Rand's writing style
I've been reading "Crime and Punishment" this week. I've been having a negative reaction to the whole thing, but one thing I've noticed is that it's holding me even though the plot is not interesting, the philosophical issues are puerile, the dialog is stiff, and it has other negatives I could recite if I were of a mind.
But it still holds me. I think I've figured it out. The characters, although shallow compared to real people, are deeper and slightly more complex than many other books. The book is not so much plot driven as the plot is character driven. The protagonist is evil and stupid, but also good by the standards of the society. The 'bad' people are venal, and act for despicable motives, but objectively they are more admirable than the hero. All in all it's a lot like real life, which makes it both more and less interesting than books that are merely plot driven.
Which brings to mind Rand's famous dictum that the three most important things in literature are plot, plot, and plot. I don't think I ever agreed with her, but now it's evident to me how much more powerful her writing could have been had say, James Taggart been a little more like Pyotr Petrovitch.
I get the feeling that Rand sometimes thought her heros and villains had to be 2 dimensional. I don't think that this is so.
But it still holds me. I think I've figured it out. The characters, although shallow compared to real people, are deeper and slightly more complex than many other books. The book is not so much plot driven as the plot is character driven. The protagonist is evil and stupid, but also good by the standards of the society. The 'bad' people are venal, and act for despicable motives, but objectively they are more admirable than the hero. All in all it's a lot like real life, which makes it both more and less interesting than books that are merely plot driven.
Which brings to mind Rand's famous dictum that the three most important things in literature are plot, plot, and plot. I don't think I ever agreed with her, but now it's evident to me how much more powerful her writing could have been had say, James Taggart been a little more like Pyotr Petrovitch.
I get the feeling that Rand sometimes thought her heros and villains had to be 2 dimensional. I don't think that this is so.