Crazy Pammy: “I Shall Pick Up Victor Hugo”
Today Crazy Pammy is waxing lyrical about the worst novel ever written. Here are some highlights:
My blog is exemplar [sic] of A is A. That’s what I deliver here ….A.
What struck me was [sic] when I first read Atlas was living by the coda [sic] of moral values. Man’s moral value -his value through his work. His value through his his [sic] achievement and the evil that seeks to undermine it and destroy it at every turn.
In celebration I shall pick up Victor Hugo and read, perhaps, Les Miserables, as a gift to me from Ayn.
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October 5th, 2007 @ 21:18
WTF?? Was she in a terrible hurry or is she really that dumb?
Damn, between her, Schussel (sp?) and dank, it’s not one bit surprising how people as dumb as George Bush can get elected in this country.
I feel like John fucking Steinbeck.
October 5th, 2007 @ 22:48
That’s not nice. Atlas Shrugged is a great American masterpiece of doorstop.
People who think Ayn Rand is of any literary merit, or think that a philosophy summed up by the equation ‘A = A’—whose underlying principle Évariste Galois identified as the retarditive property—are either seriously brainwashed or have never seen a good book in their lives. I am translating Dagdrömmar: En Man Utan Humor I of Gustaf Hellström into English and it is fucking sick.
October 6th, 2007 @ 05:48
To be completely honest, I think maybe The Fountainhead is actually worse than the execrable Atlas Shrugged. The one and only thing that both of those novels have going for them is readability — despite their epic length, both books are reasonably entertaining.
Atlas Shrugged actually came in very handy the first time I read it — I was stuck on a submarine (USS Phoenix, SSN-702) for a few months back in 1991, and had only brought about two weeks’ worth of reading material. I soon got desperate enough to tackle Atlas Shrugged, which was in the “library” on board. It kept me entertained for a few days, although I was admittedly pretty hard up for reading material. The “philosophy” is nothing but silly tautologies — as you say, if you find “A is A” to be some kind of profundity, you’re easily pleased. And yes, if you think Atlas Shrugged is a great novel, you haven’t read many novels.
I re-read Atlas Shrugged in 2002, to see if a decade of life experience would make any difference in my low opinion of the book. It was much worse the second time around, which was no surprise.
October 6th, 2007 @ 11:06
Wow, a nuclear submarine; were you in the Navy or something?
I find Rand’s prose style turgid and unreadable by the way, which is also why I haven’t read much of H.P. Lovecraft’s otherwise fine horror literature. Contrast Germanic prose-poetry.
Maybe her novels read better in the original Russian.
October 7th, 2007 @ 20:53
>were you in the Navy or something?
Yes.
>Maybe her novels read better in the original Russian.
Even though she came from Russia, I think her first language was more like Angry German.
October 7th, 2007 @ 23:07
Priceless…the source of such unforgettable quotes as
“Starte! Das! Verdammte! Spiel!”
“Der Escapeknopf! … Wo ist er?!”
and
“Ich brauch’ keine Hilfe…ich brauch’ keine Hilfe…ICH BRAUCH’ KEINE HILFE!!“