Aweosme you guys.....
Numero Loved your take on it and MD loving this post!!!👍🏼
People have different optional values, they acquire new values as part of living, and that often affects what and how they respond to works of art or particular ideas..........
That said......I can honestly say I loved Both The Fountian head and Atlas Shrugged!
Hard to pick a favorite!
I would say that Fountainhead is many times better than Atlas Shrugged, since it is actually a novel!
Whereas AS is more of a fiction-nonfiction hybrid.
A book which contains dozens of philosophical tracts often longer than a page cannot be classed as 'fiction' in the sense that the term is normally used...........
As a work of philosophy however, AS is obviously far superior (although I do think that Galt's speech is far too indepth and long to be proper for inclusion in a piece of literature, and far too simplistic and unscholarly to stand-alone as a work of philosophy.)
One can read Atlas from the perspective of its literary role: as the epitome of the Romantic novel, in relation to Hugo, etc.
But one can totally get gung ho about Roark's struggle and pain his apssion & obsession in resisting the agony of not having Dominique choose him for so many years.
As Ayn Rand herself had said...."To all the readers who discovered The Fountainhead and asked me many questions about the wider application of its ideas, I want to say that I am answering these questions in the present novel and that The Fountainhead was only an overture to Atlas Shrugged."
As literature, Atlas Shrugged has no match. It's the sort of book that makes you feel like you'll never need (for guidance or inspiration) another book again. That is what literature is for, isn't it?
It's sort of a handbook for life.
Where it differs from The Fountainhead is in the direct applicability of its ideas to everyday life and that is how it was obviously meant to be.
~N~
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