"Going a long distance out of the way, to come back a short distance correctly"
Atlas Shrugged – Day 030 – pp. 294-303
Chapter X — Wyatt’s Torch
They’re going to find the person who built that motor. Won’t be easy. First they have to find out about the owner of the factory. So they start at the hall of records. . .
“Nobody knows who owns that factory now. I guess nobody will ever know it. . .”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 029 – pp. 284-293
They’ve stumbled into what happens when industry fails. What happens when the businesses that provide people their livelihood close their doors.
“Through the open door, they could see the interior of her house. There was useless gas stove, its oven stuffed with rage, serving as a chest of drawers. There was a stove built of stones in a corner, with a few logs burning under an old kettle, and long streaks of soot rising up the wall. A white object lay propped against the legs of a table. It was a porcelain washbowl, torn from the wall of some bathroom, filled with wilted cabbages . . . A brood of ragged children had gathered at the door behind the woman, silently, one by one.”
A man comes up carrying water from the local well.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 028 – pp. 274-283
“Owen Kellogg.”
It’s the kid with all the promise Dagny wanted to make manager of the midwest region. The one who quit and dropped off the face of the earth so mysteriously. Doing transient labor now?
“Listen Kellogg, what do you think is going to happen to the world?”
“You wouldn’t care to know.”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 027 – pp. 264-273
Absolving himself. For his inabilities. . . For falling back on the excuse of doing things for the heart — the right reasons. The other reasons.
I wonder if Rand doesn’t think “other reasons” are valid motivations for anything. There are those who beg charity to help the less fortunate. And they are virtuous. Maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never been a zillionaire industrialist. I wonder if its expectation (of shared wealth) that she rails against.
One thing is for certain. The willingness to accept “it’s not your/my/their fault — you can’t be blamed” as an excuse is a major character flaw.
Anyway, Jim’s in the “confessional” with Cherryl — a new character – poor, awestruck shop-girl from Buffalo — talking, essentially about how everyone who’s great today, ain’t so great. . .
Atlas Shrugged – Day 026 – pp. 254-263
Chapter IX – The Sacred and the Profane (sounds like a soap opera…)
The deed done, now comes the awkward part.
Hank gets up to get dressed and addresses the situation…
Atlas Shrugged – Day 025 – pp. 244-253
OK the train is hurtling on. And as it blows past everything at 100 mph, Rand describes Dagny’s feelings of exhilaration. Her sense of triumph blends into the scenes Rand paints of land and skyscapes flashing by.
I’d say Dagny is having a good day.
Now combine all that adrenaline with Hank in the engine cab. . .
Atlas Shrugged – Day 024 – pp. 234-243
She invites Hank to the press conference for good measure.
“Dagny recited the technological facts abot the John Galt Line, giving exact figures on the nature of the rail, the capacity of the bridge, the method of construction, the costs. . . . That is all,” she said
Of course the press want some sort of “message for the public.” Some “defense of themselves” in what they’re doing. A sound bite to “justify her line.”
“Aren’t you going to tell us your motive for building that Line?”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 023 – pp. 224-233
Hank envisions Paul Larkin as a young man of 18. . .
“And he saw what Paul Larkin must have been at that time — a youth with an aged baby’s face, smiling ingratiatingly, joylessly, begging to be spared, pleading with the universe to give him a chance. If someone had shown that youth to the Hank Rearden of that time and told him that this was to be the goal of his steps, the collector of the energy of his aching tendons, what would he have–
Rearden knew what the boy he had been would have felt: a desire to step on the obscene thing which was Larkin and grind every wet bit of it out of existence. . .
Continue reading “Blind public sentiment and clear business will”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 022 – pp. 214-223
The Equalization of Opportunity Act, as I recall, stipulated that businessmen could not own more than one business. It was designed so that others could have a chance at some success. Hank, who owns pretty much his whole line of production from the ore mines to the steel factory is facing some serious trouble.
As usual, he’s working past midnight. And a first glimpse of human weakness.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 021 – pp. 204-213
Things turnin’ a little sexy. While Dagny’s talking about Rearden Metal and bridges and union labor Hank’s having about two pages of fantasy lust in his mind . . .
(Damn! Had this post all queued up and forgot to hit the button…)
Atlas Shrugged – Day 019 – pp. 184-193
The State Scientific Institute, the smartest science guys in the land as proclaimed by the G, have issued a paper condemning Rearden Metal by inference. An indefensible proposition…
Atlas Shrugged – Day 018 – pp. 174-183
And what about the school teachers in New Mexico? It’s their opinion that children should not be permitted to ride on trains running on Rearden Metal.
It seems that public outrage has hit some kind of fever pitch.
I want to just pause here for a sec and think about a couple parallels I can see, as Rand describes the events.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 017 – pp. 164-173
Gittin’ ‘er done…
Let’s see, the new contractor Ben Nealy’s an oaf… (Jeez, even I’m not this cynical…)
“I couldn’t help it Miss Taggart,… You know how fast drill heads wear out. I had them on order, but Incorporated Tools ran into a little trouble, they couldn’t help it either, Associated Steel was delayed in delivering the steel to them, so there’s nothing we can do but wait. It’s no use getting upset, Miss Taggart. I’m doing my best.”
“I’ve hired you to do a job, not to do your best — whatever that is.”
“That’s a funny thing to say. That’s an unpopular attitude, Miss Taggart, mighty unpopular.”
Need drill heads?
“She had telephoned Rearden. He had found an abandoned tool plant, long since out of business. Within an hour, he had purchased it from the relatives of its last owner. Within a day, the plant had been reopened. Withing a week, drill heads of Rearden Metal had been delivered to the bridge in Colorado.”
Oh, come on!!!
Atlas Shrugged – Day 016 – pp. 154-163
Dagny questions the story… Can’t imagine why. However Francisco walks up and says he believes the story. The storyteller walks away in a huff — Nobody likes Francisco anymore…
He chuckled at her bursque departure. Dagny asked coldly, “What’s the joke?” Continue reading “Three strikes for Dagny”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 015 – pp. 144-153
Of course all that is lost on Jim who is a capitalist when it suits him and a “progressive” the rest.
Now Rand shifts gears once again to Dagny who is in some bit of awe of Henry Rearden. Perhaps since the d’Anconia thing didn’t work out…
But who’s this approaching Hank now? Continue reading “Hank, Ragnar and John…”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 014 – pp. 134-143
The exposition of modern thought continues for a couple pages. They seem to be able to apply their planned economic ideas to almost anything…
“There should be a law limiting the sale of any book to ten thousand copies. This woudl throw the literary market open to new talent, fresh ideas and non-comercial writing. If people were forgidden to buy a millioin copies of the same piece of trash, they would be forced to bu better books.”
There’s a brief introduction of Bertram Scudder, editor of a magazine called The Future. He had penned an article once on Hank Rearden titled “the Octopus.” Continue reading “An explanation of the Mexican fiasco…”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 013 – pp. 124-133
“Whether I did it on purpose,” he said, ‘or though neglect, or through stupidity, don’t you understand that that doesn’t make any difference? The same element was missing.”
Same element? Hmmmmm.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 012 – pp. 114-123
“It was long past midnight when she awakened in bed by his side.”
What the hell?..
Atlas Shrugged – Day 011 – pp. 104-113
On the ride home, Dagny asked her mother,
“Mother, do they think it’s exactly in reverse?”
“What” Mrs Taggart asked bewildered
“The things you were talking about. The lights and the flowers. Do they expect those things to make them romantic, not the other way around?”
“Darling, what do you mean?”
“There wasn’t a person there who enjoyed it.” she said, her voice lifeless, “or who thought or felt anything at all. They moved about, and they said the same dull things they seay anywhere. I suppose they thought the lights would make it brilliant.”
“Darling, you take everything too seriously. One is not supposed to be intellectual at a ball. One is siplysupposed to be gay.”
“How? By being stupid?”
“I mean, for instance, didn’t you enjoy meeting the young men?”
“What men? There wasn’t a man there I couldn’t squash ten of.”