Rand article
RichD
of two recent bios on Rand. Worth looking at.
--
Rich
Ray
news:11114f02-7a75-4dac...@g31g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
> There was an article in New Yorker, 11/9/09, a review
> of two recent bios on Rand. Worth looking at.
>
From that review...
/////
Both biographers overestimate the literary achievement of their subject,
whose intellectual genre fiction puts her in the crackpot pantheon of L.
Frank Baum and L. Ron Hubbard.
/////
Is this what you meant by "worth looking at?"
Ray
RichD
> > There was an article in New Yorker, 11/9/09, a review
> > of two recent bios on Rand. Worth looking at.
>
> From that review...
> /////
> Both biographers overestimate the literary achievement of their subject,
> whose intellectual genre fiction puts her in the crackpot pantheon of L.
> Frank Baum and L. Ron Hubbard.
> /////
>
> Is this what you meant by "worth looking at?"
Yes.
"worth looking at" does not mean an ode to Subjectivism,
or that the author is a Rand apostle.
--
Rich
Malrassic Park
wrote:
"Rand may be, in an aesthetic sense, the most totalitarian novelist
ever to sit down at a desk. Burns, like Heller, is too willing to see
Rand's dictates about "romantic realism" as a sincerely offered
aesthetic, rather than as a post-facto justification for her own
artistic incapacities. The novelist who invented Howard Roark and John
Galt needed to insist that literary characters be "abstract
projections," lest her own paper-airplane creations fall to the
library floor. "Atlas Shrugged" sold well, and marked the beginning of
Rand's real, crankish fame. Nathaniel Branden spread her message in
lectures and on tapes, developing a "sprawling empire," before his
long affair with Rand reached its catastrophic end. Today's
Objectivists are divided between those who see Rand's philosophy as a
closed theological system and others who regard her writings the way
liberals do the Constitution, as materials open to different
interpretations. Rand died in March of 1982."
Charles Bell
>
> "Rand may be, in an aesthetic sense, the most totalitarian novelist
Of course, in all probability, the reviewer sees a novelist producing
a product no one is coerced into buying, let alone enjoying, as
"totalitarian", but a President and Congress producing a product such
as mandatory medical insurance of certain specification that is forced
upon those not wishing to buy the product is not totalitarian but
humanitarian. Of course, in all probability, the reviewer never once
read a single word by Rand but allows Sources Uncited in Quotation in
Wikipedia to formulate his opinion.
Malrassic Park
<cbe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>On Dec 29, 10:06�pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Rand may be, in an aesthetic sense, the most totalitarian novelist
>
>Of course, in all probability, the reviewer sees a novelist producing
>a product no one is coerced into buying, let alone enjoying, as
>"totalitarian",
I think he means by that: "It's Rand's way, or the highway."
Charles Bell
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:29:44 -0800, Charles Bell
>
> >On Dec 29, 10:06�pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> "Rand may be, in an aesthetic sense, the most totalitarian novelist
>
> >Of course, in all probability, the reviewer sees a novelist producing
> >a product no one is coerced into buying, let alone enjoying, as
> >"totalitarian",
>
> I think he means by that: "It's Rand's way, or the highway."
Really? A "literary critic" who cannot manage a proper use of a word?
Or even make a decent metaphor of that word?
x.
xx.
xxx.
xx.
x.
Malrassic Park
<cbe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>On Dec 30, 6:00�pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:29:44 -0800, Charles Bell
..
>> <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >On Dec 29, 10:06�pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
..
>> >> "Rand may be, in an aesthetic sense, the most totalitarian novelist
..
>> >Of course, in all probability, the reviewer sees a novelist producing
>> >a product no one is coerced into buying, let alone enjoying, as
>> >"totalitarian",
..
>> I think he means by that: "It's Rand's way, or the highway."
..
>Really? A "literary critic" who cannot manage a proper use of a word?
>Or even make a decent metaphor of that word?
It's a sharp criticism. He may have been thinking of the famous
Whittaker Chambers quote, who knows?
Malrassic Park
<cbe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>On Dec 30, 6:00�pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:29:44 -0800, Charles Bell
..
>> <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >On Dec 29, 10:06�pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
..
>> >> "Rand may be, in an aesthetic sense, the most totalitarian novelist
..
>> >Of course, in all probability, the reviewer sees a novelist producing
>> >a product no one is coerced into buying, let alone enjoying, as
>> >"totalitarian",
..
>> I think he means by that: "It's Rand's way, or the highway."
..
>Really? A "literary critic" who cannot manage a proper use of a word?
>Or even make a decent metaphor of that word?
There is also philosopher Sidney Hook's 1961 review of "For the New
Intellectual" which compares it to the philosophy of the USSR.