Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

WARNING-- PLOT POINTS GIVEN AWAY. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK YET, YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS REVIEW. Oh boy. What to say about this one. How about, first, that it's 1070 pages long. I was reading it on the train one day, and a guy leaned over and said, "That is really small type." This is Rand's opus, the culmination of her philosophy, Objectivism. I can picture her, after the success of The Fountainhead, walking into her publisher and saying, "Here it is. Don't cut any of it. Publish it just like this or not at all." Included in this 1070 pages, about 950 pages in, as the climax, is a FIFTY PAGE speech by the hero about the evils of socialism. It reads more like a bad thesis at that point. Here's a sentence: "Swinging like a helpless branch in the wind of an uncharted moral wilderness, you dare not fully to be evil, or fully to live." Now imagine that for fifty pages. I was furious at that point. The arrogance of something like that... Get off it. Please. Basically, her philosophy boils down to a justification for selfishness. Her characters are static, the "heroes" extol her philosophy in dragging, unrealistic monologues, and the "villains" are so unbelievably evil and stupid that they're little more than paper targets. I really liked the story early on. I was into it for the first 700 pages or so. I liked the characters, thought they were admirable and heroic. I liked the arguments between people, the clashes of logic and intelligent debates. But the more I understood her philosophy, the more I despised the book. The only character I thought was moral ends up losing his mind, sobbing on a railroad track in the end. But then again, he wasn't moral according to Objectivism, because he was actually a loyal, caring, kind man. As for the plot: Basically, as America's leaders turn to Socialism, a group of America's greatest thinkers withdraw themselves to a hidden Utopia, refusing to have their genius taken advantage of by the "looters." One by one they vanish from society to join this Utopia, until in the end only one is left. The thing that kept me reading was to see whether or not this last person was going to give up and vanish like the others (which I equated to a kind of suicide) or fight against the government. I won't ruin it, but I was not happy with the ending. Oh, and get this. In order to get into this Utopia, you have to vow: "I swear that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another to live for mine." Basically, any kind of Good Samaritanism, Christian moral values (or pick any religion, except maybe Scientology), are in complete opposition to the ideals of Objectivism. Yeah. Sounds like a great way to build a better world. Every genius for himself. A word of warning in reading the reviews. This book topped a "Reader's List" alternative to the National Library's list of the top 100 books. Also atop that list were other Ayn Rand books and a bunch of L. Ron Hubbard books. That might tell you something about the slanted reviews you'll get about this book. Although believers in Objectivism don't strike me as the same cultists as Scientologists, there is certainly an element of belief that everything Ayn Rand ever wrote was genius scripture. It's not. From a literary viewpoint, or a philosophical one. So when this book averages 4 stars, take it for what it's worth.