Long Haul

I am drawing nearer to finishing "Atlas Shrugged". As I write this, I have perhaps two or three hundred pages to go out of what I believe to be over a thousand. I have read books that long or nearly so before, but this is probably the most difficult read I have yet embarked upon (not counting ones which I began and gave up on in more youthful days). I will be terribly delighted when I can put this thing behind me, as much as I have enjoyed it.

By all rights, I should have been done with it long ago, and not just because I could have been more consistently applying myself. I'm not going to make some excuse out of having other things to do or of my interest level waxing and waning. Those are things that happen to everybody, and if they've happened more this time, it's just because there's been more elapsed time during which they could happen. It's a long book, that's all.

No, if I should have finished it before, I say that it is because the book has given no sign so far of needing to be this long in order to make its point. I will say that I have long believed I got the message that Ayn Rand was trying to convey, but my God, how she persists in conveying it! No one says in one line what they could say in a page long monologue, and nothing happens once when it could happen a dozen times to emphasize a point. It is an overlong, repetitive book, unlike easier reads of great length like "Moby Dick" or "The Stand".

Soon enough I will finish it, and I can do what has been unthinkable for these past months: read about anything other than the plight of industrialist Dagny Taggart. I will definitely pick an easy read. I might read the concluding book in Timothy Zahn's "Heir To The Empire" trilogy, or I might read any of countless books that have suggested themselves to me during this time, but first I will probably taking a breath. I might take a break from reading for as much as a day or two before picking up something else.