Final Reaction

Im not going to lie, I never got around the idea of reading, and whenever I did, it was focused around the basis of an assignment. Atlas Shrugged changed my perception on reading completely. Sitting in class on the first day of school and being given this thick book, I felt a bit intimidated, and pretty skeptical on whether Mr. Shapiro was being serious or not. For the first month, I think it's safe to say that I procrastinated my way through the first half of the quarter, and I did not find too much pleasure in reading the book and blogging on Sundays. With the October 17th due date of the book slowly looming, I began to start pushing myself to read more, and through it, I began to really enjoy the book, and appreciate its worth. 

Initially, I thought all of the elaborate explanations and countless paragraphs where only descriptions of a character's emotions were present were all just annoying and trivial. I mean, it took a lot to get through some parts of the book whenever Rand was just speaking about how and what a character was feeling. But after reading part three, it made all the sense in the world to me. If not included, the readers would not be able to soak in all of the greatness and meaning present behind Rand's theme. Even the small details like the strategic chapter titles at the end, or lines including greek gods like Prometheus to help describe Galt were just all necessary in order to brand the book with the great reputation it has built over the years.

The characterization of the looters in the novel was a great revelation in my eyes as well. The looters like James Taggart and Mouch always seemed to act in a certain way. They'd complain and scream all day until they got what they wanted, and if they did not get what they wanted, they'd cry and complain like babies. I'm glad Rand pointed the looters under this certain light. Sometimes, I'd find myself acting in such a way as well, and it hurt to a certain extent to notice that I acted like these idiots that I was critiquing while reading about them. I'm glad that the novel was able to point that out to me, and I'm now more conscious about the topic. 

Part three in my eyes had its masterful moments and its unrealistic moments. I think Jose touched on these topics also, but it really did stand out to me. I think the beginning of part three when Dagny crashed landed into Galt's Gulch was simply awesome. All the details that I spoke about in the paragraph above began to really make sense to me. Although saying this, I think the end was a bit over exaggerated and I feel like Rand may have gotten a little lazy in how she presented the ending. The ending to me stood out as if it were ripped out of a comic book. It was just so convenient how Hank, Ragnar, and Francisco all make it in time to save Galt and to help Dagny. Rand could have definitely elaborated more on the ending as well. It seemed to me that it ended too quickly. Not to mention how easily Hank and Francisco dropped their love for Dagny so easily. If I loved a girl half as much as Rand described them as loving Dagny, I don't think I could let them go so easily. Take this with a grain of salt, though, because I do believe Atlas Shrugged is probably the best book I've read so far, I'm just critiquing a little bit. 

Atlas Shrugged has changed the way I look at not only reading, but the way I look at my future. A few months ago, I wanted to apply to certain colleges based on name worth, rather than whether I'd be happy or not. Rand's use of Dagny, Hank, Galt, and everyone living in Atlantis, has opened up a new scope of how I'm going to tackle the future. I think Rand's main theme is to aspire towards rationality within the individual. 

After reading the novel, I realize that I just want to be happy, and I want to aspire towards happiness, rather than aspiring towards something that makes me feel better in accordance to how other people will judge me.