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Susan/DC
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 1602
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 Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject: Atlas Shrugged |
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[quote="Jenny]
I haven't read ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand. Would you please explain why you wouldn't include it on the list?
Jenny[/quote]
Depends on how you define Romance. If you define Romance as a work that focuses on the relationship, then no, I wouldn't include any of Rand's books. She's so intent on pushing forward her world view that any love story is important only as a vehicle for her philosophy, not in and of itself. |
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Sandlynn
Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 1613
Location: Washington, D.C.
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Jenny wrote: |
I haven't read ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand. Would you please explain why you wouldn't include it on the list?
Jenny |
When I think of Atlas Shrugged, the first thing that comes to mind is the author's political philosophy that she's advocating rather than romance. The characters are really in service of that. Of course, that's not to say a novel primarily about something else can't contain an excellent romance. With "only" 1001 spots to fill, though, there are plenty of more romantic works of fiction, I'd say. (Actually, I also don't like her philosophy. |
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Schola
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1867
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| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:38 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I haven't read ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand. Would you please explain why you wouldn't include it on the list? |
To what has already been said, I must add that Rand's love stories aren't even that romantic. They're interesting mental exercises, if you like to imagine someone with X Philosophy meeting someone with Y Philosophy and both of them acting consistently with what they believe. This is why the first love scene in The Fountainhead is a rape: the hero is introduced in Chapter I as someone who doesn't care about what other people think, and during the rape scene it turns out that he doesn't care what the heroine thinks either. 
I think that people are more complex than Rand's characters, who make me think of perfectly programmed robots, and that love is more than how she explains it (or gets a character to explain it) in Atlas Shrugged.
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"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton) |
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Jenny
Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Posts: 229
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:33 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for explaining and giving me more info about the book.
Jenny |
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