Dunzo (Done-zo)

At long last I have finished "Atlas Shrugged". In recent days I had drawn near to it, seeing the end get closer as the chapters melted away. In the stretch run, I always get very enthusiastic about books again. I love them at first and in the end. In the middle there is fatigue and disinterest. The same thing happens with movies. I'm engrossed until I've met the characters and learned of their plight. As they wrestle with it, I grow bored. As resolution looms, I come back.

The second act was rather protracted with this book. It runs over one thousand and sixty pages, which is a lot. The first few chapters had me, and then there is just a lot of middle with this thing. You have the heroic railroad magnate Dagny Taggart and her fellow industrialist friends beset by a lot of stupid, softhearted socialist types. That's basically it. They struggle for the right to do business for profit instead of for some misguided notion of altruism. Oh, and the angular, handsome Dagny hooks up with a bunch of her colleagues (not that I begrudge her that).

The book goes on like that, chapter after chapter. It gets rather repetitive, I must say. The gifted people quit, over and over again. The remaining ones strive towards their goals only to suffer setbacks. Everybody talks for pages at a time without interruption, with the most egregious example taking up something like sixty or seventy pages, as I think I mentioned previously. It's a lot to take. It's no wonder I failed once, or that it took me so long this time.

Still, there's a lot in it that I like. The message has some merit to it (which is why it's a shame the book isn't tighter. It scares people off). The story is actually compelling. I found myself rooting for Dagny and the rest, hating her brother James and his ilk. I was heavily invested, and I would recommend the book to those who I think could handle it. That's not many people, but then I have no stake in who reads it. If Ayn Rand's estate offers me a bounty, I'll get more aggressive.