(no subject)
So "CatGirl Kulak (Anarchonomicon)" attempts the most difficult literary thesis ever, in a Twitter thread: "The great American novel has been written and its ATLAS SHRUGGED." She largely makes it.
https://twitter.com/fromkulak/status/1627790320648814599
The thread is also fun to read, it's telegraphic, and it's got plenty of snark (without even repeating John Rogers' snark).
Kulak notes that it "shouldn't work" along a zillion dimensions and yet sold 37 million copies (to a much small US population). That Rand is the American Tolstoy or Tolkien.
The highlights:
Tolstoy & Tolkien are two very good comparisons. In that both wrote similar novels.
Massive hundred character semi-historical parables that are meant to impart their views on spirituality and the human condition... or rather rationality and the autist condition for Rand
Rand share's their talent for being able to write dozens of characters who all embody a meditation on a theme
The same way a dozen characters might each be their own meditation on power in Tolkien, a dozen might each have their own meditation on resentment or industry in Rand
People dismiss some of these characters as 1 dimensional
Gandalf or worm-tongue are also "1-Dimensional" its what those characters mean in relation to their world that drives the value of the character and their interactions in unique ways
And the themes are foundational to American experience!
The nature of enterprise, morality, self interest, freedom... These are all core American questions as much as Heirarchy/Duty is for England, or Endurance/History is for Russia
This is the literary object that would give a true insight into "America" in all its contradiction
... in the sense that "America" is the only culture in which "Atlas Shrugged" could have been written. And it doesn't matter that you disagree with Rand's politics; you probably disagree with Tolstoy's, or Tolkein's for that matter.
BUT I think I finally understand "Lord of the Rings". I found LotR grating because every plot turn was driven by introducing another class of beings with unique properties. I like my novels to be like Go, simple rules laid out at the beginning that drive the whole complex plot.
If you're steeped in English history, that isn't how things are. Traditionally, there were a multitude of "personal statuses", each with its own relationships, rights, duties, laws, and thus "lived reality". E.g. the copyhold peasant in one county really wasn't equal to a freehold yeoman in the next county, much less the barons in either county. (That reality is what "all men are created equal" was rejecting.)
https://twitter.com/fromkulak/status/1627790320648814599
The thread is also fun to read, it's telegraphic, and it's got plenty of snark (without even repeating John Rogers' snark).
Kulak notes that it "shouldn't work" along a zillion dimensions and yet sold 37 million copies (to a much small US population). That Rand is the American Tolstoy or Tolkien.
The highlights:
Tolstoy & Tolkien are two very good comparisons. In that both wrote similar novels.
Massive hundred character semi-historical parables that are meant to impart their views on spirituality and the human condition... or rather rationality and the autist condition for Rand
Rand share's their talent for being able to write dozens of characters who all embody a meditation on a theme
The same way a dozen characters might each be their own meditation on power in Tolkien, a dozen might each have their own meditation on resentment or industry in Rand
People dismiss some of these characters as 1 dimensional
Gandalf or worm-tongue are also "1-Dimensional" its what those characters mean in relation to their world that drives the value of the character and their interactions in unique ways
And the themes are foundational to American experience!
The nature of enterprise, morality, self interest, freedom... These are all core American questions as much as Heirarchy/Duty is for England, or Endurance/History is for Russia
This is the literary object that would give a true insight into "America" in all its contradiction
... in the sense that "America" is the only culture in which "Atlas Shrugged" could have been written. And it doesn't matter that you disagree with Rand's politics; you probably disagree with Tolstoy's, or Tolkein's for that matter.
BUT I think I finally understand "Lord of the Rings". I found LotR grating because every plot turn was driven by introducing another class of beings with unique properties. I like my novels to be like Go, simple rules laid out at the beginning that drive the whole complex plot.
If you're steeped in English history, that isn't how things are. Traditionally, there were a multitude of "personal statuses", each with its own relationships, rights, duties, laws, and thus "lived reality". E.g. the copyhold peasant in one county really wasn't equal to a freehold yeoman in the next county, much less the barons in either county. (That reality is what "all men are created equal" was rejecting.)