s.penkevich's Reviews > Anthem
Anthem
by
by
After spending the entire book fetishizing rugged individualism and extolling the importance of not letting anyone think for you, the first thing the narrator does after escaping is tell the woman what he has decided her name will be. Sigh.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Anthem.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
Comments Showing 1-50 of 78 (78 new)
message 1:
by
Vartika
(new)
Oct 02, 2023 09:11AM
reply
|
flag
Haha oh patriarchy…
That is a perfect way to put it!
Hey thanks!
Ha Yea, just not a well constructed book at all. But I tend to find this is the case with most of her stuff. It seemed okay when we read it in high school but as an adult it’s…not great haha
Ha true. And like all philosophy and politics aside even, that whole scene in Atlas Shrugged where they are living on that island all happy about how they just compete to put each other out of business makes absolutely no sense. Who is doing anything useful to their survival and if everyone else is out of business who is buying their stuff? I remember getting to that part and being amazed an editor said sure that makes sense.
Ha that is perfect. Ooof yea I can only imagine. I read it at 23 and was sort of confused by the hype. that one just kind of falls apart on itself under any scrutiny. Which I guess is because it’s all a stand in for her philosophy but like, other sci fi sociology writers (Le Guin is great at it) at least have an internal novel-logic to the plots. The random pirate is kind of hilarious though, the book is such a spoof of itself haha
Ha that is perfect. Ooof yea I can only ..."
Oh, the random pirate! The inverted Robin Hood: he steals from the poor to give to the rich, by his own account. Makes sense to me- no wait. No, it doesn't.
It's actually a kind of talent to be so dead wrong about virtually every single thing. From eco terrorism being a good thing, to bewailing there isn't more publicity on the Rocky Mountains, to praising the good old days when children worked the mines, without forgetting apologetics to the wonders of smoking, AS is a treasure trove of How To Be Wrong.
I really should review it one of these days.
Ha that is perfect. ..."
Hahaha “A treasure trove of how to be wrong” should be the cover blurb! Ooo you really should, this is perfect. Or that whole bit where the dude dies defending the factory from a fake strike and has the whole “it was an honor serving you, sir” as he bleeds out on the (probably not OSHA approved) scaffolding. Biggest eye roll in literature candidate right there. And how the employees have to live in a company town and the owner character is all like why should I have to pay them working for me is an honor hahaha what a bunch of assholes.
I have to admit I love the random shoehorned in plot of the military guy on a power trip blowing himself up with the sci fi weapon. But for comedy purposes not her intended purposes. Way better than a 100+ page speech reiterating her main points literally nobody could have missed the implications of in the plot.
..."
I actually recorded myself reading the speech, ages ago! I had almost forgotten all about it! I made it three lines before bursting out laughing. I defy anyone to read it out loud and be serious about it.
Yes, so much of it is unintentional comedy and there is a lot of it given how bloated the novel is.
Another precious episode, remember when Dagny built a bridge out of that brand new, sparkly metal that is untested (absolutely no OSHA applies here!!!)? And in order to see if it really works, she runs an entire train- fully manned!- over the damn thing?!
Because she knows it will work, hell yeah.
And Galt's Gulch reads like hell but is supposed to be amazing, somehow...random pirate dude hands gold bars to Square Jaw Hank...and it gives super homoerotic, which is 100% unintentional.
Hahaha that’s amazing. That could be a whole comedy routine!
Oh yea!! Ha definitely, I mean there are zero women willingly on that island. I cannot fathom how that community was supposed to work out. “One day someone will put me out of a job—isn’t that awesome!?”
Ahahaha I forgot about that—potentially sacrifice yourselves for my marketing photo op! Christ what a mess of a book that also reads like it might have been funded by the tobacco industry. Isn’t the main crux issue that they have an infinity energy engine and are mad that people would…want it to help society instead of just personal enrichment? Atlas Shat. I love that they tried to make a two part film and the first bombed so hard they had to recast and do the second with a low budget that definitely showed.
Is that the one that’s really against centralized planning? I think I once read a few article about it, someone once tell me I should read that because they wanted to show me that working at a public library meant I was against freedoms or something to that effect. Thanks for reading it for us, I think I mayyyyy skip it
Ha true. So much of that all starts to feel very bad faith argument the larger they try to argue it (was just reading a bit about the book and correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds like he argues fascism was just a natural reaction to pushes for collectivism, like a “sorry we just had to be fascist and it’s mostly their fault” kind of way?).
I’ve always liked that line in… I’m pretty sure it was Le Guin’s The Dispossessed where in response to a question if their sustainable society kills individualism the character answers something to the effect of “what is a society but a collection of individuals working together?”
They did a third movie, too! In which they again had to recast everyone. Truly, the mark of genius movie making.
I love it how the infinity energy machine, or whatever it is, is almost an aside. You'd think that it'd be THE topic of any book that happens to include it, or at least be extremely important, but it really isn't.
If you'd told me the book had been funded by the tobacco industry I would have believed you. Most of Rand's awful ideas were common to her day and you find plenty of authors who agree with her on several points, but rarely do you find them all combined in such a mess of a manifesto.
Very few women in the book overall, but Lilian- Hank's wife- is by far my favorite. She is supposed to be a baddie, who only "landed" Hank by her looks being deceptively "noble" but she's great. Apart from calling him out on his BS, she is actively engaged in a lot of charity work which Hank obviously loathes.
But she is really amazing and it's baffling how Rand failed to see that she is the actual heroine!
I've toyed with writing AS fanfic in which Lilian gets to lead the world after the Men of Genius all leave.
Oh and did you hear about the bunch of idiots who tried to recreate Galt's Gulch in Chile? It was a complete shambles.
Haha that’s amazing I didn’t realize there was a part 3. Oh I bet the speech scene is so over the top I might need to actually watch that.
YEA I totally forgot about Lilian! She did rule. I love that it’s kind a Mackenzie Scott situation just donating all the money to charity and being cool while her husband is like but what about corporate profits and sucking? I would definitely read that Fanfiction.
Isn’t the whole sex scene with Hank and Dagny kind of problematic too? Like some lines about men not needing consent because conquering is sexy or something? Fountainhead had a whole scene like that too.
Ahaha oh I bet, I need to look that up. It’s like Fordlandia, also a massive disaster.
Thanks! It’s such a bummer. We read it back in high school and at that time it seemed alright like, I will admit the whole aspect that the way the society only uses plural pronouns is kind of cool but as an adult the whole plot collapses in on itself without much internal logic.
The movies cast a black man as Eddie (and we all know what Rand would have thought of that...!) but since everyone gets recast twice between sequels, the actors are radically different and yet somehow are supposed to play the same character! One is much taller than the other, for one, so it feels so much like "it's okay, it's the one black guy, viewers will get it".
Oh, Lilian was indeed donating money and engaged in actually helping many. Usually, this kind of character turns out to be a hypocrite, that's why we are supposed to dislike them but in Randland, where stealing from the poor to give to the rich is a good thing (I half expect spell check to correct that line!), Lilian's fault is her genuine concern and efforts for the sake of the underprivileged.
Oh yeah, AS skirts around consent, it's awful, on top of that Hank's cheating on his wife is a good thing, too. But it's all to no avail, too, because this is like a videogame where you pick your partner based on stats and Dagny, upon finding Galt, who is "better" at being A True Capitalist, drops Hank like a hot potato.
Speaking of fanfic, I've actually started one in which Hank and Francisco are a couple because I can (screw you Rand, you can't stop me and I'm not selling it or sharing it, so copyright is null and void) and because the text lends itself to it like wow.
I, too, am tempted to check out the speech in movie form. From what I understand, it gets abridged. Does not surprise me.
And then there’s D A G N Y. This character and her name are worse than nails on a chalkboard to me.
Dagny I’m-not-like-other-girls-I’m-quirky Taggart IS. THE. WORST. And isn’t she supposed to be Rand’s self insert?
Wait that is hilarious. They said eh good enough nobody who actually likes this movie is going to like him anyways…
YESSS that is the fanfic the world deserves haha god there’s so many great opportunities for feeling how hard his super steel rods are Hahah oh no I’m going to be thinking about this all week now. Might need to make a spoof tiktok of it for the bookstore social media…
But for real, how is that whole book like “you know who has more than they deserve? The working poor.” Like does it only get reprinted because it’s such a curiosity? Is anyone actually in literary circles like yea this shit is well written haha
For real. Out of them all this one is at least the tamest on that. Fountainhead has a whole “real men don’t need consent” bit that gets folded into some uncool misogyny in Atlas Shrugged too
Ha SAME! We also read this in 8th and I thought it was super fascinating but then read Atlas Shrugged years later and thought oh wait these are some trash takes! Turns out this one does not hold up soooo don’t worry about skipping it
Christopher Hitchens put it brilliantly, "I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough."
In Randland, up is down, good is bad and shooting an unarmed person for being unable to answer a question is the epitome of virtue.
Hank and Francisco get so homoerotic that they have a scene in a hotel room, late at night, lying in bed (different beds but still) in which they are going on about love and sex. Needless to say, what they actually say is pure drivel, as per usual, but there is something really suggestive in their having this conversation, at all, let alone in a hotel room.
And since they were both ditched by the same woman, because Super Übermensh Galt is just better- which, to this day, still boggles the mind. Dagny has a very long history with Francisco, he even calls her by a pet name and she is cool with it, which is very obviously something major in Always Serious All the Time World; and she liked Hank enough to confront his wife at the party but she then up and drops both for the sake of a guy she barely even knows!
But hey, that's the way the story goes, and that leaves Hank and Francisco pretty much alone. So why not pair them.
Next, I'd like to pair Cherry with Lilian. Sure, Cherry is unfortunately dead, in a demented take, but that is the beauty of fanfic, you can kill who you want but you can also not kill who you like. Cherry would like Lilian and Lilian is the right person to help her out.
I imagine them leading their own commune, from a train, that sets up a structure of aid across America, from coast to coast. If "the men who rule the world" are gone, good riddance, gives the rest of us an opportunity to actually improve things and create a more equal, kinder, society.
Ha Yea, if there is a right headspace for Rand it’s not one I want to be in. Ooo that would make sense for Dagny to be her self-insert, but damn I really disliked Dagny. And all of them really. But yes, that is a spot on assessment of her. And the whole like pro-affair, anti-consent thing she gets into is….really weird haha
We read this one in middle school and I remember being sort of charmed by the sci fi aspects at the time but revisiting it as an adult it’s just not great and falls apart. The irony of being a book about not letting people tell you what to think while also stiff arming opinions and aiming it at an audience that will work best if they don’t yet have the nuance to analyze it deeply.
HEY great to hear from you. I’ve been meaning to send a message to check to see if you were alright, glad to have you back.
Ugh I did not realize that about Rush but it makes total sense now that you mention it. They had that one whole song about trees turning communist and cutting the tops off of taller trees and while the bass line was sweet that was about it haha. Interesting too about the film, also not surprising. The whole thing just lacks any nuance and screams for the extremes.
Oooo okay that is a great quote. I always got a laugh out of the John Stewart line about how libertarians will inevitably either get exposed in a sex scandal or finally graduate high school. Ah I almost forgot about that. Yea don't they like GI Joe helicopter jump, guns blazing and shoot some teenage army kid because he is...doing his job? As if we're supposed to believe these rich pricks are suddenly super soldiers lol
Ooo I dig it. Especially the train aspect haha. but YEA like all of them leave, it sounds ideal to set up a wonderful society. Its not like...any of them realistically did any of their own work.
When I read it for school in 8th grade it seemed okay but didn't hold up. And then is glaringly problematic haha. Also why did we read this for school!?
Oh you are missing nothing haha no worries!
Ha totally fair! I revisited this one kind of knowing I probably wouldn’t dig it but I remembered having thought it was mind blowing back when I read it in middle school. Probably should have left it in the past haha
If you’re in the US you likely had to read it for school because the Ayn Rand Institute provides free copies to schools and has a whole, long-standing marketing campaign about introducing her ‘philosophy’ to American students.
If you’re in the US you likely had to rea..."
Oh wow that is fascinating, and yea, that is probably why! Huh, just checked out their website, I imagine this review would likely not win their $10k essay prize
Haha oh no! Though to be fair I do find it sort of annoyingly charming to have books that you can hold up and be like “my family member thought I’d want this?” Haha
Haha thank you! I’ve only read two but there is so much internalized misogyny in them it’s weird.
Haha thanks!
Haha oh no! Though to be fair I do find it sort of annoyingly charming to have books tha..."
Yeah she knows I like post apocalyptic and dystopian lit so I guess she thought I would like it even though I didn't explicitly say I was interested in it
Haha thank you! I’ve only read two but there is so much internalized misogyny in them it’s weird."
I agree. I've never heard of her having any women as friends. Most of her relationships (friends, lovers, acolytes, enemies) were with men