Atlas Shrugged, chapter 2.
This really should be something about The Island of the Day Before, but I left the book in the wrong house (how's that for weird and privileged) and so I pushed through chapter 2 of Atlas Shrugged in which we meet Henry Rearden, the man who Dagny Taggart turns to in her time of industrial need. Like Taggart, he is driven by a need to advance, to profit, and sees family as an appendage that has to be borne like a sack of flour on his back. He has a similar approach to philanthropy as our heroine, but will - out of a sense of familial duty - lend his feckless brother money that he never expects to be returned. Oddly, this act of generosity is bad tempered and goes to suggest (in a universal way) that money spent on a 'cause' is invariably money wasted.
Anyway, let's forget about the politics for a moment, and think about the writing. I've already mentioned that it feels like a draft version that needs editing, but I'm starting to think this dispassionate approach is part of the stylistic world-building that Rand is attempting. She is constantly telling us what is going on, rather than showing, and this adds to the detachment we are forced to feel from the characters and events.
It also leads to overblown sentences like the above. In this scene Rearden has just stopped at the top of a small rise (The dark road had risen imperceptibly to the top of a hill) and looked back over what he has created. It's a scene designed to show us the scope of his ambition and the journey he has taken from scratching around for funds to king of the hill, and yet there is no joy - even though we're told just a little earlier that he is 'always hungry for a sight of joy' - no satisfaction. The prose is lumpen as Rand tries (and fails) to tell us what he is feeling, rather than showing us. The turn above, from the joy of creation to the expectation of disappointment in family should be a pivotal moment, but it just rolls on.
"He turned sharply and walked on. With every step closer to home, Rearden's pace slowed and his mood soured."
That's sharper, clearer and better (I'm so arrogant in my writing!) and actually provides more information than the long-winded juvenile original, where we're supposed to be inside Rearden's head - we're noticing things with him - yet we're also external to the event.
Now I'm not saying that Rand is not human, sub-human or less than human – in fact she puts her finger on a very real human desire for more. What the first two chapters of this book say to me is that she doesn't understand the way humans work, she does 'get' emotion and so can only Pritt Stick the notion of emotion onto her characters, rather than have them actually experience something.
There's another book in which this is also a problem. 50 Shades of Gray demonstrates the same lack of depth in the characters, and the same method of highlighting the thoughts and feelings of people we're supposed to care about. (Ana felt a deep sense of erotic charge, etc). But there's a big difference. 50 Shades of Gray understands it is not a good or significant book; it knows its limitations and works within a set of conventions that would never lead a person to alter their lives to emulate the characters (well, not any sane person). Atlas Shrugged is heavy with its own sense of importance. The prose is thick with portentous visions that are supposed to hail man's achievements and his decline into caring. The characters are meant to inspire readers to change and yet it all means nothing.
It's like listening to someone talking in their sleep.
Reading has always provided an opportunity to experience things that are beyond your situation, or even beyond the realms of possibility. A good book should feel real, significant and enlightening. A good book should feel.
The book is now so toxic and so lacking in joy or emotion that I've actually stopped pulling my Kindle from my pocket in the mornings because I know it's on there and is the first thing on the screen. One morning, I even spent the six minutes of my train journey looking at old text messages (most telling me about the cost of calls in various countries) rather than go back to the book.
Chapter 2 is as far as I got before, so I will push on.
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