I Did Not Pay for Air

                The "honeymoon phase" between Atlas Shrugged and I has come to an abrupt end. What began as a tolerable in-depth description of every blade of grass and bead of sweat developed beautifully into a gripping story line. Now roughly 400 pages in, I am beginning to realize the "predictability of the story" that my peers have been livid about. I am, however, forgiving of this.

Ayn Rand is obviously not a perfect novelist. Just because she holds this heavily branded title of grandeur on her literary works does not automatically make her writing perfect. Her main flaw is her incapacity for bluntness and her overemphasis in all the wrong areas. For example, when Dagny was in search of the creator of the most efficient (yet, impossible) engine she found on a whim on what should have been her vacation from work (what can one expect from her, the workaholic), she is led to an obscure person, who would ramble on and on about nothingness, leading to an almost fruitless encounter, until Dagny is finally presented with the vaguest lead ever! Over… and over… and over again. All the way up to the most annoying dead end. I want to believe Rand did this on purpose, to perhaps relay the same dejectedness that Dagny felt at that end. If this is true, she did a damn good job,  but that does not save her from her flaw.

Rand has the tendency to create excruciatingly unnecessary scenes just to introduce a minute detail. Normally, I enjoy this method of writing- just not thirty times in the same novel. I am not the slightest bit intimidated by the width of this novel, but to know that it's girth is a product of her loquaciousness and imbalance in storytelling, this food-for-thought ends up being a lot of empty calories.