In light of Shapiro's recent commentary on our blog I was planning to at least try and make this post less repetitive; thankfully I have met the man- the myth- the legend: John Galt, and he has given me the power and the will to write about something new. Yay for John Galt.
But for the record: Yes, it does make me feel better to just rant about her lack of subtlety, however repetitive it may be. It's cathartic.
After around 640 Ayn Rand pages (which is roughly equal to 1300 human pages) We have finally met John Galt. Or rather I have, because apparently I was the last one to reach Part III. I do not feel the same need to summarize Part II as I did for Part I simply because Parts II and III seem to just flow together. The only reason I can think of to split them up is to add more emphasis to the introduction of John Galt. Now as great as the build up to this introduction was, I did not expect Galt to be the prophet of objectivism, in fact I saw him as an enemy until Dagny named the John Galt line, it was at that point that I wondered exactly what team Galt was playing for, so to speak. Now Galt's speech is insanely long and I felt that it was essentially Rand laying out not only her philosophy but the mysteries that had been thus far unexplained. I decided to Google "John Galt speech" and apparently Rand spent two years writing this part of the book; she felt it was not only the most important part but it was her chance to get her message across- because she had not done that already with the subtlety of a foghorn and arguments filled with- no, I promise we will not be talking about Rand and her lack of subtlety this time. Even though it is entirely relevant.
I do not like John Galt as much as I expected to because he is essentially the embodiment of Randian philosophy, and I have had my fill of that. As a character... well he primarily exists to embody the aforementioned beliefs so I do not really see too much to appreciate.
What I feel must be mentioned is the break in feel here. I understand we are now out of the world of the crumbling economy/society (in fact we are so far removed that MAGIC MAKES US INVISIBLE TO THE REST OF THE WORLD) but this does not even feel like the same book anymore. We had this gritty, hardcore, industrial world going on, and all of a sudden we transcend into the John Galt subplot (which is now the plot) and it would all be cool if it was the matrix and nothing was real and now we were behind the scenes- but it was all real, and now it is the same level of real, but we now have to accept that we are in a different world. Dagny survived a horrible accident, probably because her objectivism cushioned the impact, and now she is in the magical Narnia of businessmen.
In the interest of keeping this within a reasonable-ish length I want to move on to something that bothers me almost as much as Rand's lack of subtlety (which, for the record, is the bane of my existence), and that is Dagny's "love life". in the last 120 pages she has admitted her love for two people, one of which was essentially on sight. So apparently objectivists fall in love with any objectivist they see, but that's not my problem. My problem here is that Dagny was introduced as the woman who can be a woman and still do business with the big boys- what femininity she had would not interfere. However, it has been quite some time since said introduction and I fear Rand has strayed from the path. At this point, there are two kinds of Dagny scenes: scenes where she has a penis, and scenes where she does not. When Dagny is conducting business she feels nothing, she cares for nothing, and she behaves like every other respectable businessman in the book. However, when Dagny shows any signs of being a woman, suddenly she is incapable of being the strong businessman she was before. So at the beginning of the book Rand painted Dagny as the Alpha and Omega, she could do everything the guys could and still be feminine to whatever degree she was, or at the very least she could be attracted to men. Now she has scenes where she behaves like a man, conducts business like a man, and spouts objectivist propaganda like a man, but the only scenes where you could guess she is a woman are the scenes where hse is fawning over a strong businessman. While yes, there are scenes where said businessmen claim love and lust (usually lust) for her, I feel that this does not take from their characters in the way that it takes from Dagny's- the change in Dagny is far more significant.
Also, how about that pledge thing? The "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine," thing? That is a pretty deep summary of objectivism, sort of. Rand probably took a day off after writing that one.
2 years? To write that speech? Oh wow... I think I will have to really analyze that and consider it for a blog post next time.
ReplyDeleteThat made me laugh.
Wow Ayn Rand- I will have to read Anthem several times after this book to feel better about liking it.
Thank you for posting this- I needed a good laugh on a Sunday night spent slaving over this assignment (with full enjoyment, naturally). I could not agree with you more, Felipe. I thought I was the only one uncomfortably unfazed upon meeting “the man- the myth- the legend: John Galt”. He is, indeed, a solid piece of Rand’s whole point, and I am not sure whether I should be glad or frustrated that it took her this long to sum up her point in two arduously-read pages of nonstop Mr. Perfect jibber jabber: to be more specific, I am glad that Rand is capable of encapsulating her opinion in two pages rather than 600 (I am so proud), yet frustrated that she could not have just done that instead of making me read 600 pages of the same complaints (but who are you to judge, look at the length of your blog posts ). Then again, I do feel- I want to feel- that there is a reason why she drags us through all of this to then conclude it all in a speech that took her years to write. My best guess is she wants us to feel as exasperated as the citizens of the real world dystopia, so much so that we are thankful to have the destroyer be the one to give us the answer to this dilemma (oh, irony). And yet, I am not impressed by Mr. Perfect. I suppose that’s because I have yet to see him make any progress- he’s all talk and no action, so far.
ReplyDeleteI might have to disagree with you on you analysis on Dagny, though, and forgive my obvious bias. I feel that in Part III, Dagny is discovering her femininity for the first time. She questions this feeling of satisfaction in watching Mr. Perfect eat her food (which I have to assume tastes like garbage because she probably has not cooked a day in her life). These feelings of a simple housewife that she is experiencing as she places herself back in square one, working her way to the top, from rags to riches- the way Rand thinks it should be- are what makes me admire her even more. As for her romantic spontaneity, I cannot help but feel that it is still perfectly normal. Maybe not socially acceptable, but she is not a married woman, nor is she bound by status of girlfriend or fiancée or anything like that, and she is human, so I do think she has every right to jump from one man to the other in terms of her sexual and romantic desires, especially since she has not had enough time or care to focus on relationships, partly because she’s a workaholic, and partly because she spent all of her developmental time lusting over Frisco. I guess I do feel bad for Rearden, though.
Anyway, it is not such a far off idea for Rand to flip-flop Dagny as feminine and masculine, now that I have contemplated it. When I read about the slap that Francisco gave her to bring her down as his equal, I want to believe that Rand is trying to make her equal within herself. She is masculine when she needs to be, feminine when she cannot deny herself to be, and I think that is what makes her a survivor in this tumultuous narrative. To make myself clearer, take Lillian Rearden as a comparison. She is damn smart, I’ll give her that, and sneaky too- in fact, I think she has the potential to be just as smart as Dagny- but she is limited by her femininity, something that Dagny has over her, and in short, makes Dagny prevail over her. I think Rand had to make Dagny so bipolar in her demeanor- there’s no way she could have lasted this far if she wasn’t.
( I think your Long Post Syndrome is contagious )
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