Ayn Rand's characters

[blueback]

I was wondering if any of you have read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and identified with the main characters? I find that when I read their thoughts I can't help but go "That's me! That's how I think!" No all the time, but much more often than in response to any other characters in fiction.

[Laurel]

her books were like my bible when i was in high school. i've always had a soft spot for roark and dominique. i read an article awhile ago that hollywood was trying to adapt the fountainhead to big screen again and they had angelina jolie lined up to play dominique. i think she'd be a good fit

[Doppelbock]

I am going to write a parody of "Atlas Shrugged". It will be called "Atlas Farted".

Cast of characters:

Acne Haggard (Dagny Taggart) -- The tall, gangly, and bulemic vice president of operations of Haggard Incontinence Railways.

Rock Salt (John Galt) -- After getting laid off from his job as an assembler at a bubble gum machine factory, he starts a secret militia enclave in Montana and begins recruiting all the world's movers and shakers (plus, a large population of neo-Amish disinventionists, just because it would be funny) in a general strike to withdraw their talents from society.

Rank Rearend (Hank Rearden) -- The workaholic founder of Rearend Lubricants, supplier of axle grease and cod liver oil to Haggard Incontinence Railways. And yes, I did think of "Spank Rearend", but it's just too obvious.

Franco-American (Fracisco d'Anconia) -- Millionaire playboy, owner of the world's largest food product manufacturer. Intentionally sabotages his own product line to join Rock Salt's strike, but has second thoughts when his arch-nemesis, the evil and sinister Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, starts a hostile takeover bid against his faltering enterprise.

What do you think? Would this work?

DB

[stasis]

Yeah. Not the main characters, but the characters nonetheless. And even though I primarily identified with Dr. Robert Stadler and Cuffy Meegs in Atlas Shrugged, that book is still extraordinarily refreshing in a way. Rand isn't exactly a poet in that the aesthetics of her writing leave something be desired, and my purpose here is not to comment on the merit or failings of her philosophy, but I can't help but enjoy the hell out of the analytical nature of her main characters. That, at least, I could relate to. While I can say that I would prefer Heinlein or Asimov as authors, I can't remember becoming 'involved' in the experience or thought processes of main characters other than Rand's. I was quite taken with it in highschool.

[prometheus]

I am John Galt.

[deicruxified]

I was wondering if any of you have read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and identified with the main characters? I find that when I read their thoughts I can't help but go "That's me! That's how I think!" No all the time, but much more often than in response to any other characters in fiction.

i've read the fountainhead but never got to finish it. i can relate to the main character ...i forgot the name. i do stuff which for me is a masterpiece but not acceptable to most people... something like that.

[Solaris]

The Fountainhead was my favorite. I read Atlas Shrugged first. Oddly, I embraced these philsophies not too long before I embraced Christianity. One might think the two are mutually exclusive, but I like the blend of the two that I have for myself.

I liked that Roark was more artistic and natual in his actions than in his words. I feel like that when I write.

[stasis]

One might think the two are mutually exclusive
Rand certainly did. I'm curious: how did you manage to reconcile Christian altruism with Objectivist egoism?

[prometheus]

Rand certainly did. I'm curious: how did you manage to reconcile Christian altruism with Objectivist egoism?

There has to be a huge conflict in there somewhere.

[Amaranth]

I read 'em both and I thought several of the characters were dead-ringers for INTJs.

I just discovered that Ayn Rand was an INTJ.

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[Solaris]

Rand certainly did. I'm curious: how did you manage to reconcile Christian altruism with Objectivist egoism?


I don't belive that, as a Christian believer, that I must be altruistic. I know I'm not. However, I don't carry Rand's egoism quite as far as her characters. Figures such as Jesus and Galt both represent ideals. Average people are never going to be like them, but it's a model. I don't think that a person who is a Christian believer must exclude the ideas that Rand presents. Everyone has a role, a purpose -- in both Christianity and Objectivism -- it's up to the individual to embrace it or not.

And yes, Rand is classed as an INTJ. Some of her characters bear those traits as well, but I don't think fictional characters can really be classed as truly one type or another, simply because writers don't write with that in mind. It would be interesting if somebody authored a book or series in which the characters we the epitomies of particular MBTI types.

[TruorTupnm]

Yep. I have read those books and identified with some of her characters. Very fun. I had only ever heard of Ayn Rand before in whispers at church that referred to the lady as pure evil or something like that, hadn't wondered about who she was or why she was considered evil until the day that some dude said that he thought that I would enjoy Atlas Shrugged. I'll read any book that's put in front of me, if I'm not already reading something else, so I read the thing and had many, "That's me! When was this book written? No, wait, I guess that it's not me. Wait! Could Ayn Rand see the future, or was she just really cool?" It's been a while since I read them, but Roark was actually pretty boring, although admirable. He was just a guy, trying to do his own thing, mostly. That evil dude who was terrifyingly persuasive, though (can't remember his name), was very entertaining. Most were cool in Atlas Shrugged, but that book just kept making me laugh at how unlikely it would be for so many superly intelligent and ruthless people to get along so well.

[Bossy Mom]

I have read all of Ayn Rand's books twice and love her essays. Howard Roark is my ideal man! No one has ever influenced my life as she has. After reading her books, everything became clear to me. I almost named my daughter Ayn Rand, but my husband really objected.

[Amaranth]

It would be interesting if somebody authored a book or series in which the characters we the epitomies of particular MBTI types.

Actually, Isabel Briggs Myers (sound familiar?) wrote a prize-winning mystery novel, Murder Yet to Come, in 1929, using typological ideas. Might be an interesting read.

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[Heretic]

I could never completely identify with any of the characters in Rand's books. Real life just doesn't let you be purely objective (just like in the book, in fact). It is a really beautiful ideal to strive for though, and I definitely enjoyed reading the books.

[Tsuru]

I really dig most of Ayn Rand's stuff quite a bit. The Fountainhead is my absolute favorite book of all eternity. I definitely can identify with Howard Roark. He is my hero. :D

Not too sure about the Atlas Shrugged characters though, they are just too artificial. It's an amazing book (for its message and philosophy more than it is as a novel IMO), but their function is really to be philosophical mouthpieces/archetypes much moreso than true characters in a lot of ways (especially Galt, YIKES).

The Fountainhead comes as recommended reading to INTJs everywhere. You'll feel vindicated. ;D

[Santana28]

i'm 3/4ths through the Fountainhead as i write this... i picked it up after finding out Rand was an INTJ.

I have to say...the parallels of the story to my own life are downright frightening. The people in my life... they're each a character in the book. In fact, i find myself replacing their names in my head as a i read along...

i'll have to finish the book before i come to any definite conclusions about the characters - but i've definately had my Roark moments. And my Catherine moments... strangely enough. And my husband is an absolutely spot-on Peter Keating... ;) I won't mention who the Dominique in our lives was/is...always will be. ::sigh::

In any event... i rarely read. I picked up the book 2 days ago and haven't put it down since.

[Gavisi]

Rand was my idol right after 8th grade ended. 1 and a half years later, I'm no longer as fond of her, but I do admire her characterization. I almost involuntarily draw parallels between her villains and the people I meet in real life. Haven't met any Roarks or Galts yet.

[Santana28]

after i last posted i reached the point in the book where Roark ended up working in Clayton, Ohio. What is strange about this? I grew up in Dayton Ohio, and went to school for ARCHITECTURE in Clayton, Ohio. Just a little ho-dunk vocational school in the middle of nowhere.

How crazy is THAT?

[Cuivienen]

I read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead about 6 months ago, shortly after I had found out about MBTI and being an INTJ.

I read The Fountainhead first and have already reread it several times. I like it better than Atlas Shrugged: they were both very interesting books, but Atlas Shrugged just seemed too extreme and, in that way too ... irrealistic ... and also, what about that 50+ page monologue in which John Galt basically repeats the same points again and again (or so it seemed to me)?

However that does not change that I really admire the Dagny Taggart character for being a strong, smart, capable, passionate woman who is able to deal with anything the world throws at her and never hides from reality. There are many admirable characters in Rand`s books, but she is my favorite.

[stasis]

they were both very interesting books, but Atlas Shrugged just seemed too extreme and, in that way too ... irrealistic ...
Rand was a self-professed romantic. Her conception of virtuous art (and therefore literature) was not life as it is, but life as it could (and ultimately should, in the opinion of the artist) be. Realism was not her objective when writing fiction.

[Tsuru]

Rand was a self-professed romantic. Her conception of virtuous art (and therefore literature) was not life as it is, but life as it could (and ultimately should, in the opinion of the artist) be. Realism was not her objective when writing fiction.

I think what Cuivienen getting at was, you could imagine a Howard Roark actually existing as a real person. You couldn't imagine a John Galt. He's (and some other characters, to a lesser extent) a robotic philosophical mouthpiece, perhaps more INhuman than superhuman.

Stories can be based in fantasy and idealism and romanticism, but they can still lack being realistic from a storytelling perspective. It's the same thing as being able to say that so-and-so a scene from Spiderman 3 was unrealistic (like him dancing around in the jazz club. Yikes!). The suspension of disbelief is part of the story (we accept that he gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gets super powers), but bad writing in a scene of the movie makes it unbelievable and poorly integrated within the frame of the book/movies universe

[Cuivienen]

I think what Cuivienen getting at was, you could imagine a Howard Roark actually existing as a real person. You couldn't imagine a John Galt. He's (and some other characters, to a lesser extent) a robotic philosophical mouthpiece, perhaps more INhuman than superhuman.

Yeah, that puts it rather well.
I am aware that Rand was creating an ideal which would not be found in reality and was supposed to illuminate her Objectivism, but while in The Fountainhead I frequently found myself agreeing with the main characters, their thoughts and their actions, in Atlas Shrugged I often thought she went too far, their ways of acting were too extreme.
She tries to make their acting so seem necessary and right by painting an extremely black/white world, but there is not the slightest chance such a world will ever be a reality. In any society that was less two-sided the actions of her characters would have seemed exaggerated, to say the least.
I found myself inwardly protesting a lot of the time while reading the book. Come on, the world is not that bad nor will it ever be (in that way).

As you say, many of the main characters, especially John Galt, just seemed too flawless (by Rand`s standards) to be real. Being that way they were a lot less interesting to me.

[prometheus]

What do you mean by John Galt was too flawless?

What is the correct amount of contradiction / vice a person needs?

MTA: As for how bad it is, here is an excellent article, you can even read it in german.

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Pay special attention to HR1955.

We (in america) are one step, which will probably be some sort of real/false flag attack on our soil, away from total tyranny. The ground work has already been laid. Most people are sheep and just don't realize it.

[Cuivienen]

There is no "correct amount of vice" in people, how could there be.
What bothered me about John Galt is that he was in every respect - by Rand`s definition - a perfect person who always does the right things, knows everything, never breaks down and gets emotional.
While those are ideals which I am sure many, especially INTJs, strive for, it is simply not possible for any person ever to fulfil them completely. As tsuru said, that quality made Galt seem rather "robotic".
The fact that John Galt always did so made it very easy to predict his actions in every possible situation and thus made him rather boring (in my opinion).

[Santana28]

okay, i've finished the Fountainhead.

my issue with Roark - he's too perfect. In my mind, i am a Howard Roark. But in reality... everyone makes mistakes. Roark is almost inhuman - you can't picture him eating dinner, or taking a crap. Every one of Roark and Dominique's interactions were perfect and flawless. No one ever says something they didn't mean to say, or something they could have expressed better.

To me, my humanity - to the nth degree - is my perfection. My flaws and mistakes help me improve myself. I've had my conversations with my Dominique - and as an INTJ, my social interactions are generally lacking. There are times when i have spoken like Roark - saying exactly what needs to be said, in exactly the way it needs said, and accomplishing exactly the result i desire... but generally, i speak awkwardly and think of better things i should have said after the fact. In my mind, i am Roark. But in reality...

[prometheus]

There is no "correct amount of vice" in people, how could there be.
What bothered me about John Galt is that he was in every respect - by Rand`s definition - a perfect person who always does the right things, knows everything, never breaks down and gets emotional.
While those are ideals which I am sure many, especially INTJs, strive for, it is simply not possible for any person ever to fulfil them completely. As tsuru said, that quality made Galt seem rather "robotic".
The fact that John Galt always did so made it very easy to predict his actions in every possible situation and thus made him rather boring (in my opinion).

Sure, there is more excitement if you steal the car, rather than buy/lease it. Most people can manage to live ethically in this situation, to extend this same moral code to lesser choices is no more difficult.

[Cuivienen]

MTA: As for how bad it is, here is an excellent article, you can even read it in german.

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Pay special attention to HR1955.

We (in america) are one step, which will probably be some sort of real/false flag attack on our soil, away from total tyranny. The ground work has already been laid. Most people are sheep and just don't realize it.

Last edited by prometheus : Today at 07:27 PM.

In any society that was less two-sided the actions of her characters would have seemed exaggerated, to say the least.
I found myself inwardly protesting a lot of the time while reading the book. Come on, the world is not that bad nor will it ever be (in that way).

When I said "the world is not that bad nor will it ever be" I meant the specific way which Rand describes in Atlas Shrugged, which basically shows a world in which rampant altruism has taken over:
the main character`s actions have the main common goal of showing the world how important it is for every economy and everyone`s wellbeing that the world lets it`s "men of ability" do their work and justly reap the benefits of their success (among other things).

I am the first person to agree with you that your current government is doing a terrible job which puts us all into a potentially very dangerous situation, but that is where the similarities of the situations end.
The fictional characters´ or anyone`s acting in our reality like they did in Atlas Shrugged would not solve our real problem.

Sure, there is more excitement if you steal the car, rather than buy/lease it. Most people can manage to live ethically in this situation, to extend this same moral code to lesser choices is no more difficult.
? what does excitement have to do with any of this?

[prometheus]

? what does excitement have to do with any of this?

"The fact that John Galt always did so made it very easy to predict his actions in every possible situation and thus made him rather boring (in my opinion)."

I meant the specific way which Rand describes in Atlas Shrugged, which basically shows a world in which rampant altruism has taken over

Be it for altruistic reasons (James Taggart) or just down right corruption (Cuffy Meigs) our capitalist economy has become socialist. Yours more so than ours, but we aren't far behind. Her whole argument was about the evils of socialism/communism.

The fictional characters´ or anyone`s acting in our reality like they did in Atlas Shrugged would not solve our real problem.

I can't think of any other bloodless way to save ourselves from the eroding economic freedoms inherit in our socialist society.

[side tangent] This group (and other less publicized groups like them) might be another option. But, it could be argued the are just following the Galt's gulch pattern. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[Tsuru]

Hmm, I differ in that I thought the premise and setting of the story (men of ability and mind going on strike, and the ineptness and helplessness of politicians without someone to mug) was fine as it perfectly conveys her core message. The black/white dichotomy is acceptable within the framework of the story to convey the point, even though we know that in real life there are plenty of brilliant and productive people who have done REALLY stupid or nasty things, and there are plenty of people that do harm even though they genuinely mean well for humanity, and that the people bringing the world to hell in a handbasket aren't bumbling cartoon characters but are reasonably intelligent people with awful premises for the most part.

What I think she didn't do well was the fact that the villains were practically two dimensional cardboard cutouts. It's one thing to make them somewhat simplistic to convey the impotence of the people that are slowly choking the life out of the Earth (ie, the fact that they're not evil geniuses with meticulous malevolent plans, but helpless crumb-bums whose main motive is to keep their jobs or make a flashy name for themselves despite the fact that they can't produce or do anything noteworthy), but to have 90% of their lines consist of "THAT'S ONLY A THEORY!" and "WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR SPECULATION!" without a little more depth is poor writing in my mind. The one who got the most depth was Lilian(Rearden's wife, right?) and Taggert to a bit lesser of an extent, which I think she did an OK job with. But all of their responses to most things are practically toddler-like.

Galt, I think, she did an awful job with. The entire point of Objectivism is EGOism, yet Galt is little more than a philosophical avatar that just does everything right - to the point that he isn't even a person in many respects. The absolute ideal man in her artist's eye shouldn't be a figurative nobody in terms of depth.

Then you get into the fact that Galt (apparently) kept himself a virgin for 40 some odd years while waiting for his many-years stalkee (er, I mean secret admiree) Dagny. And that Rearden and Francisco apparently didn't feel a twinge of hurt or jealousy after getting dumped by the love of their life. Things like that are what I refer to when they are often more INhuman than superhuman.

It's still a great book, but the writing is in no way as good as the fountainhead in my eyes.

[Cuivienen]

Thanks, tsuru, I agree with you on many points; I also think that in The Fountainhead she did a much better job portraying her characters.

As for you, prometheus, I suppose we`ll have to agree to disagree. It is not "excitement" that I miss in Atlas Shrugged, but, as tsuru put it, that her characters are basically "two dimensional cardboard cutouts".

That does not change the fact that it was definately one of the most interesting books I`ve read so far and I agree with a lot of her theories and ideas, even if I think she went too far on some points.

I disagree with your summing up of our situation and the nature of our problems.
At the moment the most important of your/our problems are not so much "eroding economic freedoms inherit in our socialist society" as, like your article states, an incompetent US-American president and his government who is "defiling the law and [was] once telling Republican colleagues the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper"" and acts along those lines as well.
I think being a socialist who is turning the USA into a "socialist society" is one of the few negative things you can not accuse your president of being (or doing).

However, I never had the intention of turning this literary discussion into a political one in which we would most likely never come to a result we could agree on, anyway.
I admit that I generally pay more attention to European/German politics and do not have the time or patience for a useless political debate, so lets just let this go at this point.
I was merely wanting to state my subjective reasons for preferring one novel to another, of course you are perfectly free to disagree and hold a differring opinion.

[prometheus]

As for you, prometheus, I suppose we`ll have to agree to disagree. It is not "excitement" that I miss in Atlas Shrugged, but, as tsuru put it, that her characters are basically "two dimensional cardboard cutouts".

That does not change the fact that it was definately one of the most interesting books I`ve read so far and I agree with a lot of her theories and ideas, even if I think she went too far on some points.

Agreeing to disagree works for me, and to bring it closer to topic, so how many beers do you think Dagney could carry at once and do you think she would have owned a Dirndl? How 'bout you? :p

[blueback]

I think that the reason her characters in Atlas Shrugged (and to a lesser extent The Fountainhead) are one-dimensional is that they are supposed to be.

She took the essence of her philosophy, and the essence of its antithesis, and assigned characters to act as mouthpieces. Each character is a specific aspect of an ideal because she is summarizing the similarities between lots of real people. It is like those experiments where scientists merge together 100 pictures of women and the resulting picture is more perfect then any of them because it is a picture of the genetic principle each face was based on. Each individual's face was the result of the same genetic blueprint, but you can't recreate the blueprint from only one face because it is imperfectly expressed in flesh. You have to find the similarities between many of the faces to recreate the blueprint and then the blueprint will not be a real face.

The characters are like that. They are not real because the blueprint each of them is speaking for could be imperfectly expressed in a infinite number of different ways, each of whom would be a real person. A real person can't represent the perfect blueprint because the attempt to express it corrupts it through compromise with reality. That is why none of her characters are humanized by granting them idiosyncrasies, to do so would distract from the perfection she is trying to capture.

[Solaris]

Has anyone actually read any of her works more than once? I was just realizing that I loved them, but didn't read them a second time. They were quite complex, and there's plenty to be missed in some. I'm thinking of reading The Fountainhead a second time. It's probably the lightest of her most popular works (imo).

[prometheus]

Has anyone actually read any of her works more than once? I was just realizing that I loved them, but didn't read them a second time. They were quite complex, and there's plenty to be missed in some. I'm thinking of reading The Fountainhead a second time. It's probably the lightest of her most popular works (imo).


I've read Anthem 6 or 7 times, and I read AS every year.

[Solaris]

I've read Anthem 6 or 7 times, and I read AS every year.

Interesting. Do you read every page of AS, or do you skip through? I'll admit that I didn't read Galt's whole speech at the end....it just went on for so long. That's the only time I've ever done that. Do you find yourself making new connections with subsequent readings?

[thephoenix1414]

Now that I have read The Fountainhead, I need to read her other writings, her non-fiction book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal is interesting so far.

The Fountainhead was the first time I had ever read a book and seen myself on the page, probably my favorite literature book of all time(and possibly of any book).

I was discussing it with someone who had read it in while in highschool and she was saying that after a few years of reading it, she thought that its ideas (Objectivism) were not applicable to current society. Since she's a student teacher and I don't know her that well yet I stopped myself from debating with her, but what do y'all think?

[Vortex]

I'm going to go against the grain here... I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged way more than I enjoyed The Fountainhead. The characters in TFH just annoyed me. Roark was some sort of demigod (I hate overpowered characters, totally destroys immersion), and Dominique I never liked. She was like a really smart tramp almost, or the most insidious of traitors. I don't know, I understood why she was like that, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

AS had much better characters I felt, with Rearden and Dagny both well portrayed, but human enough it didn't feel fake. In fact, even the villains of AS I enjoyed, where - again - TFH villains just annoyed the hell out of me. I coudn't even enjoy hating them like I did in AS.

Of course, then there's Galt, and his speech of doom(TM). Its OK to skip that. A=A. Got it. Move on please?

Atlas Shrugged is still amazing though, and I strongly encourage anyone here who hasn't read it to do so.

[karen]

I discovered Atlas Shrugged when I was in highschool... I was so relieved when I read it... I've read all of Rand's books but this is by far my favorite. I have always felt a little isolated, and Atlas Shrugged just energized me. Still whenever I feel a bit bogged down by people I read it (in fact I'm reading it right now).





karen added to this post, 1 minutes and 36 seconds later...

I'm going to go against the grain here... I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged way more than I enjoyed The Fountainhead. The characters in TFH just annoyed me. Roark was some sort of demigod (I hate overpowered characters, totally destroys immersion), and Dominique I never liked. She was like a really smart tramp almost, or the most insidious of traitors. I don't know, I understood why she was like that, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

I totally agree!

[Solaris]

I'm going to go against the grain here... I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged way more than I enjoyed The Fountainhead. The characters in TFH just annoyed me. Roark was some sort of demigod (I hate overpowered characters, totally destroys immersion), and Dominique I never liked. She was like a really smart tramp almost, or the most insidious of traitors. I don't know, I understood why she was like that, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

AS had much better characters I felt, with Rearden and Dagny both well portrayed, but human enough it didn't feel fake. In fact, even the villains of AS I enjoyed, where - again - TFH villains just annoyed the hell out of me. I coudn't even enjoy hating them like I did in AS.

Of course, then there's Galt, and his speech of doom(TM). Its OK to skip that. A=A. Got it. Move on please?

Atlas Shrugged is still amazing though, and I strongly encourage anyone here who hasn't read it to do so.

I'm not totally in the frame of mind to write an indepth analysis right now (just got home from work, cut me some slack), but I mainly agree with you. Dominique never quite made sense. I'm not sure I ever really knew which side she was really on, she played both. In her head, I guess we're supposed to think she was on Roark's side. But protection through sabotage makes no sense.

[Xenolar]

Sorry to derail the thread, but I have always wondered about Howard Roark's type.
I have narrowed it down to three types; INTJ, ISTP, and INTP.
Every time I begin to believe he is one specific one of the three above, I always end up remembering something specific to make me believe otherwise.

Any suggestions?

[prometheus]

Interesting. Do you read every page of AS, or do you skip through? I'll admit that I didn't read Galt's whole speech at the end....it just went on for so long. That's the only time I've ever done that. Do you find yourself making new connections with subsequent readings?

Sometimes I'll skip the last part of the radio address. Yes, I find new correlations every time I read it. It really is a blueprint of where american politics have been and where we are going.

[karen]

Sorry to derail the thread, but I have always wondered about Howard Roark's type.
I have narrowed it down to three types; INTJ, ISTP, and INTP.
Every time I begin to believe he is one specific one of the three above, I always end up remembering something specific to make me believe otherwise.

Any suggestions?


Howard Roark is an INTP.. he's even an architect! I figure this because he spends less time planning and more time designing.

[michael ingram]

I agree. Roark is definitely an INTP, but I still see my INTJ in him.

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[Futuremouse]

I am John Galt.

there was an unfortunate question at my former job that was asked upwards of 50 times a day to my staff.

'where's eli?'

as in, i need him to fix something, solve a problem, think for me, et al.

asked so many times that my staff made t-shirts, refrigerator magnets, bumper stickers with the phrase emblazoned on them..

i mandated that they always answer that question with this question (even to executives):

'who is john galt?'

priceless looks of utter confusion that generated.

but yeah. john galt. i typically make the world go, in whatever context, and i could always make it stop at my whim.

[Luthor Rex]

I was wondering if any of you have read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and identified with the main characters? I find that when I read their thoughts I can't help but go "That's me! That's how I think!" No all the time, but much more often than in response to any other characters in fiction.

When Hank gave his wife the bracelet made of steel, that was the first time I could identify with a character in fiction.

[Daniel]

I am reading it right now, after studying architecture for a year. Amazingly familiar story.