Slightly younger for one, slightly older for the other (though about on the money for The Fountainhead). I never fell in love Rand fiction, though I found it to be what I believe is an interesting insight in to who I believe she was. Oddly enough, she was probably the first author I was truly critical of all on my own. I suppose that is the invitation of the claim of being a philosopher. She truly opened my eyes to the humanities, even if it wasn't in the way she intended. I still value her reads, though not her fiction, and even listed Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology as one the 10 most influential books of my life. I ultimately came to reject her as someone who knew how to deconstruct but failed because that's all her philosophy does. A is A, a tautology is ultimately useless by itself, and teaches us nothing about the world. And she helped me learn that on my own. She also encouraged me to read Emerson and Thoreau with an active mind, and in doing so, allowed me to see that her critiques provide no context to expose he flaws of not being able to build a world view, even if she starts by asking many of the right questions, IMO.Skinypupy wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 12:27 pmI'm sure the quote has been around forever, but I saw it for the first time over the weekend."There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
The other, of course, involves orcs."
But I will never try to pick up any of her non fiction again. Torture. If you don't let you mind wander in to who the fuck writes this? you'll never through it or remember anything at all from page to page. Or at least I never could.