whenever I can find the time... Along with school just starting again, I have gone back to my job on campus. Plus I don't have my own computer at home, so the only time I can get online is late at night when I have the time to walk over to the computer lab.
Anyway, thanks for replying!
I'm very glad to be discussing this book with someone! The book is just so amazing... I find myself thinking about it at random points throughout the day. Or I'll find myself thinking about different types of people as if I were Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden. I am beginning to see people as either "the looters" or as people with integrity. Unfortunately, I'm seeing a lot of looters in the world!
Well, I'll try to post my reactions to Chapter 4 as soon as I can!
Peace,
Steve
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Peace
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RebelSteve33
jesus
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Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: RebelSteve33]
#1254178 - 01/27/03 04:35 PM (5 years, 10 months ago) |
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Chapter IV:
I found it strange and disturbing that McNamara, the best contractor with "a pile of contracts that are worth a fortune" just up and quit without even giving a reason. Did someone make him quit? Did someone make Owen Kellog, who had just been offered a great job by Dagny, quit as well? It just doesn't make sense.
Rand really tells us what kind of person Richard Halley is when she tells about the opera he had written. I think that's such a great idea for an opera!
Anyway, the story about him quitting as well was also strange! I could sort of see a reason in his sudden retirement, though. It reminded me a lot of Howard Roarke from The Fountainhead. He worked and created for no one but himself. I could see how what the critics said after the second performance of Halley's opera could have made him quit because of what they did to him after the first performance. Stupid people! 
Rand alludes even more to the fact that Dagny and d'Anconia have had some sort of important relationship in the past, and at this point in the book I can guess, but am anxious to learn the details. (Of course I already know them now, but I am trying to write these chapter reactions as if I were actually still at this part of the book.)
The fact that Jim had meaningless sex with some random lady and then was so casual and even mean to her the next morning made his character even more despicable in my mind. I loved it when he got the phone call about the San Sebastian Mines and Railroad being nationalized. What a kick to the butt that was!
The speech he made in front of the board was just disgusting. I can't believe he blatantly took credit for something that Dagny did! This part also made me angry: "They did not think of what they would have to do, but of what they would have to say to the men they represented." Those are not the kind of people I like!
I also loved it when James got another swift kick in the ass when d'Anconia refused to see him. "He said that Senor d'Anconia said that you bore him, Mr. Taggart." That's great! Maybe d'Anconia isn't such a bad guy after all....
The passage of the "Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule" made me sad. It just seems to take all fairness out of normal business competition. James only got it because he has friends in Washington. He is trying to help his railroad in the only way that a person like him knows how; by looting! He really makes me sick!
I was so happy when Dagny called them rotten bastards and then rushed out of his office. It made me even happier that she went to Dan Conway and tried to get him to fight it. Well, it didn't make me happy necessarily, but it made me like Dagny's character even more! I wish Conway would fight it! He seems like a good person because of what he told her about looking after the Rio Norte Line and how he recognized that she was the true owner of Taggart Transcontinental.
And suddenly we're introduced to Ellis Wyatt! He seems very intimidating. I wanted Dagny to just scream "I am not one of them!" I wish he could've been there to see her talk to Dan Conway. It was a very quick and interesting introduction to his character.
I loved the way Hank and Dagny talked and did business. There definitely seemed to be some romance between them. Here are two parts that really stood out to me:
"Hank, this is great."
"Yes."
He said it simply, openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, and no modesty. This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one's own greatness, knowing that it is understood....
... She looked at him in the exact moment when he turned to look at her. They stood very close to each other. She saw, in his eyes, that he felt as she did. If joy is the aim and the core of existence, she thought, and if that which has the power to give one joy is always guarded as one's depeest secret, then they had seen each other naked in that moment.
Ooh la la! 
The chapter ends with another killer line:
"Dagny," he said, "whatever we are, it's we who move the world and it's we who'll pull it through."
How awesome is that?! Haha...
-RebelSteve
P.S. As the chapters begin to increase in length, I will probably make these posts shorter and only focus on the main, important parts, as I won't really have the time to go through and talk about all the little parts of the bigger chapters.
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Peace
Edited by RebelSteve33 (01/27/03 04:36 PM)
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shirley knott
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Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: RebelSteve33]
#1258373 - 01/29/03 09:38 AM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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An excellent book with some memorable imagery. Even the Freak brothers copied the idea of a jungle clearing in their 'idiots abroad' trilogy (Freewheelin Franklin). The same infrastructure thing is happening with the railways in the UK now!
i'm too far into other books just now to catch you all up, but i recommend that those who've started, stick with it through the long boring bits. Ayn Rand wrote an even better one too, called The Fountainhead.
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RebelSteve33
jesus
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Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: shirley knott]
#1259145 - 01/29/03 01:27 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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I think I actually like The Fountainhead better myself, although Atlas Shrugged is an amazing book with some amazing insights. There's no question that they are both masterpieces! 
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Peace
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Phred
Fred's son
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Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: shirley knott]
#1259232 - 01/29/03 02:02 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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but i recommend that those who've started, stick with it through the long boring bits.
Excellent advice. I had intended to issue the same warning a little later on. Although the book is in every sense of the word a masterpiece, it is not without flaws. Rand absolutely refused that even one word of the original manuscript be edited -- it was to be published AS WRITTEN or not at all. In my opinion this was an error, and does a disservice to her readers.
On the other hand, those boring bits are always followed by interesting ones. I also keep reminding myself that the book was written in the Forties and Fifties (it took her YEARS to write it) by someone who had worked for a long time in the movie business and for whom English was her second language. Someone familiar with Hollywood's movies of the Thirties and Forties will recognize the stylistic similarities in both her descriptions of setting and in the dialogue.
pinky
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shirley knott
not my real name
Registered: 11/11/02
Posts: 9,000
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 Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: Phred]
#1274084 - 02/03/03 10:22 AM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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is it time for the next chapter yet? i'm reliving the book in this thread, in nice digestible form
keep it up!
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RebelSteve33
jesus
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Loc: a shack in alabama ;)
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Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: shirley knott]
#1314765 - 02/17/03 03:32 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Peace
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Absolut_B
Just some guy
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Re: Atlas Shrugged [Re: Gunboat]
#1347691 - 03/02/03 08:42 PM (5 years, 8 months ago) |
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Wow! My favorite book ever is being discussed. It's so interesting seeing other people read it for the first time, kind of like seeing yourself in the past. I've read it at least 5 times, plus much of Rand's other works, both fiction and non-fiction. I've also discussed the ideas presented and given talks on the issues involved, so if anyone is curious about some part of the book and would like my polished view just let me know. I wish I could read the book along with you(maybe I will find time to do it again) but I'm currently reading some of her non-fiction. Have fun and good luck, it'll be interesting to see your final opinions.
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atomikfunksoldier
T'was born oftrue in the yearof the cock!
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Re: Chapter II: The Chain [Re: Phred]
#1480061 - 04/21/03 07:02 PM (5 years, 7 months ago) |
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i really dislike ayn rand ever since i found out that she was a member of the extreme-right group "house of unamerican activities" (huac) in the 50's, who persecuted non-right wingers in the 50's.
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enjoy the entertaining indentity i have constructed for you while you can.
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Anonymous
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atomikfunksoldier
T'was born oftrue in the yearof the cock!
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Re: Chapter II: The Chain [Re: ]
#1491946 - 04/25/03 01:56 AM (5 years, 7 months ago) |
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I have.
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enjoy the entertaining indentity i have constructed for you while you can.
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 Letto
Load Universeinto Cannon. Aimat Brain. Fire.
Registered: 12/13/02
Posts: 2,321
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Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: RebelSteve33]
#1494390 - 04/25/03 09:04 PM (5 years, 7 months ago) |
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Whenever I finish an Ayn Rand novel it gives me an incredible amount of motivation for a few months. With exams coming up, then college in the fall, I've been meaning to read this book again, and this thread reminded me of how much I loved it, how I felt with the description of the oak tree, the second chapter and just all of the emotions it brought up, Dagny's childhood...
And Steve, I thought The Fountainhead was a much better book too, until I read the first couple of chapters in the third part (if I recall correctly). Plan on having a few hours to yourself when you get there, because you seriously won't be able to put it down.
Well, on to some heavy reading to catch up to you guys.
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Absolut_B
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Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: Letto]
#1499005 - 04/27/03 09:20 PM (5 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Whenever I finish an Ayn Rand novel it gives me an incredible amount of motivation for a few months.
I have to say the same thing. Books can be very powerful. I have friends who hate life until they read the bible. I personally bust out Atlas Shrugged and end up reading it almost constantly in my free time. For awhile afterwards I feel very, I don't know how to put it, but I'd almost say rightous in seeing my own beliefs in writing. It can really straighten out bad self esteem.
BTW, I've started reading it again as I've become very disinterested in life and I need something good to help me enjoy life more. If anyone else in this thread is still reading(or planning on) reading it I'd love to hear what others have to say. Let me know what chapter you're on, I'm sure I'll catch up in a few obsessive days.
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harry_manback
ride the spiral
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Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: Absolut_B]
#1550829 - 05/15/03 11:35 AM (5 years, 6 months ago) |
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hi,
just wanted to pop by and say that this thread inspired me to pick up my copy of Atlas Shrugged off the shelf. Ayn Rand changed my life. It's wonderful to see there are open-eyed people here who appreciate Rand!
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This post is a complete work of fiction. All statements, questions, words and sentences in no way imply any reference to or connection with real persons, places, actions, or things.
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Absolut_B
Just some guy
Registered: 01/26/03
Posts: 112
Loc: In my pants
Last seen: 2 months, 29 days
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Re: Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers [Re: harry_manback]
#2263974 - 01/22/04 08:34 PM (4 years, 10 months ago) |
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Did anyone in this thread finish the book? I'd love to hear your reactions to this rather dead and closed thread...
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