I'm afraid though I was quite a reader I am not well versed on Rand, however I am now inspired to get this audio book just because it sounds like a fascinating look into her life. Others may disagree with me, but I find Maxfield Parrish paintings mostly relaxing and the colors he used appealing.
I'm really enjoying these essays. I think more artists should do this -- talk about what they think about the big ideas (not just what's in the headlines). I appreciate it and hope you keep it up!
I recognized her husband's painting as cover art for The Fountainhead, even before I'd scrolled down to read that identification. And I haven't looked at a book by Rand in ages and ages.
I didn't last very long in reading Rand. I read Anthem somewhere in my teens, and somewhere around the time I first saw the TV series The Prisoner. That show had strongly appealed to me on the matter of non-conformity, even under social pressure, so Anthem felt like it echoed that concept. But in retrospect, Rand's book puts the individual over community, whereas The Prisoner did not divorce the individual from compassion for others. But I didn't realize that distinction in Rand until I read The Fountainhead.
I read The Fountainhead all the way through -- but there wasn't a single character that I liked or cared about. Oh, I understood the issue of ... the rage of the artist when his work is corrupted by others. But that wasn't enough for me to think of him as a "good person." Looking back at it now, it seems to me that Rand mistakes a shared desire for absolute excellence over everything for being "kindred spirits", or a genuine community. But it isn't.
Huh. You're sending me off into the Think Zone! Lots of things to chew on: like how "forced altruism" breeds resentment; or how genuine art is about communicating something, which means there is an audience to communicate to. Heh. And what does that do to the "art for art's sake" discussion? See? Rabbit holes galore.
Thanks, I love how you brought up The Prisoner in comparison to Anthem. Those are great observations.
And I spent a long time trying to parse how a community of kindred spirits with a shared desire for absolute excellence could function unless every single person in the community had a hive mind definition of "excellence". The arguments and behaviors within the Objectivist community, and Rand's fury at those within her community who disagreed with her teachings, showed me that as much as she touted the value of the individual, the individual was all her: everyone else was expected to cede to her in a collectivist fashion. All definitions had to be HER definitions. She was generous in debating people at public events, and she was very good-natured about it, because that was a performance event for her. But with her inner circle, she was a tyrant, and debates were not very good-natured. She'd just browbeat people and freeze them out.
She had a vicious hatred of Saul Bellow as a humanist. I put Rand's book down then. Bellow was not a favourite. But he was hardly a bleeding heart humanist and in my view barely capable of real empathy. I immediately understood the White Russian background Rand came from and how this shaped her views. I'd read quite a bit about Red and White Russian politice in Paris, London, and Europe. But poor Rand's views were malnourished, not well read, and vestigially intelligent. I was 13.
I'm afraid though I was quite a reader I am not well versed on Rand, however I am now inspired to get this audio book just because it sounds like a fascinating look into her life. Others may disagree with me, but I find Maxfield Parrish paintings mostly relaxing and the colors he used appealing.
Thanks! I have never before encountered anyone who didn't like Maxfield Parrish, so Ayn Rand is some kind of weird outlier there.
I'm really enjoying these essays. I think more artists should do this -- talk about what they think about the big ideas (not just what's in the headlines). I appreciate it and hope you keep it up!
I recognized her husband's painting as cover art for The Fountainhead, even before I'd scrolled down to read that identification. And I haven't looked at a book by Rand in ages and ages.
I didn't last very long in reading Rand. I read Anthem somewhere in my teens, and somewhere around the time I first saw the TV series The Prisoner. That show had strongly appealed to me on the matter of non-conformity, even under social pressure, so Anthem felt like it echoed that concept. But in retrospect, Rand's book puts the individual over community, whereas The Prisoner did not divorce the individual from compassion for others. But I didn't realize that distinction in Rand until I read The Fountainhead.
I read The Fountainhead all the way through -- but there wasn't a single character that I liked or cared about. Oh, I understood the issue of ... the rage of the artist when his work is corrupted by others. But that wasn't enough for me to think of him as a "good person." Looking back at it now, it seems to me that Rand mistakes a shared desire for absolute excellence over everything for being "kindred spirits", or a genuine community. But it isn't.
Huh. You're sending me off into the Think Zone! Lots of things to chew on: like how "forced altruism" breeds resentment; or how genuine art is about communicating something, which means there is an audience to communicate to. Heh. And what does that do to the "art for art's sake" discussion? See? Rabbit holes galore.
Thanks for another terrific posting!
Thanks, I love how you brought up The Prisoner in comparison to Anthem. Those are great observations.
And I spent a long time trying to parse how a community of kindred spirits with a shared desire for absolute excellence could function unless every single person in the community had a hive mind definition of "excellence". The arguments and behaviors within the Objectivist community, and Rand's fury at those within her community who disagreed with her teachings, showed me that as much as she touted the value of the individual, the individual was all her: everyone else was expected to cede to her in a collectivist fashion. All definitions had to be HER definitions. She was generous in debating people at public events, and she was very good-natured about it, because that was a performance event for her. But with her inner circle, she was a tyrant, and debates were not very good-natured. She'd just browbeat people and freeze them out.
She had a vicious hatred of Saul Bellow as a humanist. I put Rand's book down then. Bellow was not a favourite. But he was hardly a bleeding heart humanist and in my view barely capable of real empathy. I immediately understood the White Russian background Rand came from and how this shaped her views. I'd read quite a bit about Red and White Russian politice in Paris, London, and Europe. But poor Rand's views were malnourished, not well read, and vestigially intelligent. I was 13.
He was a Trotskyist, so it follows she's be enraged by his existence.