I’ve never liked a movie where I read the book first.
The problem is you always create your own movie in your head. Mental images of the characters, the scenes, the direction. Rarely does a directors vision live up to yours. (Hell, I should direct!)
Anyway, they just announced the release of Atlas Shrugged the other day. And given the amount of time and sweat I put into that monster, it’ll be a tall order for director Paul Johansson…
Wow!
Quite a ride. Great book, although the romantic aspects of this baby leave something to be desired. As far as drama goes, I don’t know. She has some good dramatic spins in the book. But tends to crush her own efforts under the weight of her prose.
Anyway, Lots of thoughts to cram into 1200 (or so) words. Let’s go.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 104 – pp. 1160-1169
This is it!! (Apparently I miscounted.) The final installment!
“The locomotive of the eastbound Comet broke down in the middle of a desert in Arizona. … Eddie Willers called for the conductor…”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 103 – pp. 1150-1159
Now we get a little hokey.
Francisco grills the subdued guards. How many guards are there? Where? What are these rooms?
It’s military precision. (You wonder, when you’re an expert at one thing, it would seem, in Rand’s universe, you’re an expert at everything. (more…)
Atlas Shrugged – Day 102 – pp. 1140-1149
No it ain’t.
“Long coils of wire, like the twisted arms of an octopus, stretched forward across the stone floor, from the machine to a leather mattress spread under a cone of violent light. John Galt lay strapped to the mattress, He as naked; the small metal disks of electrodes at the ends of the wires were attached to his wrists, his shoulders, his hips and his ankles…”
Sounds like an impressive creation. Wonder where Dr F bought the kit for that?
They turn on the machine and hear the buzz from the generator and the amplified sound of John Galt’s heartbeat.
Now he makes a fairly ridiculous sounding demand of Galt.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 100 – pp. 1120-1129
“The elevator stopped on the mezzanine floor.”
The group was surrounded by soldiers as they approached the door of the WF ballroom.
Chick Morrison opened the door.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 098 – pp. 1100-1109
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Does it always take this long to read the last 100 pages of a book? Or only when you run into the holidays?
OK, I’m still waiting on some threat to the entire world by the Thompson Harmonizer / Project X thing. What a POS red herring that would be if Rand didn’t follow up on it.
Anywho…
John Galt is being held in the Wayne-Falkland Hotel by the band of looters and presently being interrogated by their leader. Mr Thompson has just offered Galt the position of Economic Dictator of the world.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 096 – pp. 1070-1079
A Christmas Miracle! I got to go home for a few days for the holiday. I didn’t pack my book. Figured it would put my luggage over some arbitrary airline weight limit. Besides, I really didn’t have the time to write what with all hugging and partying and catching up.
Weather in Chi-town cooperated. Stayed above zero (actually almost above freezing) and treated me to a pleasant layer of the white stuff I haven’t seen for sometime. It’s amazing how you miss the things you take for granted — or even learn to bitch about.
Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday whether it was Christmas, Hanukkah or another celebration.
And now, on with the show…
Atlas Shrugged – Day 095 – pp. 1009-1069
Holy crap!!! John Galt has just taken the stage.
Actually he’s used his hulking intellect to commandeer the broadcast.
Hulk Galt say, “Puny looters!”
Certainly, a mind of this superior capacity would obviously have something to say. But Ayn Rand goes nuts. I mean freakin’ nuts. His broadcast, her — what? — diatribe?, lasts for SIXTY pages. SIXTY!
Now, I’m on page 1,009 here. You’d think Rand has gotten her point across by now. I mean, if you can’t deliver a message in this many words… Figure roughly 11 words per line with, pretty consistently 40+ lines per page means 440 words per page times 1,200 pages is in the ballpark estimate of 528,000 words!
If, as a writer, you can’t make a point in over half a million words, maybe you need to find another job.
On the other hand, that’s probably why she leaves a dissertation like this for the very end. We’re all in for a dollar by now.
Anyway, I’m not going to go ten pages at a time for this. I believe (hope) I’ve got the gist. I’m guessing I have an idea of what JG is going to talk about. So I’m going to try to point out some of the highlights of what he says over the course of the broadcast.
(Deep breath) Here we go…
The news reports that reported Hank’s disappearance told everything but the story.
They said things like it was “social treason to ascribe too much importance to Hank Rearden’s disappearance.” Some denied his disappearance entirely. Others reported his untimely demise.
“It was strange she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials…”
But the denials weren’t having their full desired effects.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 093 – pp. 992-1001
“Listen, kid,” said Rearden sternly, “I want you to do me a favor. …make up your mind that you want to live — just as you did down there on that slag heap…”
Time for a quick comment.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 092 – pp. 982-991
Hank has a solution.
“If it’s production hat you want, the get out of the way, junk all of your damn regulations, let Orren Boyle go broke, let me buy the plant of Associated Steel — and it will be pouring a thousand tons a day from every one of its sixty furnaces.”
Oh, can’t do that. That’d be a monopoly.
“Well then, I’ll offer you another solution. Why don’t you take over my mills and be done with it?”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 091 – pp. 972-981
“You can accept our repentance,” said Lillian in a voice glassy with caution. “I only want you to know that whatever I’ve done, I’ve done it because I loved you.”
Hank ain’t listening to that.
Mother Rearden is approaching panic mode.
“What’s happened to you? What’s changed you like that? You don’t seem to be human anymore!”
Atlas Shrugged – Day 090 – pp. 962-971
D’ja ever read something so good that you couldn’t stop?
That’d be Chapter VI – The Concerto of Deliverance.
Rand’s finally got it going. Far as I’m concerned, this has been the best chapter in the book so far. Made the 962 pages leading up to it all worth the effort.
Plots uncovered. Schemes unraveled. Vengeance. Fight scenes. Heroic deaths. Lives saved, snatched from the jaws of death. And even a rather hokey ending for which I gladly suspended any and all sense of reality. (And, in reality, not even too hokey.)
Yeah, I read it all. But I’m still going 10 pages at a time, so suck it up. Let’s get busy.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 089 – pp. 952-961
They’re going to the main signal tower. She consults with the tower director. He starts making calculations.
How are they going to move the train?
Atlas Shrugged – Day 088 – pp. 942-951
…And without the necessary transportation in MN, the shit starts flying.
“…farmers who had waited in the streets of Lakewood for six days with no place to store their wheat . . . had demolished the local courthouse. . . While the flour mills and grain markets of the country were screaming over the phones and telegraph wires. . .”
Dagny and Eddie worked round the clock to get any transportation to MN. It wasn’t enough.
Atlas Shrugged – Day 087 – pp. 932-941
I have a question. Why hasn’t JG come after Eddie Willers yet? He’s got to be a candidate for the gulch. And his disappearance would most likely hasten Dagny’s decision..
Anyway, just before Phillip leaves, he tells Hank he’s never had any concern for his feelings. Hanks asks if Phillip has ever had any concern for his. Phillip tells Hank he has no feelings.
Of course Rand would beg to disagree as she recalls ALL the suffering that Hank has been through…
Then she describes the look in Phillip’s eyes…