Atlas Shrugged

“Who is John Galt?” – what more can I say? And, oh how much this one question sums up.

After wondering what this line actually meant for a long time, I finally know! I’ve been reading this book literally since about April; it was a long 1,069 pages but oh so worth it!

Typical of Ayn Rand, it took her about 700 pages to develop a solid plot. This was hard for me to stay interested in & only in the last 300 did I hate to put it down. It is too complex and intense for me to sum it any better than this:  (thanks Wikipedia)

The novel explores a dystopian United States where leading innovators, ranging from industrialists to artists, refuse to be exploited by society. The protagonist, Dagny Taggart, sees society collapse around her as the government increasingly asserts control over all industry, while society’s most productive citizens, led by the mysterious John Galt, progressively disappear. Galt describes the strike as “stopping the motor of the world” by withdrawing the “minds” that drive society’s growth and productivity; with their strike these creative minds hope to demonstrate that the economy and society would collapse without the profit motive and the efforts of the rational and productive.

Interestingly, in the wake of the late 2000s recession, sales of this book sharply increased due to the high correlation between present day US and this novel. On Jan. 13, 2009 the book ranked #33 on Amazon.com’s top-selling book. This book is Rand’s “masterpiece”, as some have called it, followed only by The Fountainhead. 

I highly, highly recommend this book to have in everyone's repertoire of knowledge, but I suggest you have space in your life to read it! It's a doozie.

I swear – by my life and my love of it – that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine . p. 1042

I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don’t exist. That this book has been written-and published-is my proof that they do. p. 1070