Anthem by Ayn Rand Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Anthem
Book Review: It blew me away!
Summary: 5 Stars
Anthem serves as a beacon encouraging readers to follow their heart, instead of trying to "fit in" so that people will like you.
In true Rand fashion, the main character struggles on as he learns that life does have meaning, when your willing open your mind and trust what you know.
Book Review: Loved it
Summary: 5 Stars
I only wish it lasted longer, I read this in about 30 minutes. I had first heard of this because I am recent new fan of RUSH, and their epic masterpiece 2112 is loosely based on this book.
I loved it, I can see it being a hard read for younger people but I still recommend it to anybody.
Book Review: Outstanding.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have a very short attention span. I usually read 7-10 books at a time and can't get through a chapter in one book without switching it out for another. I couldn't put this book down. Super. Plus, it's so short that you can just read it during lunch. Awesome. Can't say enough great things about this.Book Review: Self-Sacrifice and Treason
Summary: 5 Stars
No one becomes a traitor without first betraying himself. "All man's spiritually distinctive attributes derive" from the faculty of reason, and it is reason which possesses the ability to make choices. But "reason is a property of the individual." There is no such thing as a tribal, racial, cultural, or national brain. The choice of non-thinking, non-judging, non-willing, but instead of allowing others to run your life, is a betrayal of your own mind. Meaning: You are merely choosing to go along with the crowd, to follow a mob.
You may attempt to soften this reality by labeling your "group" after the name of your country, your tribe, your clan, your culture, or your skin color, but that does not change what it is: A gang, which makes you a gangster. You got to that point by choosing the worst form of treason: Self-betrayal. Can you ever really be happy by sticking to such a choice?
Realizing this, and desiring an alternative, I am enthralled by the solution demonstrated in the literary works of Ayn Rand. If your interest is already piqued, I suggest you start by reading the book ANTHEM. Weighing in at under 100-pages of text, it is one of Rand's shorter works of fiction.
ANTHEM is about a world of the future where all forward progress has been halted, and society as a whole has deteriorated to a backward, primitive state, not unlike certain undeveloped countries today. The ultimate cause of such worldwide decay is traceable primarily to the elimination of the concept of self; even the word "I," through disuse, is forgotten, whereas the word "We" has become god. Social progress coasts to a stop when great minds are forced to conform to a mediocre average.
In this backward world of the future, the world of ANTHEM, no one is permitted to think independently of his "brothers." Individuality is banned, and one is not even allowed to write any words, except for those sentences which are permitted by the State. Whoever dares to go against the status quo by researching and presenting his own ideas--even those ideas which would ultimately prove beneficial to his "brothers"--is severely censured by government officials. These are power-mongers who maintain that a wax candle is superior to the electric light bulb, and they torture the hero of the book, who has just "re-discovered" electricity--the electric light was a product of an earlier technological age, now forgotten--for promoting his "new" idea.
Our genius-hero is persecuted for refusing to submit to the tyranny of his so-called "brothers"--in today's terminology, this could refer to his tribe, his culture, those of his own skin color. In essence, it is for disagreeing with his own tribe that he has become a minority of one, but one who keeps intact his ability to think. He is not, however, a traitor to his own power of reason. ANTHEM continues telling about his ultimate victory, and about others who will make the same choice: the non-betrayal of self.
Atlas Shrugged (Centennial Ed. HC)
The Fountainhead (Centennial Edition Hardcover)
The Fountainhead
Philosophy: Who Needs It (The Ayn Rand Library Vol. 1)
SOCIALISM (Lib Works Ludwig Von Mises PB)
Book Review: Short and simple
Summary: 5 Stars
A short, fast, readable presentation of the Rand philosophy, done in a future-world setting, where the individual is subject to the group, to the extent that the narrator refers to himself as "We," and the remnants of Earth's past disaster are living in conditions similar to the Dark Ages.