Atlas Shrugged!

I just finished reading 'Atlas Shrugged', finally. It took me about 2.5 months and five countries. I picked it up off the shelf of a smoky hostel bookshelf in Urumqi, China. I left 'The Tipping Point' by Malcom Gladwell in its place. Not an even deal at all, but such is life.

Don't know what the book is about? Well I don't really want to explain it much, but America is going to hell in a hand basket because all the bureaucrats are lazy moochers who keep demanding that successful industrialists carry the burden of the masses despite being publicly damned by those who want their help.

I liked it a lot! Despite Rand's characters constantly inclining their heads to convey a universe of emotions and understandings that require full paragraphs to explain, I think the book really has something worthwhile to say. If I had to boil it all down into a common saying, it would be something like "Shit or get off the pot".

The heroes of the book are men and women who can do things rather than complain about shit, increasingly rare in the America of 'Atlas Shrugged'. I'm pretty sure I would fall into the category of moocher, according to this book, since I'm just aimlessly traveling and not smelting steel.

Not many books have actually affected the way I view my life, but I think reading this has really inspired me to do something more than just coast by. Not that I know what that may be, but I'll probably think about it.

Oh, and it turns out they're making a movie of the book, in three parts. As good as the book is, I bet the movie will suck. I'll still see it though. Dagny Taggart is played by a woman who is evidently a very lifelike anamatronic mannequin. I guess she doesn't have much to work with when her character in the book is inclining her head all the time, as I mentioned before, and giving looks and nods that translate into elaborate unspoken conversations with other people who barely move any facial muscles.

Read this book if you have a shitload of time and patience.