Ayn Rand -- Who is she?
Chris
Ayn Rand. My question is this: Who is Ayn Rand? Where does she fit into
the canon of literature -- specifically American literature? And why
are people so violently opposed to Rand? (I ask because I've never
read anything by her. Yet in the bookstore where I work -- and in
every bookstore I visit -- I always see huge quantities of 'Atlas
Shrugged' and 'The Fountainhead.')
Is she sorta like L. Ron Hubbard? A philosopher masquerading as a fiction
writer? That sort of thing? I never see her name mentioned -- even in
passing -- in any critical history of American literature, so I'm assuming
that she's some sort of pop-icon who won't go away. (Is she even American?
I remember one time hearing a fellow bookseller say that she's Russian. And
what's the deal with 'The Fountainhead?' Is it some loosely veiled biography
about Frank Lloyd Wright?)
Any opinions would be appreciated.
Chris Schweda
spa...@iastate.edu
--
--
K Weber
: Is she sorta like L. Ron Hubbard? A philosopher masquerading as a fiction
: writer? That sort of thing?
I would think Hubbard was more of a fiction writer masquerading as a
philosopher...
Kai.
Michael Larsen
writes:
> My question is this: Who is Ayn Rand? Where does she fit into
> the canon of literature -- specifically American literature?
Ayn Rand is the first, and, so far as I know, last, member of the
Capitalist Realist school of American fiction. Atlas Shrugged is the
the Free World's answer to Gladkov's Cement.
> And why are people so violently opposed to Rand?
I suspect her detractors write with the bitterness of apostasy.
I can respect the reader who drops her after ten pages, but I find it
hard to understand those who read 1200 pages of Atlas Shrugged and
700 pages of The Fountainhead only to discover that they detest her.
-Michael Larsen
Matthew P Wiener
>> And why are people so violently opposed to Rand?
>I suspect her detractors write with the bitterness of apostasy.
>I can respect the reader who drops her after ten pages, but I find it
>hard to understand those who read 1200 pages of Atlas Shrugged and
>700 pages of The Fountainhead only to discover that they detest her.
The novels qua novels are merely bad and forgettable, and are not worth
much of a reaction qua novels. It's when you discover the atrocious
philosophy manque and braindead Randroid missionary cult that comes
attached to them that you learn to violently oppose Rand.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Raoul Golan
>Chris (spa...@iastate.edu) wrote:
>Kai.
Just like Ayn Rand.
--
************** ra...@cssc-syd.tansu.com.au (Raoul Golan) *****************
-"The Angel of History's face is turned toward the past.. Where we perceive -
- a chain of events, he sees a single catastrophe.. the debris before him -
- is piled skyward.. This storm is what we call progress."(Walter Benjamin) -
Jeffrey Davis
..
..Let me say that in my opinion, Ayn Rand is no more than a competent
..storyteller with delusions of grandeur. However, she provides a product
..which is very difficult to find elsewhere. Her subject is the romance of
..ability, specifically ability in business. There are hints of this in
..George Eliot and quite a bit of it buried in fifth-rate SF novels. Perhaps
..it is also Horatio Alger's stock-in-trade, but I haven't read him.
For a decent look at American businessmen, read Dreiser. Dreiser was a
businessman for years and knew what he was writing about. Consequently,
I don't think there's much "romance of ability" in his work.
--
Jeffrey Davis <da...@ca.uky.edu> More Champale, my funky friend?
Jim Kasprzak
>u3...@cc.keele.ac.uk (K Weber) writes:
>>Chris (spa...@iastate.edu) wrote:
>>: Is she sorta like L. Ron Hubbard? A philosopher masquerading as a fiction
>>: writer? That sort of thing?
>
>>I would think Hubbard was more of a fiction writer masquerading as a
>>philosopher...
>
Actually, Hubbard was a bullshit artist, which covers both categories
very nicely. I haven't read much biography of Rand, but I would suspect
that the same applies to her.
--
__ Live from the bustling metropolis of the Big Apple...
___/ | Jim Kasprzak, just a guy from New York.
/____ | try to hold it like rain in a river everything is getting
\_| bigger better this won't last forever touch me fall
*==== e-mail: jim...@panix.com
Paul Callahan
>Her subject is the romance of
>ability, specifically ability in business. There are hints of this in
>George Eliot and quite a bit of it buried in fifth-rate SF novels.
There's also the romance of technology and engineering (though she
exhibits little understanding of the practical details, *especially*
in _Atlas Shrugged_ where the whole plot hinges on something along the
lines of a perpetual motion machine). In _The Fountainhead_ I find
Howard Roark an appealing character insofar as he represents the
architect with purity and integrity whose goals are frustrated by a
society of sycophants interested only in holding their place in the
pecking order. I find him less than appealing as the superman who has
Rand's sanction to manipulate lesser beings below him. Most Rand
characters fit into this dichotomy for me. It also fits a larger
pattern, in which Rand correctly identifies many of the problems with
society, and then proposes solutions that range from the
oversimplistic to the completely nutty.
Perhaps I'm overinterpreting, but I would say that among other things,
_The Fountainhead_ contains an implicit criticism of the highrise
housing project, which is now thought to have failed for the exact
reasons Rand suggests: people don't want to be warehoused, and will
not cooperate in any system unless they are given a personal stake in
it. This is not a bad piece of projection, given the time she wrote the
novel. Granted, others probably made the same criticism.
Perhaps I would have succumbed to this "disease" everyone fears had I
read Rand at an earlier age. As it was, I first read _Atlas Shrugged_
at age 24 at which age I felt I had already written and unwritten the
same novel in my own mind. The materialist utopia novel that most
influenced my adolescence was an SF work, namely James P. Hogan's
_Voyage from Yesteryear_. This too is a heavy-handed piece, but I
will say he has a bit more comprehension of technology, and somewhat
less of an ideological axe to grind. But I really think that anything
that can convince a teenager to read more books of greater length
cannot possibly be all bad. The notion of Rand's work as "dangerous"
strikes me as absurd. Surely it's no more so than much SF (say,
Heinlein).
I've often thought it would be very interesting to assign a dual
reading of _The Fountainhead_ and _The Mosquito Coast_ (by Paul
Theroux). The protagonists are similar in many ways, but the
resolutions are not. I would say that Theroux shows far deeper
insight into the fundamental problems of the innovator. In any case,
it would make an interesting "compare and contrast" assignment.
>Personally, I feel that
>the theme is worthy of a better treatment than it has yet received.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>I suspect that until it receives such treatment, Ayn Rand will remain
>more popular than she deserves.
I'm not convinced of this. It seems to me that every scientist and
mathematician with literary pretensions has attempted some kind of ode
to technology and progress, and it just doesn't work. I now feel the
proper ode to technology is a well-written expository text.
--
Paul Callahan
call...@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu
Sandra Loosemore
Actually, Hubbard was a bullshit artist, which covers both categories
very nicely. I haven't read much biography of Rand, but I would suspect
that the same applies to her.
Hmmmm, I don't think so. From what I've read about her (notably the
books written by each of the Brandens), Rand's problem was that she
was truly convinced that everything she did was perfectly rational and
morally correct, which was reinforced by her habit of surrounding
herself with people who idolized her and always deferred to her. She
was also apparently something of a control freak. Tying this into
another thread, you could say that she suffered from excessive hubris.
I'm one of the (few?) people who takes a moderate view of Rand and her
writing. On the one hand, I found her novels exciting and inspiring
because of the strength and integrity of the characters. (I admit
that the very positive portrayal of Dagny Taggart as a female nerd in
"Atlas Shrugged" inspired me to take up a career in engineering. When
I first read the book I was 12 or 13, I had absolutely no real-life
role models of professional working women, neither my family nor my
teachers were giving me the slightest encouragement to consider going
to college or train for a technical career, and it was a major
revelation to me to realize that women *could* have successful careers
and a life beyond just being a wife-and-mother.) On the other hand, a
lot of Rand's notions struck me both then and now as confused or
irrelevant or just plain boring. For instance, some of the violence
and dominance/submission overtones she includes in the romantic
relationships in her novels might be acceptable in that it makes a
more exciting and dramatic story, but when she starts arguing that, as
a matter of *morality*, women's proper role is to submit to men, I
just don't buy it. Similarly for many of her other ideas.
-Sandra
Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley
: The materialist utopia novel that most
: influenced my adolescence was an SF work, namely James P. Hogan's
: _Voyage from Yesteryear_. This too is a heavy-handed piece, but I
: will say he has a bit more comprehension of technology, and somewhat
: less of an ideological axe to grind.
I haven't got anything here to disagree with, and I will further note
that _Voyage from Yesteryear_ has some funny bits in it.
--
Rebecca Crowley standard disclaimers apply rcro...@zso.dec.com
He doesn't give a damn about my body -- all he wants is my mind.
David E. Latane
1. Rent _The Fountainhead_ w/ Gary Cooper (screenplay by A.R.). If
you can make it to the end without dying of laughter
2. By _Atlas Shrugged_, join the followers of Lyndon la Roach, etc.
D. Latane'
John McCarthy
overshadowed by the modern architecture school imported from Europe
and basing itself in part on somewhat leftist sloganeering. Tom
Wolfe's _From Bauhaus to Our House_ complains about the treatment of
Wright. I suspect Wolfe is correct both as to history and as to who
was better. A lot of great buildings were never built because of
this.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Francis Muir
Frank Lloyd Wright was the leading American architect until he was
overshadowed by the modern architecture school imported from Europe
and basing itself in part on somewhat leftist sloganeering. Tom
Wolfe's _From Bauhaus to Our House_ complains about the treatment of
Wright. I suspect Wolfe is correct both as to history and as to who
was better. A lot of great buildings were never built because of
this.
You mean there was some conspiracy that prevented people from chosing Mr
Wright as their architect? All of the people all of the time for forty
odd years were fooled into believing that leftist, non-American design was
the only way to build? The fact of the matter is that Wright was available
but very expensive, and for some of us still without much merit. Maybe
he was the only man around in those days who truly embodied both hubris
and chutspah.
Francis Muir
Richard Mende
In a previous article, lar...@cfar.umd.edu (Sara Larson) says:
>
>I would be very curious to know what other books are on your class'
>reading list regarding artists in Society. Or what other fictional
>treatments there are to discuss. I'm racking my brains. I guess I've
>read a couple of things that directly touch on the subject (probably a
>lot of novels touch it indirectly, since many authors see themselves
>as artists). Perhaps Maxine Hong Kingston's _Tripmaster Monkey_? Parts
>or all of Proust's _Remembrance of Things Past_? I'm sure my
>repertoire is much too small here.
>
Sara, here are a few examples:
Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye
Lady Oracle
Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth
Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund
Margaret Lawrence, The Diviners
Chaim Potok, My Name Is Asher Lev
Mordecai Richler, St. Urbain's Horseman
Nathaniel West, Day of the Locust
You can see that I interpret "artist" in a very broad sense.
>
>As for a canon of 20th-century writers, doesn't that seem unnecessary
>in this century? I'd rather wait until the 21st century to make
>decisions about today's writing.
>
Well, OK, Sara. I'm rather conservative myself when it comes to making
literary judgements.
But we *have* had 50 years to reflect on The Fountainhead. And, as a
previous poster said, Rand is *never* mentioned by "respectable" scholars as
a writer worthy of our attention.
--
Richard Mende :-)
am...@freenet.carleton.ca
"...if you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends
in government and every walk of public life...." Robertson Davies
Michael Larsen
Personally, I've never been bothered by the cult. At one time or another
I've been targeted by Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Christians of several
mainstream denominations, and Hasidim, but never an Objectivist.
So unless my experience is atypical, two mysteries appear to remain about
Ayn Rand. Why do so many people love her? And why do so many people
hate her? I believe there is in fact only a single mystery, that her
advocates and her detractors are the same people, at different stages in
their lives.
Let me say that in my opinion, Ayn Rand is no more than a competent
storyteller with delusions of grandeur. However, she provides a product
which is very difficult to find elsewhere. Her subject is the romance of
ability, specifically ability in business. There are hints of this in
George Eliot and quite a bit of it buried in fifth-rate SF novels. Perhaps
it is also Horatio Alger's stock-in-trade, but I haven't read him. In
any event, this theme appeals to many high school students, particularly
technically-oriented students. Many of them swallow Rand hook, line, and
sinker, and later suffer from gastric distress. Personally, I feel that
the theme is worthy of a better treatment than it has yet received.
I suspect that until it receives such treatment, Ayn Rand will remain
more popular than she deserves.
-Michael Larsen
Jim Kasprzak
>writer? That sort of thing?
From what I've seen, I'd say that a more accurate description would be
a fiction writer masquerading as a philosopher. Hubbard was a money-
grubbing hack masquerading as a fiction writer masquerading as a philosopher.
I think that Dianetics, Objectivism and Kibology have a lot in common.
However, at least one of the above admits that its promulgator is a bozo,
so for me the choice is an easy one to make.
Matthew P Wiener
>So unless my experience is atypical, two mysteries appear to remain about
>Ayn Rand. Why do so many people love her? And why do so many people
>hate her? I believe there is in fact only a single mystery, that her
>advocates and her detractors are the same people, at different stages in
>their lives.
I have never been a Rand advocate, and I've known numerous Rand detractors
who were never anything close to an advocate either.
Ted B Samsel
Re: Frank Lloyd Wright
From restoration architects I have been a factotum/amanuensis
for, this opinion is paramount.
"His buildings leak like sieves".
Nice to look at, but do they "work"?
--
Ted Samsel ....."driving a Hudson Hornet on the information
superhighway. Now all we need is a JC Whitney
catalog to order leopardskin terrycloth seat
covers."
Sara Larson
: For more than 20 years, The Fountainhead has been on a course that I teach
: to third-year art and music students. The course is called The Artist in
: Society. The Fountainhead is *not* compulsory reading--individual students
: taking this course can choose from a wide variety of books, or can read
: any other relevant books that they suggest themselves.
: Why is Rand excluded from the canon of 20th-century American writers? I
: speculate that it is because of the tradition of Democratic liberalism
: that has prevailed in American universities for such a long time. The
: culmination of the liberal tradition is the currently fashionable stance
: of political correctness, which ition.
I would be very curious to know what other books are on your class'
reading list regarding artists in Society. Or what other fictional
treatments there are to discuss. I'm racking my brains. I guess I've
read a couple of things that directly touch on the subject (probably a
lot of novels touch it indirectly, since many authors see themselves
as artists). Perhaps Maxine Hong Kingston's _Tripmaster Monkey_? Parts
or all of Proust's _Remembrance of Things Past_? I'm sure my
repertoire is much too small here.
As for a canon of 20th-century writers, doesn't that seem unnecessary
in this century? I'd rather wait until the 21st century to make
decisions about today's writing.
-Sara
John McCarthy
Re: Frank Lloyd Wright
From restoration architects I have been a factotum/amanuensis
for, this opinion is paramount.
"His buildings leak like sieves".
Nice to look at, but do they "work"?
--
It may all be true, but architects tend to run in schools, and the
one's you heard may be simply repeating their party line.
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, rcro...@hildy.zso.dec.com ("Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley") says:
>Francis Muir (fra...@oas.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
>
>: The fact of the matter is that Wright was available
>: but very expensive, and for some of us still without much merit.
>
>Not to mention having unbelievably screwy ideas about how tall
>ceilings and doors should be.
Yes, that's what happens when one of the vertically challenged gets to set
the scale for everyone else.
I believe that one of Wright's sources was the Buck Rogers comic strip;
at least some of his designs look as if they might suit Ming The Merciless,
in particular Wright's notion of a mile-high skyscraper.
I --like-- Wright's work.
BTW, Wolfe's FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE has to be one of the silliest books
on architecture ever written--funny but ridiculous.
Wright's THE FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURE is worth a read.
J. Del Col
--
Jeff Del Col * "Sleeplessness is like metaphysics.
A-B College * Be there."
Philippi, WV *
* ----Charles Simic----
Richard Mende
In a previous article, wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) says:
>
>The novels qua novels are merely bad and forgettable, and are not worth
>much of a reaction qua novels. It's when you discover the atrocious
>philosophy manque and braindead Randroid missionary cult that comes
>attached to them that you learn to violently oppose Rand.
>--
MPW's strong reaction to Rand is quite typical. IMO, Rand's polictical
message is so strong that, for some, it overwhelms the artistic merits.
As I young man, I was told by a respected older reader that Rand was
"dangerous."
For more than 20 years, The Fountainhead has been on a course that I teach
to third-year art and music students. The course is called The Artist in
Society. The Fountainhead is *not* compulsory reading--individual students
taking this course can choose from a wide variety of books, or can read
any other relevant books that they suggest themselves.
When I first put The Fountainhead on the course reading list, I did so in
response to political pressure. I had never read anthing by Rand. My
first reaction to the book was: "It's good, but the students will not
like it because of the blatantly right-wing political theme."
Was I ever wrong! It's safe to say that over 500 students have *chosen*
to read this book, when innumerable other choices were available to them.
Every student who has chosen this book has loved it. Many students who
have never read another book in their lives have finished it. Some have
reported to me that the book has changed their lives. Some have formed
extracurricular discussion groups to further examine this novel.
A previous poster has described Rand as a "competent storyteller." I
would suggest that the poster read The Fountainhead at least twice. The
amazing artistry of the book is lost in the gripping plot. Only on the
second and third reading do you realize how carefully constructed the
novel is. Every word makes a contribution to plot, characterization, theme.
And some of you have already pointed out that there are a lot of words--in
some editions the novel runs well over 700 pages.
I agree that Atlas Shrugged is too long. Anyone who finds Rand verbose,
however, should try the brilliant little masterpiece Anthem. It's a kind
of SF that was unusual for Rand. The story is still strong, the political
message is still clear.
The original poster asked about Frank Lloyd Wright. Yes, Roark was based
on FLW. Rand wanted to interview Wright in preparation for writing the
book, but Wright refused to co-operate. He did read the book later, and
he liked it, but Wright and Rand never met.
Why is Rand excluded from the canon of 20th-century American writers? I
speculate that it is because of the tradition of Democratic liberalism
that has prevailed in American universities for such a long time. The
culmination of the liberal tradition is the currently fashionable stance
of political correctness, which ition.
For those of you who are about to flame me for my politics, let me state
unequivocally that I am apolitical. I am a Canadian, and I never fail to
vote in federal elections for the Rhino party.
John McCarthy
BTW, Wolfe's FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE has to be one of the
silliest books on architecture ever written--funny but
ridiculous.
I dunno. It makes many of its points via quotations from the
architects he criticizes and their coteries.
kevin sawad brooks
>
>Was I ever wrong!
>It's safe to say that over 500 students have *chosen* >to read this book,
The use of the word "chosen" -- emphasized with asterisks, even -- is
highly suspect; it suggests that the students actually made (and genrally
make) "choices" *free* of other factors (i.e. class, educational privelege,
the other items available (who put them there?) for selection).
Such factors should be taken into account in describing such "choices."
it may also be helpful to mention the institution at which this "choice"
was allowed to take place. I don't mean to sound overly confrontational,
but it just seems to me that a word such as "choice" (and its cognates)
is already too overdetermined in the context of late 20th c. western
capitalist-oriented civilization for it to be used without remark in
the context of Ayn Rand, whose "philosophical" kitsch is buttered to
go down the throats of the already predisposed to such capitalist
ideology.
ok, that's my rant.
>when innumerable other choices were available to them.
Was Roger Fry's Vision and Design on the list?
>Every student who has chosen this book has loved it. Many students who
>have never read another book in their lives have finished it.
Well, that's already pretty problematic, not to mention quite an
indictment, I think.
Some have
>reported to me that the book has changed their lives. Some have formed
>extracurricular discussion groups to further examine this novel.
Kevin
--
"A narrowly bestirred mistaken federation presummed differ in a plaster
that denial present well dense meant differ in commonality their problem
of resemblance of effectual not a distance." -- Gertrude Stein, _How to Write_
Sandra Eix
(in response to someone who wrote:
>> >I can respect the reader who drops her after ten pages, but I find it
>> >hard to understand those who read 1200 pages of Atlas Shrugged and
>> >700 pages of The Fountainhead only to discover that they detest her.
> I believe there is in fact only a single mystery, that her
>advocates and her detractors are the same people, at different stages in
>their lives...
>Let me say that in my opinion, Ayn Rand is no more than a competent
>storyteller with delusions of grandeur. However, she provides a product
>which is very difficult to find elsewhere. Her subject is the romance of
>ability, specifically ability in business...
>This theme appeals to many high school students, particularly
>technically-oriented students. Many of them swallow Rand hook, line, and
>sinker, and later suffer from gastric distress.
May I present myself as an example of this theory. I in fact read
Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, We The Living (over which I cried
buckets (!) and a much shorter book with a title like Anthem, perhaps,
when I was an impressionable high schooler. I was much taken with
the idea of the romantic individualist surviving repression by the
evil system. Now I can't stand Ayn Rand's philosophy, which sounds
a lot more like "screw the disadvantaged, they'd work their way out
of trouble if they had any gumption", and I find the books way too
obviously preachy. I suppose as a physicist, I count as
technically-oriented, even.
-sandy
kevin sawad brooks
>Frank Lloyd Wright was the leading American architect until he was
>overshadowed by the modern architecture school imported from Europe
>and basing itself in part on somewhat leftist sloganeering.
What's your point? Wright was quite a socialist himself, not to mention
a *modernist* of the "high" variety! That he was American doesn't change
that. What's your point?
As for that architecture from Europe: are you referring to Mies van der
Rohe? He hardly overshadowed Wright -- not anymore than other
modernist artists "overshadow" other modernist artists, as they make
dialogue stylistically with each other. That's the structure of
modernism! What's your point?
Tom
>Wolfe's _From Bauhaus to Our House_ complains about the treatment of
>Wright. I suspect Wolfe is correct both as to history and as to who
>was better.
Better on what grounds? According to which ideology? Right (NOT WRIGHT!)
wing? What's your point?
A lot of great buildings were never built because of
>this.
Well, a lot of buildings are never built because of many different
reasons. One of the most insidious one in this context is the way
in which corporations turn to engineers rather than to architects to
design their off-the-rack buildings, getting them for cheaper,
avoiding the trauma of encountering really innovative design. It's
much more difficult to be innovative today -- not because everything
has been done, but because few will pay for it.
Also many clients will cancel projects in the middle... often
architects are not paid the remainder of the bill.
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>
SubGenius
: Much of the problem, seemingly, can be traced
: to problems with concrete pour, but there also appear to have been some
: serious design flaws.
+----------------------------------SubG-----------------------------------+
You don't pour concrete; you place it.
`That's not
a cinder
block,'
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley
: The fact of the matter is that Wright was available
: but very expensive, and for some of us still without much merit.
Not to mention having unbelievably screwy ideas about how tall
ceilings and doors should be.
--
Rebecca Crowley standard disclaimers apply rcro...@zso.dec.com
Homogenity of belief is unhealthy and dead dull.
Francis Muir
Jeffrey A. Del Col includes:
BTW, Wolfe's FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE has to be one of the
silliest books on architecture ever written--funny but
ridiculous.
I dunno. It makes many of its points via quotations from the
architects he criticizes and their coteries.
It is well-known that artists talk an awful lot of rubbish. Every little
rabbisto and rabbista knows how ludicrous do writers become when they
talk about writing. I'm not sure if Mies van der Rohe is one of those
cited, but you don't listen to MvdR, you walk round and about and in and
out of one of his buildings. You let the design do the talking. Oh yes,
one more thing. You may not like the Bauhaus philosophy as you think you
know it, but they sure taught those in their care and instruction how
to pour cement -- which skill seems to have eluded Mr. Wright; and that
has got absolutely nothing to do with the particular wing he did or did
not favor. Buildings properly fabricated need renovating every 500 years,
not every 50.
Francis Muir
Francis Muir
Joann Zimmerman writes:
Much of the problem, seemingly, can be traced
to problems with concrete pour, but there also
appear to have been some serious design flaws.
You don't pour concrete; you place it.
SubGenius and Joann Zimmerman and myself would pour cement of course. But
can we be sure what Frank Lloyd Wright would do?
Francis Muir
Gomez Philosophaster
: You don't pour concrete; you place it.
I don't know what you do with it, but having done construction work
myself for several years, I have "poured" quite a few yards of the stuff.
Joann Zimmerman
(John McCarthy) wrote:
> In article <2spvks$p...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bh...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel) writes:
> Re: Frank Lloyd Wright
> From restoration architects I have been a factotum/amanuensis
> for, this opinion is paramount.
> "His buildings leak like sieves".
> Nice to look at, but do they "work"?
> It may all be true, but architects tend to run in schools, and the
> one's you heard may be simply repeating their party line.
I've read this (that Wright's buildings leak) in a number of places,
including at least two accounts of restorations of Wright buildings, one of
which was published in _Fine Homebuilding_ a number of years back. Note
that the accounts I read were not those of architects but of builders and
preservation specialists, neither group of of which was likely to be
running around in any school. Much of the problem, seemingly, can be traced
to problems with concrete pour, but there also appear to have been some
serious design flaws.
I do, however, find it interesting that the assistant curator for the
recent (ongoing?) New York Wright show, a member of the local Architecture
faculty, has his own problems with leakage and drainage, to the point where
his retaining wall is in a very bad way indeed.
--
"Books speak even when they stand unopened on the shelf. If you would
know a man or woman, look at their books, not their software."
--E. Annie Proulx
Joann Zimmerman jz...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
kevin sawad brooks
Just for the record, which buidings by wright are being criticized?
For example, when the Robie House was built/grown (1908-9), using
poured concrete -- a very special material for Wright because of
its particular modern qualities ("Aesthetically concrete has
neither song nor any story." -- Writings and Buidings) -- ,
that was the first use of that technique, and could not be
perdicted how the material would change/grow(?) over the years.
Wright experimented with his materials, using them in ways that
we now take for granted, having devised technologies to apply
them, but perhaps, in the process, forgetting about the
imaginative and poetic ways in which Wright thought about and
used them.
Kevin
Lee Rudolph
>Oh yes,
>one more thing. You may not like the Bauhaus philosophy as you think you
>know it, but they sure taught those in their care and instruction how
>to pour cement -- which skill seems to have eluded Mr. Wright; and that
>has got absolutely nothing to do with the particular wing he did or did
>not favor. Buildings properly fabricated need renovating every 500 years,
>not every 50.
One day about 20 years ago I happened to be in the courtyard of
the building in Cambridge (Mass.) where The Architects Collaborative
had its offices, on the day of their annual celebration of Gropius's
birthday, eating their strawberries and feeling like the interloper I
was. In his off-the-cuff remarks, one of the partners spoke
of I.M. Pei having learned "the language of" something or other
(design? architecture?) from Gropius, and then went on to say,
"We hadn't realized that that language included falling windows."
However, the original windows from Pei's John Hancock tower (the
ones that all had to be replaced after a few fell out) are very
nice, and I have one in my kitchen now--it cost about only $100
salvage.
Lee Rudolph
Ted B Samsel
Ah, now we're getting too abstract.....the ol' dichoatamous
thing of *ABSTRACT CONCRETIONS* and it's obvert side *CONCRETE
ABSTRACTIONS*. Can you write your name in it and leave a
graffito for the lesions to come?
Old AYN and her crew were quite unjolly. Not the sort who would
read Walt Kelly's POGO. Pity.
SubGenius
+-------------------------------------SubG---------------------------------+
Most construction workers do. Rewind and correct:
`You shouldn't pour concrete; you should place it.'
Like: `In Texas, you -shouldn't- patch concrete pavements with
asphalt,' no matter how often it's done.
(Why the dictitorial attitude? Why, the PCA's from Skokie, Illinois,
of course.)
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
SubGenius
: It is well-known that artists talk an awful lot of rubbish. Every little
: rabbisto and rabbista knows how ludicrous do writers become when they
: talk about writing.
+--------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+
Hm.
I can think of several writers who've had quite interesting and edifying
thinks to say on writing:
H. L. Mencken
Nikos Kazantzakis
Graham Greene
Osbert Sitwell
Anthony Burgess
Although I admit that the sort of behaviour you mention may in fact
be governed by the rule you suggest, I would forward the correlary that
the ludicrousness of the sage pronouncements about speculative
pomposities is in direct proportion to the luicrousity of the speculative
pomposities being pronounced upon.
This is, of course, not one of my self-referential posts.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Bernie Rauscher
>I suspect her detractors write with the bitterness of apostasy.
Apostasy, ... no. There are many people who never embraced her creed.
>I can respect the reader who drops her after ten pages, but I find it
>hard to understand those who read 1200 pages of Atlas Shrugged and
>700 pages of The Fountainhead only to discover that they detest her.
I work in a technical field. Several of my co-workers and friends
had mentioned that Ayn Rand was their favorite author in high school.
Very early in "Atlas Shrugged", I knew I didn't agree with her
objectivism. However, it was still a fairly nice story and an easy read
(in spite of the length). Also, my friends wanted to know what I thought.
So, I pressed on. I skipped most of the big John Galt speech seeing as
she'd already said everything in it earlier in the book. Other than the
big speech, I read the whole book.
And, yes, --I detest her. More specifically, I detest "objectivism". As a
fiction writer, she didn't particularly stand out. However, she
tells young bourgeois* exactly what they want to hear, and creates a simple
world in which it all works. Those who disagree are irrational (an
easy pill for the budding engineer with high grades and S.A.T.s to swallow).
----------
* I'm not using the term bourgeois to be a snob.
The term "middle class" would almost do. However, it doesn't covey the
lack of idealism that comes with "bourgeois". Rand's world is a very
Jeff Dalton
>>
>>The novels qua novels are merely bad and forgettable, and are not worth
>>much of a reaction qua novels. It's when you discover the atrocious
>>philosophy manque and braindead Randroid missionary cult that comes
>>attached to them that you learn to violently oppose Rand.
>>--
>
>MPW's strong reaction to Rand is quite typical. IMO, Rand's polictical
>message is so strong that, for some, it overwhelms the artistic merits.
Her political views are one thing, the way she presents them another.
Her books are outrageously manipulative, and when someone finds that
kind of caricature and distortion grating, as I do, virtually unreadable.
>When I first put The Fountainhead on the course reading list, I did so in
>response to political pressure.
Interesting...
> I had never read anthing by Rand. My
>first reaction to the book was: "It's good, but the students will not
>like it because of the blatantly right-wing political theme."
>
>Was I ever wrong! It's safe to say that over 500 students have *chosen*
>to read this book, when innumerable other choices were available to them.
I am surprised. I cannot read more than a paragraph or so at a time.
>A previous poster has described Rand as a "competent storyteller." I
>would suggest that the poster read The Fountainhead at least twice. The
>amazing artistry of the book is lost in the gripping plot. Only on the
>second and third reading do you realize how carefully constructed the
>novel is. Every word makes a contribution to plot, characterization, theme.
>And some of you have already pointed out that there are a lot of words--in
>some editions the novel runs well over 700 pages.
Oh come on! Amazing artistry? Gripping plot? I'll agree that it's
carefully constructed. It's carefully constructed to get readers to
think in a certain way.
>Why is Rand excluded from the canon of 20th-century American writers?
Residual good sense.