Some Takes On Ayn Rand

I wrote of libertarians in a post last Wednesday. If you'd like to read it, please click here or feel free to scroll down to it.

The post caused me to think about Ayn Rand, their unholy combination of patron saint and blessed mother. Then I also remembered I had a few things about her that I had collected from the internet.

I post here for your entertainment or enlightenment.

The first is a graphic:

(Please click to increase size)

Then there are these three vignettes:

How He Reads Ayn Rand
I read half a page of one of her books and think:

HOLY FUCK! I HATE YOU AYN RAND! RAAAAAAAAAGE! RAGE! RAGE! RAGE! RAAAAAAAAAGE!

I throw the book across the room.

I pick up the book about a half hour later. I read another half a page and think:

THIS BITCH HAS TO BE BULLSHITTING EVERYBODY! FFFFFUUUUUHKK YOOOOO BITCH!

I throw the book across the room.

I repeat this until the book is completely read.

The exception is Anthem, because it's easy enough to enjoy as a decent story and you can look past the screamingly blatant hurr-durr-dumb-commies undertones in it.
(From the infamous forum/chat board 4chan.)

Ayn Rand Back In The Day
Her diaries from that time (the 1920s), when she worked as a receptionist and an extra in Hollywood movies, lay out the Nietzschian mentality that underlies all her later writings. The local newspapers were filled for months with stories about William Hickman, a serial killer who kidnapped Marian Parker, a 12-year-old girl, from her junior high school. He raped and killed her, then dismembered her body. He sent parts of it along with letters of mockery to the police. Rand wrote long stretches of prose in praise of him; she said he represented 'the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. (He is) a man who really stands alone in action and in soul. Other people do not exist for him and he does not see why they should.' She called him 'a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy,' shimmering with 'immense, explicit egotism.' Rand had only one regret: 'A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy was not strong enough.'
(From Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/)

Two Novels
There are two novels that can change a bookish 14-year old's life. They are The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.

One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes. That often leads to an emotionally stunted and socially crippled adulthood where the readers of the novel are unable to deal with the real world.

The other novel, of course, involves orcs.
(Site of origin not noted. My error.)