The End. (Carlye Nealon)

You do not understand how happy I am to have finished this whole 1069-paged book.  I feel so accomplished.  I have never read a book close to this many pages in my whole entire life.  When I read the last sentence, I could not believe that I had finally finished Atlas Shrugged.  It wasn’t that I did not like the book and wanted it to finish, it was that I had read such a long book in a short period of time.  When I first looked at the book, I thought that I could never read that entire thing.  However, I proved to myself that I could. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the book.  Even though it was so long, I loved reading it.  I found it very interesting and wanted to read more and learn more about the characters.  However, there were some parts of the book that were slow and caused me to read them so slowly that it took me forever to get through the boring parts.  For example the speeches made by the different characters were usually very long and very opinionated.  Two speeches that I have in my mind particularly are the James Taggart speech at the beginning of the book about money and the John Galt speech at the end of the book about the state of the world and how looters are taking over.  Both speeches are long and I got bored reading them.  However, they were not just boring, but also very opinionated and it seemed like both men just wanted everyone to agree with what they were saying.  Even though the John Galt speech was so long, I did agree with some of the points that he was saying.  Even though it was selfish that he said we should put our self-interest before others, in the state of the world that they are living in that is what they have to do.  Their government is no help since it is all just made up of looters taking over what others have done and not really helping by themselves without the help of others.  People need to focus on themselves first so that they can help build up their society one step at a time.  John Galt, Dagny Taggar, Hank Rearden, Francisco d’Anconia, and Ragnar Danneskjold know this is true and that is the reason why they all end up leaving the real world and go to live in the valley.  Besides these long speeches and the long meetings about business, I was really interested by everything about the book. 

I wanted to keep reading so that I could find out what happens to every character because after 1069 pages there is no way that you cannot feel connected to them in someway.  Overall, my two favorite characters were Dagny Taggart and John Galt.  Dagny was the only “great” woman in this book who acted superior and got things done they way she wanted.  I hated how people in the book always thought that women shouldn’t be in such high leadership roles or that they shouldn’t be able to make big decisions.  This aspect made me love Dagny even more because she showed them wrong.  Everyone was scared of her in some way because they knew what she was capable of doing.  When Dagny wanted something, she always got it done in the exact way she wanted it.  She made the men who thought they were better than here look weak and I loved that.  On the other hand, I liked John Galt because he represented the “perfect man” in society and many themes were taught through his words and different speeches.  Some of the characters I disliked were James Taggart, Lillian Rearden, and the a few of the men who worked for the government but always did things wrong.  James thought he was so superior when really he did nothing and basically Dagny lead their company alone.  Lillian tried to be in with the “great” people in the world by telling them secrets or trying to be on their side, but it never worked.  I could just tell from the beginning that she was not a very smart person and just wanted the fame and popularity.  Lastly, the men who worked for the government were just plain out stupid.  They were ruining the state of the world with one new decision after the next.  They did not know how to run the country and they were just looters themselves taking things that people did and blaming others if things went wrong. 

Not only was the book just interesting to read, but I also learned a lot and it taught me different messages.  For example, it taught me how “man’s mind is his basic tool of survival,” (page 926).  Without all the great minds of the “great people,” the state of the world worsened to the point that everything was breaking down.  The world needs these great minds to work together to keep the world running smoothly.  Rand says this when Dagny, John, Francisco, Hank, and Ragnar are flying together to the valley and she says, “Their plane was carrying all that was left of New York City,” (page 1061).  When the world is left only to the looters they do not work together because they all just want to be great and to be better than each other.  I loved the ending of the book when Galt “raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar,” (page 1069).  The sign of the dollar signifies the strikers who left to the valley and what Galt does gives hope that they will start again and create a new nation better than the last.