# Ayn Rand―How bad could she really be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 18, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299 "2008-06-18T03:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/1 "2008-06-18T03:46:29Z")
I am not talking about her ideas. I mean her prose. Is it really as bad as I have heard? I do think I have ever heard a person praise her writing. Even the fans I have met have said her prose is just awful. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/2 "2008-06-18T03:49:31Z")
It’s certainly not the worst, but it’s not the best, either. She is especially long-winded, and a good number of people find her endlessly repetitive. That said, most of the knock on her comes from what she says, not how she says it. The two are inextricably linked. 100 pages of John Galt preaching Objectivism tends to piss people off no matter how well-written it is. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/3 "2008-06-18T04:21:18Z")
I think her stuff is reasonably well written, but it’s just endless. And so serious. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/4 "2008-06-18T04:23:38Z")
It’s amazing how many people have negative opinions about her writing (both content and style), without having read any of her books. Why don’t you find out for yourself? ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/5 "2008-06-18T04:25:36Z")
Incidentally, _Atlas Shrugged_ is my favorite book, lest you think that I haven’t read her stuff. She’s not for everybody is all I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/6 "2008-06-18T04:28:49Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] It’s amazing how many people have negative opinions about her writing (both content and style), without having read any of her books. Why don’t you find out for yourself? [/QUOTE] Because it so long. _Atlas Shrugged_ 1168 pages. _The Fountainhead_ 752 pages. (I know she wrote other stuff.) ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/7 "2008-06-18T04:29:17Z")
I’ve heard that _Atlas Shrugged_ has one or two incidents of sex. You’ll never notice it. That’s bad writing. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/8 "2008-06-18T04:31:01Z")
I read “Anthem” years ago…agree, it was much too serious. She doesn’t seem to have any sense of humor at all. No sense of playfulness, no sense that she’s winking at the reader, the way I often get with a lot of writers. ETA: “Anthem” was tiny, especially for her. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/9 "2008-06-18T04:32:27Z")
[QUOTE=Dag Otto] I’ve heard that _Atlas Shrugged_ has one or two incidents of sex. You’ll never notice it. That’s bad writing. [/QUOTE] That’s absurd. Of course you notice them. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/10 "2008-06-18T04:34:19Z")
I’ve read most of Ayn Rand’s stuff. I think the Fountainhead is her best book as a work of fiction, but Atlas Shrugged is obviously more ambitious. Frankly, I think it’s the message behnd her books that causes people to criticize her prose so much. If she were spouting left-wing prattle with equally turgid writing, she’d get a lot more benefit of the doubt. There’s quite a bit of ‘great literature’ - especially modern literature - that I find nearly unreadable. But because people find the theme of the book personally satisfying or at least somewhat resonant, they’re willing to overlook the actual style. Maybe the other books are equally bad, but it’s just Rand that everyone feels free to tee off on. For myself, I find the ‘big ideas’ in her books attractive, and I like her style of romantic fiction which attempts to portray an idealized image of humanity, rather than being an accurate depiction of life as it is, to be interesting. So I like her books, but I have to admit I haven’t read any of them for a long time. Once a decade is pretty much enough. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/11 "2008-06-18T05:02:31Z")
[Well…](http://www.geocities.com/jarbabyj/aynrants.html) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/12 "2008-06-18T05:34:20Z")
[QUOTE=Dag Otto] I’ve heard that _Atlas Shrugged_ has one or two incidents of sex. You’ll never notice it. That’s bad writing. [/QUOTE] The person who said that hadn’t actually read Rand, I figure. Granted, Rand doesn’t go into as much explicit mechanical detail as, say, a modern Harlequin Romance, but sex does play an important part. If I had to criticize Rand, it’s that her material is increasingly dated. It’s getting so you have to read up on what communism was all about to understand what she was so concerned about, since it’s pretty well faded as a bugaboo of terror. I guess that means she won, or something. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/13 "2008-06-18T05:41:03Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] I’ve read most of Ayn Rand’s stuff. I think the Fountainhead is her best book as a work of fiction, but Atlas Shrugged is obviously more ambitious. [/quote] The best description I’ve heard of the prose of _Atlas Shrugged_ was that the characters were “…hacked out of concrete with a blunt ice-pick”. > [@](#): > > Frankly, I think it’s the message behnd her books that causes people to criticize her prose so much. If she were spouting left-wing prattle with equally turgid writing, she’d get a lot more benefit of the doubt. There’s quite a bit of ‘great literature’ - especially modern literature - that I find nearly unreadable. But because people find the theme of the book personally satisfying or at least somewhat resonant, they’re willing to overlook the actual style. Great writing can compensate for a message the reader disagrees with. I love the writing of P.J. O’Roarke, even though I find his politics disagreeable. I tried to read _Atlas Shrugged_, and it was just too awful for words. She’s the mother of all those terrible FanFic writers who have characters that are nothing more than mouthpieces for their particular hobbyhorse. Her work is capitalism porn. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/14 "2008-06-18T06:02:33Z")
Plus, she romanticizes architects. And we all know they’re jerks. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/15 "2008-06-18T12:18:29Z")
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun] I am not talking about her ideas. I mean her prose. Is it really as bad as I have heard? I do think I have ever heard a person praise her writing. Even the fans I have met have said her prose is just awful. [/QUOTE] What, hasn’t **everyone** read _Anthem?_ (Just because it was the shortest book on the summer reading list?) ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/16 "2008-06-18T12:24:44Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] The person who said that hadn’t actually read Rand, I figure. [/QUOTE] Actually, I just wish I never read Rand. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/17 "2008-06-18T12:38:02Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] That said, most of the knock on her comes from what she says, not how she says it. The two are inextricably linked. 100 pages of John Galt preaching Objectivism tends to piss people off no matter how well-written it is. [/QUOTE] I dunno… wouldn’t John Galt preaching Objectivism for 100 pages when the idea allegedly could be outlined while standing on one leg, be considered a problem with the \*“how” \* the message was being sent? She thought the audience was so dense the point had to be hammered on and on? I figured I’d give her the benefit and assumed that it was the case that she thought the message was SO life-or-death important it bore repeating (and repeating, and…) She also had something of a tendency, in the eyes of a later-day reader, to cast the story with archetypes rather than with “real people”; but I figure that also is partly a contextual artifact of what a modern reader expects in characterization vs. someone portraying a world where heroes are heroes and villains are villains all the way through. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/18 "2008-06-18T12:42:29Z")
[QUOTE=JRDelirious] She also had something of a tendency, in the eyes of a later-day reader, to cast the story with archetypes rather than with “real people” [/QUOTE] Haven’t read Rand, but since she was writing primarily to make a point, this seems forgivable and even appropriate. She’s not describing events for the hell of it, she is shaping them to make her point. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/19 "2008-06-18T12:46:21Z")
She has the amazing ability to take a 300 page plot and stretch it out into 1000+ pages. She needed a good editor. When I read her in college I found it best to skim. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2008, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299/20 "2008-06-18T13:02:32Z")
I’ve read _The Fountainhead,_ which from what I’ve heard is widely considered her most successful novel as a novel. Which says nothing good about the others. The plotting is paced well enough, but the only halfway successful, believable characters in the whole story are Keating and Wynand, and they’re not very successful or believable at all. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-how-bad-could-she-really-be/453299.md?page=2)