That's the new Ayn Rand biography, written by Anne C. Heller. It is a truly excellent, first-rate biography, at least up through my current p.111. I know Ayn Rand is an emotional topic for many of you, pro, con, or somewhere in between. But my praise of this book is analogous to how I might praise a biography of Jean Rhys or W.C. Handy. It's simply a very good book by any objective [sic] standard and it should be of interest to any student of intellectual history, American popular fiction, libertarianism, or for that matter American history.
Did you know that Rand met her husband by deliberately tripping him? Or that she received WPA funds during the New Deal?
The author is by no means a "Randian" but she is willing to praise the famous Atlas Shrugged "money speech" as "original, complex, and although somewhat overbearing, beautifully written." She nominates We the Living as Rand's most persuasive work in a literary sense.
Here is one blog review of the book, which is in any case recommended.
Awww, is this your peace offering to David Henderson?
Yay! Rand the original cougar & BDSM fetishist.
Why are you using “[sic]” after a correctly spelled word which is not inside a quotation?
I like the review linked. I like Atlas Shrugged, though I found the prose grating or dull; but when I saw the 1940s b&w Fountainhead film I suddenly understood the Romantic era writing…
I think its funny that the reviewer says: “John Galt is simply not an interesting human being. (In my two readings of the novel I have always been able to picture the characters—except him; he always remains faceless to me.)”
Isn’t that the point: Who Is John Galt?
I thought she did that on purpose.
Ayn Rand was a cougar? You guys ever see what she looked like? grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrwwwwwwww
It is normal for every college freshman to read and ferociously defend Objectivism and Rand. It is also normal for this phase to pass in a year or so.
Why must some libertarians be so fiercely passionate in their hatred of Rand?
You don’t have to agree with every word.
She’s not writing a treatise on economics or a textbook, get over it. Its a fiction meant to illustrate her opinions on the world and what makes it tick. I love Rand and I love her novels. I read them before college and after college. I still enjoy them and still agree FUNDAMENTALLY with what she’s saying, as one agrees with any strongly theoretical impractical theory.
Why do you have to be little people who enjoy her and think similarly? Why are we all stupid college freshman/hs/underdeveloped minds? What makes the philosophers you agree with so much more mature?
Barbara Brandon’s book, “The Passion of Ayn Rand” is also an excellent biography of Ayn Rand. Nathaniel Brandon’s book, “Judgment Day” is not so good.
The book can also be ordered from Laissez Faire at a better price than at Amazon. http://www.lfb.org
Comments on this entry are closed.