Ayn Rand and the World She Made Pt II

Atlas Shrugged - the intelectual peak of Ayn Rand's work turns the author into one of the most celebrated thinkers of the 20th century. It takes 14 years to complete the novel about radical individualism in a conformist world. It takes 2 years and a half to write the famous speech of John Galt, which summarizes Rand's philosophy of objectivism: 1)reality is objective and cannot be changed by desires and emotions; 2)the biggest moral is the rational personal interest; 3) knowledge is achieved through reason and not through feelings; 4)politics is about individual rights; 5)economics should be based on the free markets concept. Cold, rational, and insensitive, Ayn Rand constructs through Galt's eyes a philosophy that translates into a cult towards her personality even years after her death.

Atlas Shrugged's success gives a rise to a group of loyal followers, who in parts of their life become fanatical about Rand. Ironically, as Ayn detests communism, they call themselves The Collective. Rand is charming, magnetic, and powerful. Her unshakable logic wins every conflict; she is able to change her opponent's opinions in only one conversation. The controversy is that the biggest individualist, Rand, denies any form of individualism in her followers. She doesn't accept any ideas but her own; she wants a world where everyone is the same and thinks the same, like her. Her loyal followers become a family, where origin, temperament, and personal preferences are eradicated. As for her protagonists, for Rand other people that do not share her views do not exist and in fact she doesn't see any reason for their existence whatsoever. Thus, the author surrounds herself with artificially made super humans, so she doesn't need to leave the fictionality of her novels.

This Rand obsession, in the face of a young 20-years old boy, turns into one of the most scandalous love affairs. Nathan Blumental is so fascinated with the great individualist that he changes his name to Nathaniel (as the founder of Tagart Transcontinental in Atlas Shrugged) Brandon (anagram of the Jewish formula with the meaning of "son of Rand"). The young man and the 25-years older author spend days and nights discussing her philosophy and ideas. The result is a subversive love affair lasting more than 20 years with the knowledge of their spouses. Rand, great logician, gathers her husband, Frank, and his wife, Barbara to explain why the two of them must have a sexual relationship. According to the author, she and Nathaniel represent the same intelectual virtues. As perfect rationalists they do not have disuinion between mind and body their attraction is logical, understandable, and must be incarnated. Thus, Rand and Nathaniel engage in an open affair, which logic seems rather absurd for everyone but Rand and the people who follow her blindly.

This love affair is predestined to a tragic end. Rand has turned Nathaniel into one of her perfect protagonists, but the man soon discovers that he was never in love with his patron. He admired Ayn for her rationalism, mind, and passion, but after 20 years he wants out. As with other people in her life, Rand accepts this as a rejection and erases him completely from her life. Once she has proclaimed him to be her legal follower but now the author claims Nathaniel shows signs of imperfect mind. She judges his infatuation with other women as a betrayal to herself and to objectivism. Unfortunately, as with all of her other relationships, Rand fails to see her mistakes.

What about her husband, Frank, you might ask? Subversive, invisible, and patient, he was there for her throughout 50 years of marriage. Rand always claimed he was her role model for a man and her inspiration (despite her affair?!). In the last years of her life she stands by his side as he slowly loses his mind. She still draws on her fame from Atlas Shrugged but the number of her fanatical followers has declined. Many of them are expelled from Rand's entourage for real or unreal signs of deviations from objectivism. Still, even after her death, many people around the world continue the cult towards her personality.

Ayn Rand's life strikingly resembles the stories she created in her novels. The author with a remarkable mind aimed at world governed by rational, purpose, and self-respect. She appealed to people to live for themselves and for their own rational principles. Rand favored the limitless power of the human mind against the ignorant and passive marauders. Her philosophy of objectivism was extreme and so was her life. Rand failed to see any shadows of gray; she was only able to see in black and white. Infinitely self-destructive and talented, Ayn created doctrine, which in its moderate use presents a world-view where people get what they deserve, where the human mind and abilities flourish, and where no political doctrine has the power to control lives; a world where people live for themselves and according to their own moral principles. Isn't that what we all want?

Ayn Rand and the World She Made - Pt I

I look at the blank blogger page and I do not know where to start. I am about to talk about the greatest author ever born. Whatever I say about her will not be enough. Ayn Rand - genial, purposeful, relentless, talented, and self-destructive. The woman that created a whole new doctrine that praises the power of the human mind, the benefits of egoism, and the individualist as the greatest human being, is a role model and a life changer for many generations. Her life story is as brutal and controversial, as socially unacceptable and as madly praised as her novels. Ayn Rand - the woman whose novel Atlas Shrugged is the most read piece after The Bible.

I've had Anne Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made for quite a long time on my shelf. I always postponed reading it for a time, when I will be relaxed, calm, and free to enjoy it. I didn't know that this is going to be the most difficult thing I have read so far. That is why I decided that for the first time I am going to split my comment on a novel in two. As I keep reading about Rand's life, thoughts come up in my mind constantly that I am afraid I would have forgotten by the end of the novel. This is my first impression of the biography of one of the most controversial authors in world literature.

Anne Heller presents a thorough description of Rand's life from her birth as a Russian from a Jewish descent to her rise as one of the most powerful and influential writers. In 1905, when Alisa Rosenbaum is born, Russia is stil under the tsarist rue. In her early childhood, however, Rand experiences the painful transformation into the communist rule. As a jew, the child is a witness to the terrific anti-semitic movements in her home country. Whatever the political reality is, in Russia the jews at that time are scapegoats for everything. Her father, a clever and successful pharmacist, slowly loses his property and the family is forced to change homes constantly and to live in poverty and deprivation. Due to her descent, Rand is even expelled from university in the first years of the communist rule.

Her sufferings as a child are one of the first reasons for the formation of Ayn Rand's famous worldview. Raised to witness how the clever and capable people are robbed in favor of the needy and the mediocre, Alisa begins to detest all political systems that preach equality. Only 21 years old, Ayn is disillusioned and she emigrates in the USA - the country she believes is the land of free will, rationalism, and capabilities.

Her career begins as a playwright and screen writer. However, Rand doesn't receive the admirations she believes she deserves. The US in the 40's is mostly pro-communist. World War II has assembled the West and the East against their common enemy - Hitler. Rand's ideas about the virtues of capitalism, the powers of the human capacity, and the benefits of egoism are widely critiqued. Alisa is in a constant battle with producers, directors, and publishers in order to publish her works and to make her ideology known to the world. We the Living, her first novel and intellectual autobiography, doesn't provoque admiration and worship. People do not understand Rand's philosophy. Even her masterpiece, The Fountainhead, remains largely misunderstood. However, the latter still makes her one of the most talked-about authors of her time. Rand forms a circle of loyal followers, who are obsessed with her personality and her philosophy.

My thoughts on the first 300 pages of Rand's biography are numerous. I admire Heller for taking a neutral view on the great author's life. I expected a one-sighted story. A story that praises Rand and equalizes her even to God. Instead, Heller uses different sources to clearly portray that Rand is a human being with her flaws and contradictions. Throughout her whole life Ayn searched for the perfect human being. For her this transforms into a person, who accepts her philosophy as the absolute true, who is clever, intelectual, and most importantly an egoist and a capitalist. A single word is enough for Rand to proclaim an individual as unworthy of her company. Thus, she loses many friendships and acquaintances for the mere reason that once a person disappoints her with a simple thought or a word, she rejects him/her completely.

A second flaw of Rand's character is that she tends to underestimate the influence of other people on her writing and to overestimate the problems she faced when publishing and propagating her philosophy. Heller's investigations show that Ayn's descriptions of a certain event or a person change as their relationship evolves. If Rand is disappointed of someone, she rejects his influence or importance in her life completely. Thus, her memories and reflections differ largely throughout the years.

Do not get me wrong. I am not writing this to criticize Ayn Rand or to imply that I have been disappointed by her life. I am writing this to show that I am no blind admirer of her talent. Rand searched for the perfect human being - an individual with an incredible mind, who achieves everything in life thanks to his/her own capabilities. An individual who doesn't care about social opinion, charity, or altruism. An individual who works, develops, and invents for the sake of his own satisfaction. An individual, free of social norms or morals, who expresses his/her own sexuality freely. An individual, who is a capitalist, who doesn't do anything for the greater good but for his/her own individual happiness and enjoyment.

Rand was a severe perfectionist. She didn't meet ("surprisingly") any individuals who met her criteria. So she created them. She created a world she wanted to see. Howard Roark, Dominique Francon, Dagny Taggard, and John Galt are all the super human-beings, who Ayn wanted to see in the world. People with a perfect mind, with a strong heart, and with a great intelectual power and potential. Rand believed herself to be that kind of a person. Heller shows us that the author is not a fictional superhero as many of her followers and admirers thought or are still thinking. Rand created a philosophy of the flawless human mind but she exhibited positive and negative characteristics just like every normal individual. Ayn felt to see her mistakes. She identified herself with the fictional characters she created - the rationality that strikes. Heller saw this. In Ayn Rand and the World She Made she portrays objectively the life of the great woman, with her successes and downfalls, showing all of us that even though her characters might be perfect, Rand is not. Even though she claimed to be.

This reasoning doesn't in any way undermine the fact that Ayn Rand created one of the most influential theories in world history - objectivism. Based on the idea of individualism, rationalism, and capitalism, this world view gives an image of how a society where individuals receive only what they deserve might function. In contrast with communism, where people receive goods according to their needs, Rand's objectivism claims that the engine of the world is the mind of its most intelligent and capable individuals. Thus, the main theme of her most praised novel Atlas Shrugged is the disaster that occurs when rationality strikes and the world is left in the hands of mediocre and weak followers, who do not create but copy. These marauders live off the inventons of the people that surpass them both in mind and in abilities. So what happens when this engine stops? To be continued...

My Experience on the Sofia Book Market

The annual Sofia Book Market is a fact. From 7th to 12th of December the National Culture Palace becomes the center of a reading fever. All publishers and bookstores are there, presenting their most famous bestsellers and trying desperately to make the ever so poor Bulgarian reader spare some money on a new book (s). Of course, there is 20% off on every novel you purchase, which is a very good reason to at least think about improving your library.

I do not need to mention that I was there the first day the market opened. I spent 2 blissful hours going around it, checking out new and old books, making a list of all the novels I wanted to buy, smelling new books, asking questions. Basically, I has having the time of my life. I was pleasantly surprised by the initiative of the French Institute. The latter created a reading cafe in the middle of the market, where one can sit, go through some of the contemporary (and no so contemporary) French pieces of literature and just read. Basically, you can sit there the whole day, surrounded by the smell of books and read with no fee at all. You don't have to buy a book or pay anything; you are entitled to read as much as you want. I took advantage of this opportunity and that is how I stumbled on a book, which I bought afterwards.

Laurent Gounelle's L'Homme Qui Voulait Etre Heureux (The Man Who Wanted to be Happy) attracted me firstly with its title and then with the description on the back. Gounelle is a French psychologist and writer, who explores the problems of human happiness and mental equilibrium. As my mom says lately I am more and more into psychological books, novels that explore the nature of human content and stability, novels that help you discover who you really are and what you want out of life. By exploring so many different aspects, I get closer to understanding myself and my dreams. I also realize I am not the person I thought I was. I realize the dreams I thought would make me happy upon achievement do not bring anything but mere resentment and disappointment because I am still not happy. That is why I am determined (and actually fascinated by the possibility) to read as many self help, self understand, or whatever those books might be called. Some are very good (Eat Pray Love) some do not work for me (Froth on the Capuchino) and others just transform my world view completely (Ayn Rand's literature, although she is not really a self-help type of writer). I can't wait to see what Gounelle has to say about the subject since once more I will have the chance to touch the Buddhist culture and way of thinking through exploring L'Homme Qui Voulait Etre Heureux.

Of course I didn't want to limit myself to only buying one book but unfortunately due to budget restraints I had to. I nevertheless made a list of all the books I wanted to buy eventually (so that I do not forget) and I attempted to convince my mother that I absolutely desperately need all of them. She was not that sure at all, given that my room starts to look more like a library than like a living space ( I literally have no space to accomodate my books already) + she doesn't really believe in buying books. She is the type "I will borrow from the public library" type. I am different, so I am determined to own these novels one way or another. So here is my wish list for next couple of months:

1. Anne Heller - Ayn Rand and the World She Made
2. James Clavell - Shogun
3. Ray Bradbury - All
4. George Orwell - Animal Farm
5. Arthur Clarke - A Space Odyssey














If you still haven't visited Sofia Book Market, I urge you to do so. We must support this amazing initiative and prove that Bulgarians still read and are still ready to spare some cash for a good book.