| Home Rand's Books Other Books Magazines Texts Biography Forums Websites Critics Miscellaneous Search Email Us |
| You Are Here: Home > Reviews > Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto of the Mind | |
| Stuck in another site's frames? Escape! |
Reviewer: Richard Lawrence
Review Summary: A solid study of Rand's literary techniques in her most famous novel. The material could have been edited more carefully, but overall the book's flaws are relatively minor.
Like several in the recent proliferation of books about Ayn Rand, Mimi Reisel Gladstein's latest work is a slim volume, with just 115 pages before the references and index take over. However, unlike authors such as Allan Gotthelf and Tibor Machan, Gladstein is not attempting to tackle Rand's entire philosophy in her limited space. Rather she is focused on a single, albeit monumental, work: Atlas Shrugged. Gladstein's focus serves her well, because she has produced a work which, although not without flaws, is one of the better explorations to date of Rand's literary aspirations and techniques.
Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto of the Mind is also like several other recent volumes insofar as it is part of a larger series, in this case Twayne's Masterwork Studies. The same series also includes Douglas Den Uyl's 1999 book, The Fountainhead: An American Novel. In keeping with the format of the series, Gladstein begins with a section on "Literary and Historical Context." Unlike Den Uyl's more generic setting of the historical stage for The Fountainhead, Gladstein chooses (correctly, in this reviewer's opinion) to place Atlas Shrugged in a more personal context as the culmination of Rand's literary life. Accordingly she presents a brief but thorough overview of Rand's life through the period right after Atlas was published (but no further). Gladstein does a good job of synthesizing the range of biographical material about Rand that is now available, and she deftly handles some of the disputed elements of Rand's early history, such as the question of when and how she chose her pen name.
The biographical review is followed by series-standard sections on the critical reception and importance of the book. Here Gladstein is careful to look not only at the (mostly negative) initial attitudes of critics towards Atlas, but also at the continuing popularity and influence that have led to it being included in this type of scholarly series:
One of the problems in qualifying the importance of Rand's magnum opus is that it does not fit comfortably into either of the two main categories used in academe to classify fiction. ... Serious literature lasts; best-sellers are usually evanescent. Paradoxically Atlas Shrugged is both. ... [I]t has transcended the best-seller category because of its durability, which makes it something of an anomaly. Even those who continue to question the novel's literary merit would have to agree that it is "significant," if not "serious," fiction. (p. 27)
Gladstein also manages to discuss the obvious influence of Rand's ideas on modern libertarianism, while at the same time taking into account Rand's own disavowals of the libertarians.
These introductory elements taken care of, the major part of the book is then devoted to analysis of the novel itself, with focus on three of the four elements that Rand herself deemed critical to a novel: plot, characterization, and theme. Gladstein avoids the CliffsNotes approach of summarizing the plot and instead provides several perspectives on the story: Atlas as a mystery, Atlas as science fiction, etc. The plot elements that support each of these "readings" are discussed. Although some of the readings are a bit strained, Gladstein has the sense to prioritize them, putting the more obvious perspectives first and relegating the least plausible to an endnote.
The least satisfactory of Gladstein's chapters is her discussion of characters. She spends too much time cataloging all the minor characters, without stopping to discuss in any detail the more interesting ones. The clear sense of priorities from her other chapters is missing. Overall, it feels like she has simply edited into a narrative form the "Compendium of Characters" from her earlier book, The Ayn Rand Companion. (Poor editing of some kind has to account for the occasional repetitiousness in this chapter, such as when Gladstein reminds the reader twice within two pages that Wesley Mouch's last name is ever-so-appropriate for a "moocher.") She does, however, manage to plumb Rand's published journals for additional insights into major characters such as Galt and Dagny.
For the chapter on themes, Gladstein organizes her discussion by using the speeches that Rand reprinted in For the New Intellectual. This organizational choice is a dubious one, since a couple of these speeches are not overly important in the context of the novel (the speech against socialized medicine, for example), while parts of the novel not found in the reprints carry significant themes. Fortunately, Gladstein again returns to a good sense of proportion, focusing her analysis on the more important speeches and providing discussion of other themes at the end of the chapter.
A final brief chapter looks at Rand's dystopian vision of altruism and collectivism, with a coda about how the publication of the novel marked a turning point in Rand's life, from novelist to philosopher.
Gladstein does a fine job of placing Atlas Shrugged in it's historical context and explaining the various levels on which the novel can be read. Her exploration of characters and themes is a bit more workmanlike, but reasonable. Overall, this is one of the more satisfactory books to emerge from the recent crop of material on Rand's life and work. Readers who love Rand's novels and would like to appreciate them more fully are best advised to skip the overly dense explorations of her philosophy published recently, as well as the thicker volumes of bio/literary discussion (including Gladstein's other recent books). They will get more "bang for their buck" if instead they view a copy of Michael Paxton's movie, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, to get a better understanding of Rand herself, and then read Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto of the Mind to find out more about her most famous work.
The philosophy of Ayn Rand, a twentieth-century novelist and philosopher, is known as Objectivism. The Objectivism Reference Center provides resources about Rand, her ideas, her works, and places where those are discussed and debated. Visit the Site Information page for details on site policies. Suggestions for additional materials or additional links are welcomed.
If you have questions, comments or corrections related to this page, email the webmaster. If JavaScript is enabled for your browser, you can check to see when this page was last modified.
Copyright © 1999-2008 by Richard Lawrence. All rights reserved.
| Home Rand's Books Other Books Magazines Texts Biography Forums Websites Critics Miscellaneous Search Email Us |