I was going for laughs, I didn't mean to make it sound quite so brutal. I don't have to pay income taxes because I haven't had an income in a long time and I don't actually get unemployment checks, I mooch off family rather than the government. The life of a parasite ain't all bad, you meet lots of interesting people, mostly mexicans:\
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just skip ahead to the end of the book when John Galt gives his 50 page speech and you can get the gist of the entire book. |
if you're reading the centennial edition it starts at the bottom of page 923
i liked the fountainhead way better, personally. but i think that's because its not as dry and you can appreciate its literary value -- or something. |
also its better if you don't think of there being only two types of people but that there are just two types of ideologies which she is dealing with. Namely, "communism"/socialism and capitalism.
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And usually when they do things for each other, note that its more for their own benefit than for their "Bros." Almost everytime they help somebody out its because they believe that it will help their business out. Like rearden sells the railroad industry a bunch of rearden metal for rails or something, right? But not only is he making a small profit but he's: Improving the transportation network which will let him transfer more resources at a faster rate (allowing him to produce more products faster), and move his products to sell easier -- improving his own industry. Dagny in return gets a high quality rail that won't degenerate. Also, it put his product out there and showed how useful it can be. Most times they help eachother its under conditions like that. Eventually they start helping each other out because they know that the economy is getting fucked and they are the only productive ones in society, and the more of them that crumble the more the economy is destabilized and their own industries would eventually crumble as well. Especially since many of these industries were co-dependent. The ones that were helping their "Bros" were all the anti-dog-eat-dog people who thought they should be able to keep their industries open while not being productive. |
Your right about the co-dependency thing, there's no reason they wouldn't be chummy with each other but something still rackles me about the Capitilist characters. I guess it's cause they didn't have any real faults (at least none by my standards). On the other hand I really liked the pro-socialist assholes, I'm not good with verbatim or I'd quote that one part where that young engineer tells Dagney off for suggesting he had to be good at engineering to get a job as an engineer.
Maybe I'll pick it up again and read just the last hundred pages. |
how far did you get into it? the last 100 pages really aren't that worthwhile, the speech by John Galt is though... the middle is pretty important though because that's when the economy starts to collapse. its pretty interesting, and if you like the pro-socialist bastards then I would recommend reading the whole thing really. They start to really fuck things up in the middle of the book. you should read the fountain head :O that book is awesome. although the main character is again faultless ;] |
I stopped reading after Dagney's number one peon realizes his also in love with her. At the end of the chapter he tells the mysterious stranger in the cafeteria about Rearden and Dagney's affair and the stranger, distressed, books it out of there (I assume his in love with Dagney as well).
I guess I'll just have to show some true world grit and finish the damn thing. You see I got side tracked with something else and when I got back to it I saw it's hugeness with fresh eyes. The pages are enormous and the print is so tiny. If this was in paperback I bet it would be more like 2000 pgs long. If it was non-fiction I wouldn't be having this problem but at some point in my life I picked up a lot of weird rules on when it is and isn't okay to read a book. |
oh yea that's pretty far in. My paperback edition is like 1300 pages i think.
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That's not too bad. I think I'll pick this back up after I finish what I'm reading right now. In reality I stopped reading Atlas Shrugged a few months ago. I use these "What are you ___ right now" threads as pretext to talk about whatevers on my mind.:\
At this very moment in time I'm reading Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. |
i dunno how i made it through atlas shrugged so quickly. I think it was cause some asshole basically challenged me to read it :rolleyes
what happened to preechr anyway? |
Just finished reading Watchmen
Whoa, just whoa |
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that one and fight club pretty much ;\ I've thumbed through others, though. his writing style is always the same and douchebaggerly as well.
he's the new steven king :( |
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Read Invisble Monsters. From what I know about you(That you look sexy in stockings....sorry, I'm drunk) you'd like it. I've read a few of his others: Diary, Lullaby and wasn't impressed either. Invisible Monsters is one of my favorite books though. |
yea I've heard about invisible monsters. Maybe I'll try reading it, but the way he writes just makes me angry.
To be honest I have this self-loathing hatred for anything involving other trannies usually ;\ identifying with things makes me feel like an ass. |
I think it was the first book he wrote, just not the first published. It's the reason I read his other work....which wasn't as good.
!!!Don't read any of the synopsis about it though, from what I've read of them they usually divulge way too much info. Stuff you don't get into till later in the book!!! |
I ordered "I am legend" roughly a week ago. It's supposed to arrive next week. Can hardly wait.
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everything?
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Just because there's not a "Book you're looking forward to" thread
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009...r-mash-up.html Pride and Prejudice and Zombies |
I'm finishing up the ultimate x-men run. great run until Colossus went for the dick. now it's just a massive boner kllr.
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Just finished James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It was wonderful, and I found the ending quite moving.
Am currently halfway through Bram Stoker's Dracula, Samuel Johnson's A History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia and Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. Will be aiming to start Tom Woolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities and David Simon's Homocide: A Year on the Killing Streets soon, but they are both HUGE. I need to start compiling ideas for my English Lit dissertation so I'm aiming to read as wide a variety of material as I can. |
For my own part I'm currently reading a collection of the first Legion of Superheroes comics. It's marvellous. The best thing is how they're all completely crazy about sacrificing their lives for one another. As soon as one legionnaire finds out that there's some kind of mortal danger ahead, his/her first impulse is always to say nothing to the rest of the bunch, so that he/she can go on a solo suicide mission unhindered by the others. When the legion learn that there's a way to revive a slain buddy, which involves one of the others dying instead, they're all manipulating and scheming like crazy since everyone wants to have the honour of sacrificing his/her life for this.
I'm completely amazed that this is an american comic book... you'd think it was japanese or something, from the WW2 era. |
I'm about 150 pages away from finishing A Game of Thrones, which is the first in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by this nerd. I think it's pretty good, and for a fantasy novel it's not too gay. They sometimes say shit like "I will wed her and bed her, sir!", but I'm definitely buying the next one (which is 1200 pages, like I'm made of time >:)
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Finished Richard Matheson's I am legend today, i loved it. I've been thinking of reading Hell house next.
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